The effect of varying intercepts on findings in sociophonetic data
Some observations from Caleño Spanish
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jrds.v2i2.27203Keywords:
mixed-effects models, varying intercepts, sociophonetics, Spanish /s/, Colombian SpanishAbstract
Mixed-effects models have been advocated to account for the hierarchical nature of most data used in variationist studies. This study uses a corpus of eight speakers of Spanish spoken in Cali, Colombia to test the effect of two varying intercepts, one for speaker and one for word, on the fixed effects obtained for three dependent variables relevant for the study of variable s-realization. Although the inclusion of varying intercepts generally does not affect the sign of the fixed effects, results show that significance of a number of fixed effects is greatly affected by the varying intercepts, especially the word varying intercept, on which many of the fixed effects depend. The speaker varying intercept, on the other hand, only affected the significance of fixed effects whose p-value was already near the threshold of 0.05.
References
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Brown, E. K. (2009b) A usage-based account of syllable- and word-final /s/ reduction in four dialects of Spanish. LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics. Munich: Lincom Europa.
Brown, E. K. and Brown, E. L. (2012) Syllable-final and syllable-initial /s/ reduction in Cali, Colombia: One variable or two?. In M. S. Gradoville and R. Orozco (eds.), Colombian Varieties of Spanish. Frankfurt: Iberoamericana Verveurt Verlag.
Brown, E. L. (2005a) The reduction of syllable initial /s/ in the Spanish of New Mexico and Southern Colorado. A usage-based approach. Doctoral Dissertation, University of New Mexico.
Brown, E. L. (2005b) New Mexican Spanish: Insight into the Variable Reduction of ‘La Ehe Inihial’ (/s-/). Hispania 88 (4): 813–824. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20063211
Brown, E. L. and Torres Cacoullos, R. (2002) ¿Qué le vamoh aher? Taking the syllable out of Spanish /s/ reduction. In D. E. Johnson and T. Sanchez (eds), Selected Papers from NWAV 30. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 17–32.
Brown, E. L. and Torres Cacoullos, R. (2003) Spanish /s/. A different story from beginning (initial) to end (final). A Romance perspective in language knowledge and use. In R. Núñez-Cedeño, L. Ortiz López, and R. Cameron (eds), Selected Papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposium of Romance Languages (LSRL). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 22–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cilt.238.05bro
Bybee, J. L. (2001) Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612886
Bybee, J. L. (2002) Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change 14: 261–290. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954394502143018
Bybee, J. L. (2006) From usage to grammar. The mind's response to repetition. Language 82 (4): 711–733. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2006.0186
Cedergren, H. (1973) Interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama. Ithaca: Cornell University Ph.D. dissertation.
Clements, G. N. (1990) The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. In J. Kingston and M. E. Beckman (eds), Papers in Laboratory Phonology I. Between Grammar and Physics of Speech, 283–333. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511627736.017
Cresti, E. and Moneglia, M. (2005) C-ORAL-ROM. Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/scl.15
Drager, K. and Hay, J. (2012) Exploiting random intercepts. Two case studies in sociophonetics. Language Variation and Change 24 (1): 59–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000014
Ferguson, C. A. (1990) From esses to atiches. Identifying pathways of diachronic change. In W. Croft, K. M. Denning, and S. Kemmer (eds), Studies in Typology and Diachrony for Joseph H. Greenberg, 59–78. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
File-Muriel, R. J. (2009) The role of lexical frequency in the weakening of syllable-final lexical /s/ in the Spanish of Barranquilla, Colombia. Hispania 92, 348–360.
File-Muriel, R. J. (2010) Lexical frequency as a scalar variable in explaining variation. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics/La Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 55, 1–25.
File-Muriel, R. J. and Brown, E. K. (2010) The gradient nature of /s/-lenition in Caleño Spanish. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 16(2), 46–55.
File-Muriel, R. J. and Brown, E. K. (2011) The gradient nature of s-lenition in Caleño Spanish. Language Variation and Change 23, 223–243.
File-Muriel, R. J., Brown, E. K., and Gradoville, M. S. (2014) Methodological considerations for the study of sibilant s. The role of speaker physiology. Presentation at Conceptual Structure Discourse and Language.
