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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Support for end-weight as a determinant of linguistic variation and change

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The term end-weight refers to the tendency for bulkier constituents to occur at the end of sentences. While end-weight has occasionally been analysed as a more general short-before-long principle in the sense of Behaghel's (1909–10) Law of Growing Constituents, the operation of end-weight in absolute sentence-final position has until recently lacked empirical verification. This article shows that end-weight effects can be observed in grammatical variation contexts in which language users have a choice between variants that differ in terms of length and degree of explicitness. Using two variation phenomena as a testing ground, we empirically investigate the hypothesis that the more explicit and hence bulkier variant occurs preferably in final position. The first variation context concerns semi-reflexive verbs that can take either an explicitself-pronoun or a zero variant. It turns out that the rapid decline of theself-pronoun is delayed in end position. The second case study focuses on Early Modern English affirmative declarative clauses, which may alternate between finite verb forms ordo-supported ones. This study reveals thatdo-support is favoured in end position. These findings ultimately contribute to an empirical validation of end-weight, the implications of which are discussed against the backdrop of processing-related support strategies.