A large number of grammatical and lexical changes occurred in Middle and Early Modern English leading to the type of language we witness today. Other West Germanic languages were more conservative. This article focuses on some of the major contrasts between Modern English and German and proposes a new unifying generalization for them, going beyond Sapir's (1921) 'drift' and the comparative typology of Hawkins (1986, 1995). The contrasts involve a systematic expansion in word-external properties in English, whereby individual words carry less syntactic and semantic information in their grammatical and lexical representations and have become more reliant on neighboring words for the assignment of linguistic properties. Defining drift in this way captures more of the observed contrasts and subsumes counterexamples to earlier unifying generalizations. It also has implications for theories of real-time language processing and for the interface between linguistic typology and psycholinguistics.

This chapter examines synchronic cross-linguistic patterns in grammars and language use. It proposes that " variation-defining" universals delimit the scope of possible variation across languages. Examples of such universals include the Greenbergian implicational universals and the parameters in the Government-Binding tradition. It argues that variation-defining universals should be understood in terms of performance principles. It further suggests these same performance principles govern variation of structures within languages, dictating that following a verb, short prepositional phrases should precede long prepositional phrases.

We offer an account of preposition drop under clausal ellipsis in terms of two language processing principles: Minimize Domains and Minimize Forms. We argue that when Minimize Domains operates within the PP domain, it disfavors preposition drop due to the preferred independent processability of the PP fragment. When it operates within the VP domain it favors preposition drop in proportion to the number and strength of semantic dependencies between V and P in a given language: the more dependencies there are, and the stronger they are, the stronger the preference for preposition drop. In this way fragments are avoided with long dependencies between P and a distant V. We demonstrate this pattern in English corpora and propose it as an explanation for the typologically unusual preference that English shows for NP fragments. Minimize Forms supports preposition drop in easy-to-process environments cross-linguistically and in English when the more minimal fragment (NP) can be easily linked to its correlate in the antecedent, disfavoring preposition drop elsewhere. The predictions of Minimize Domains and Minimize Forms receive support from a mixed-effects regression model fitted to data from spoken US English, and can be understood as motivations for construction-specific constraints and preferences in clausal ellipsis.

We propose an explanation for a traditional puzzle in English linguistics involving the use of articles with the nominal modifiers same, identical and similar. Same can only take the definite article the, whereas identical and similar take either the or a. We argue that there is a fundamental difference in the manner in which a comparison is made with these modifiers. Identical and similar involve direct comparisons between at least two entities and an assertion of either full property matching (identical), or partial property matching (similar). The comparison with same proceeds differently: what is compared is not linguistic entities directly, but definite descriptions of these entities that can be derived through logical entailments. John and Mary live in the same house entails the house that John lives in is the (same) house that Mary lives in. There must be a pragmatic equivalence between these entailed definite descriptions, ranging from full referential equivalence to a possibly quite minimal overlap in semantic and real-world properties shared by distinct referents. These differences in meaning and article co-occurrence reveal the sensitivity of syntax to semantic and pragmatic properties, without which all and only the grammatical sentences of a language cannot be predicted.

Aims and objectives/purpose/research question: We propose a model that captures general patterns in bilingual language processing, based on empirical evidence elicited in a variety of experimental studies. We begin by considering what linguistic outputs are logically possible when bilingual speakers communicate based on the typological features of two languages in the bilingual mind. Our aim is to explain why some outputs are more frequent or more likely than others in bilingual language use. Design/methodology/approach: Our empirically derived multi-factor model combines insights from various empirical studies of different bilingual populations and it includes a variety of methodologies and approaches, such as lexical categorisation, lexical priming, syntactic priming, event verbalisation and memory, historical language change, grammaticality judgments and observational reports. Data and analysis: We critically discuss both lexical and syntactic processing data, as well as data that reflect bilingual type differences and different communicative situations (i.e. who the bilingual speakers are talking to and for what purpose). Crucially, we explain when the relevant factors collaborate and when they compete. Originality: There are three main reasons why this paper can be deemed original: 1) it offers a unified model for understanding bilingual language processing that is not focused on a single factor or a single linguistic level, as has most often been the case in the past; 2) it brings together the study of bilingualism from both psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives and in a unifying fashion, which is rare in the literature; and 3) it creates a platform for testing numerous predictions that are not dependent on any one theory. Significance/implications: This new model opens up new avenues for research into bilingual language processing for all types of bilingual speakers and in different communicative situations. It captures and explains the variety of outputs in bilingual communication and enables us to make predictions about communicative outcomes.