Fontanella de Weinberg, M. B. (1973) Comportamiento ante -s de hablantes femeninos y masculinos del español bonaerense. Thesaurus 25: 12–22.
Forrest, K., Weismer, G., Milenkovic, P., and Dougall, R. N. (1988) Statistical analysis of word-initial voiceless obstruents. Preliminary data. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 84 (1): 115–123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.396977
Gahl, S. (2008) ‘Thyme’ and ‘time’ are not homophones. Word durations in spontaneous speech. Language 84 (3): 474–496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.0.0035
Gelman, A. and Hill, J. (2007) Data Analysis Using Regression and Multi-level/hierarchical Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Glass, G. V., Peckham, P. D., and Sanders, J. R. (1972) Consequences of failure to meet assumptions underlying the fixed effects analyses of variance and covariance. Review of Educational Research 42 (3): 237–288. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/00346543042003237
Gradoville, M. S. (2011) Validity in measurements of fricative voicing. Evidence from Argentine Spanish. In S. Alvord (ed.), Selected Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology, 59–74. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Gradoville, M. S. (2014a) The flock and the individual. Priming as an artifact of individual variation. Presentation at New Ways of Analyzing Variation.
Gradoville, M. S. (2014b) Individual variation and corpus-based studies of priming. Presentation at Conceptual Structure Discourse and Language.
Gries, S. Th. (2015). The most underused statistical method in corpus linguistics: Multi-level (and mixed-effects) models. Corpora 10 (1), 95–125.
Guillén Sutil, R. (1992) Una cuestión de fonosintaxis. Realización en andaluz de la /s/ final de palabra seguida de vocal. Anuario de Estudios Filológicos 15: 135–153.
Harris, K. S. (1958) Cues for the discrimination of American English fricatives in spoken syllables. Language and Speech 1 (1): 1–7.
Jesus, L. M. T. and Shadle, C. H. (2005) Acoustic analysis of European Portuguese uvular [?,?] and voiceless tapped alveolar [??] fricatives. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (1): 27–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025100305001866
Johnson, D. E. (2008) Getting off the GoldVarb Standard. Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3 (1): 359–383.
Johnson, D. E. (2010) Why stepwise isn't so wise. Workshop at New Ways of Analyzing Variation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00108.x
Krieg, L. J. (1980) Phonetic classification. The acoustic structure of strident fricatives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Ph.D. dissertation.
Ladefoged, P. (2003) Phonetic Data Analysis. An Introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental Techniques. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Lipski, J. (1994) Latin American Spanish. New York: Longman.
Minnick Fox, M. A. (2006) Usage-based effects in Latin American Spanish syllable-final /s/ lenition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation.
Paolillo, J. (2013) Individual effects in variation analysis. Model, software, and research design. Language Variation and Change 25 (1): 89–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000270
Phillips, B. S. (2006) Word Frequency and Lexical Diffusion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230286610
Poplack, S. (1979) Function and process in a variable phonology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation.
R Development Core Team. (2015) R. A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S., and Smith, E. (2005) Goldvarb X. A Variable Rule Application for Macintosh and Windows. Toronto: University of Toronto Department of Linguistics.
Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S., and Smith, E. (2012) Goldvarb LION. A Variable Rule Application for Macintosh. Toronto: University of Toronto Department of Linguistics.
Silbert, N. and de Jong, K. (2008) Focus, prosodic context, and phonological feature specification. Patterns of variation in fricative production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123 (5): 2769–2779. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2890736
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2001) Sociolingüística y pragmática del español. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Snijders, T. and Bosker, R. (1999) Multilevel Analysis. An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multi-level Modeling. London: Sage Publications.
Terrell, T. D. (1981) Diachronic reconstruction by dialect comparison of variable constraints. s-aspiration and deletion in Spanish. In D. Sankoff and H. Cedergren (eds), Variation Omnibus, 115–124. Carbondale, IL: Linguistic Research, Inc.
Widdison, K. (1991). The phonetic basis for s-aspiration in Spanish. Berkeley, CA: University of California Ph.D. dissertation.
