Syntactic Accidents in the Spontaneous Speech of English and Armenian Speakers

Authors

Karen Velyan, Yerevan State Brusov University and Moscow State University, Yerevan

Abstract

Fragmented syntax or a break of the flow of surface syntax is well known to be an indispensable part of spontaneous spoken language. Interruptions in the flow of speech may be triggered by pragmatic reasons, changes in syntactic planning and performance errors, which results in syntactic fragments. Syntactic accidents may take different forms in the actual flow of speech. This study presents a cross-linguistic comparative analysis of the cases of syntax in the speech of low socioeconomic status speakers of English and Armenian. Based on data from informal interviews with native speakers, the analysis presents a variety of syntactic accidents, such as maxi-accidents, mini-accidents and micro-accidents that come up in spontaneous speech. The article outlines the patterns of syntactic accidents, the frequency of their occurrence, distributional properties, as well as pragmatic reasons behind them. The cross-linguistic analysis summarizes divergences and convergences of the functional features of syntactic accidents in English and Armenian.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Velyan, Karen (2020) "Syntactic Accidents in the Spontaneous Speech of English and Armenian Speakers," ECTESOL Review: Vol. 3: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/ectesol_review/vol3/iss1/3