Baayen, R. H. (2008) Analyzing Linguistic Data. A Practical Introduction to Statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511801686
Baayen, R. H, Davidson, D. J., and Bates, D. M. (2008) Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language 59 (4): 390–412. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005
Brown, E. K. (2009a) The relative importance of lexical frequency in syllable- and word-final /s/ reduction in Cali, Colombia. In J. Collentine, M. García, B. Lafford, and F. Marcos Marín (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Brown, E. K. (2009b) A usage-based account of syllable- and word-final /s/ reduction in four dialects of Spanish. LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics. Munich: Lincom Europa.
Brown, E. K. and Brown, E. L. (2012) Syllable-final and syllable-initial /s/ reduction in Cali, Colombia: One variable or two?. In M. S. Gradoville and R. Orozco (eds.), Colombian Varieties of Spanish. Frankfurt: Iberoamericana Verveurt Verlag.
Brown, E. L. (2005a) The reduction of syllable initial /s/ in the Spanish of New Mexico and Southern Colorado. A usage-based approach. Doctoral Dissertation, University of New Mexico.
Brown, E. L. (2005b) New Mexican Spanish: Insight into the Variable Reduction of ‘La Ehe Inihial’ (/s-/). Hispania 88 (4): 813–824. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20063211
Brown, E. L. and Torres Cacoullos, R. (2002) ¿Qué le vamoh aher? Taking the syllable out of Spanish /s/ reduction. In D. E. Johnson and T. Sanchez (eds), Selected Papers from NWAV 30. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 17–32.
Brown, E. L. and Torres Cacoullos, R. (2003) Spanish /s/. A different story from beginning (initial) to end (final). A Romance perspective in language knowledge and use. In R. Núñez-Cedeño, L. Ortiz López, and R. Cameron (eds), Selected Papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposium of Romance Languages (LSRL). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 22–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cilt.238.05bro
Bybee, J. L. (2001) Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612886
Bybee, J. L. (2002) Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change 14: 261–290. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954394502143018
Bybee, J. L. (2006) From usage to grammar. The mind's response to repetition. Language 82 (4): 711–733. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2006.0186
Cedergren, H. (1973) Interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama. Ithaca: Cornell University Ph.D. dissertation.
Clements, G. N. (1990) The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. In J. Kingston and M. E. Beckman (eds), Papers in Laboratory Phonology I. Between Grammar and Physics of Speech, 283–333. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511627736.017
Cresti, E. and Moneglia, M. (2005) C-ORAL-ROM. Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/scl.15
Drager, K. and Hay, J. (2012) Exploiting random intercepts. Two case studies in sociophonetics. Language Variation and Change 24 (1): 59–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000014
Ferguson, C. A. (1990) From esses to atiches. Identifying pathways of diachronic change. In W. Croft, K. M. Denning, and S. Kemmer (eds), Studies in Typology and Diachrony for Joseph H. Greenberg, 59–78. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
File-Muriel, R. J. (2009) The role of lexical frequency in the weakening of syllable-final lexical /s/ in the Spanish of Barranquilla, Colombia. Hispania 92, 348–360.
File-Muriel, R. J. (2010) Lexical frequency as a scalar variable in explaining variation. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics/La Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 55, 1–25.
File-Muriel, R. J. and Brown, E. K. (2010) The gradient nature of /s/-lenition in Caleño Spanish. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 16(2), 46–55.
File-Muriel, R. J. and Brown, E. K. (2011) The gradient nature of s-lenition in Caleño Spanish. Language Variation and Change 23, 223–243.
File-Muriel, R. J., Brown, E. K., and Gradoville, M. S. (2014) Methodological considerations for the study of sibilant s. The role of speaker physiology. Presentation at Conceptual Structure Discourse and Language.
Fontanella de Weinberg, M. B. (1973) Comportamiento ante -s de hablantes femeninos y masculinos del español bonaerense. Thesaurus 25: 12–22.
Forrest, K., Weismer, G., Milenkovic, P., and Dougall, R. N. (1988) Statistical analysis of word-initial voiceless obstruents. Preliminary data. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 84 (1): 115–123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.396977
Gahl, S. (2008) ‘Thyme’ and ‘time’ are not homophones. Word durations in spontaneous speech. Language 84 (3): 474–496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.0.0035
Gelman, A. and Hill, J. (2007) Data Analysis Using Regression and Multi-level/hierarchical Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Glass, G. V., Peckham, P. D., and Sanders, J. R. (1972) Consequences of failure to meet assumptions underlying the fixed effects analyses of variance and covariance. Review of Educational Research 42 (3): 237–288. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/00346543042003237
Gradoville, M. S. (2011) Validity in measurements of fricative voicing. Evidence from Argentine Spanish. In S. Alvord (ed.), Selected Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology, 59–74. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Gradoville, M. S. (2014a) The flock and the individual. Priming as an artifact of individual variation. Presentation at New Ways of Analyzing Variation.
Gradoville, M. S. (2014b) Individual variation and corpus-based studies of priming. Presentation at Conceptual Structure Discourse and Language.
Gries, S. Th. (2015). The most underused statistical method in corpus linguistics: Multi-level (and mixed-effects) models. Corpora 10 (1), 95–125.
Guillén Sutil, R. (1992) Una cuestión de fonosintaxis. Realización en andaluz de la /s/ final de palabra seguida de vocal. Anuario de Estudios Filológicos 15: 135–153.
Harris, K. S. (1958) Cues for the discrimination of American English fricatives in spoken syllables. Language and Speech 1 (1): 1–7.
Jesus, L. M. T. and Shadle, C. H. (2005) Acoustic analysis of European Portuguese uvular [?,?] and voiceless tapped alveolar [??] fricatives. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (1): 27–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025100305001866
Johnson, D. E. (2008) Getting off the GoldVarb Standard. Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3 (1): 359–383.
Johnson, D. E. (2010) Why stepwise isn't so wise. Workshop at New Ways of Analyzing Variation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00108.x
Krieg, L. J. (1980) Phonetic classification. The acoustic structure of strident fricatives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Ph.D. dissertation.
Ladefoged, P. (2003) Phonetic Data Analysis. An Introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental Techniques. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Lipski, J. (1994) Latin American Spanish. New York: Longman.
Minnick Fox, M. A. (2006) Usage-based effects in Latin American Spanish syllable-final /s/ lenition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation.
Paolillo, J. (2013) Individual effects in variation analysis. Model, software, and research design. Language Variation and Change 25 (1): 89–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000270
Phillips, B. S. (2006) Word Frequency and Lexical Diffusion. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230286610
Poplack, S. (1979) Function and process in a variable phonology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation.
R Development Core Team. (2015) R. A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S., and Smith, E. (2005) Goldvarb X. A Variable Rule Application for Macintosh and Windows. Toronto: University of Toronto Department of Linguistics.
Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S., and Smith, E. (2012) Goldvarb LION. A Variable Rule Application for Macintosh. Toronto: University of Toronto Department of Linguistics.
Silbert, N. and de Jong, K. (2008) Focus, prosodic context, and phonological feature specification. Patterns of variation in fricative production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123 (5): 2769–2779. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2890736
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2001) Sociolingüística y pragmática del español. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Snijders, T. and Bosker, R. (1999) Multilevel Analysis. An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multi-level Modeling. London: Sage Publications.
Terrell, T. D. (1981) Diachronic reconstruction by dialect comparison of variable constraints. s-aspiration and deletion in Spanish. In D. Sankoff and H. Cedergren (eds), Variation Omnibus, 115–124. Carbondale, IL: Linguistic Research, Inc.
Widdison, K. (1991). The phonetic basis for s-aspiration in Spanish. Berkeley, CA: University of California Ph.D. dissertation.
Published
2016-07-19
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Gradoville, M. S., Brown, E. K., & File-Muriel, R. J. (2016). The effect of varying intercepts on findings in sociophonetic data: Some observations from Caleño Spanish. Journal of Research Design and Statistics in Linguistics and Communication Science, 2(2), 105-130. https://doi.org/10.1558/jrds.v2i2.27203
