52 Bernard Laks, Basilio Calderone and Chiara Celata
different pictures of the general distribution function; they do, however, provide
some suggestion about the need for a closer inspection of corpora concerning in
particular low- or very-low-frequency lexical uses. We therefore take this point as
one of the fundamental lesson of our corpus study, allegedly bearing important
consequences for current sociophonological practice: there are phenomena in the
phonology of languages, for which a “core” of frequent lexical uses may be sub-
stantially untouched by sociolinguistic variation, while a “periphery” of infrequent
uses appears to show significant aspects of style- or speaker-dependent variation.
The methodological corollary is the importance of basing any variationist analysis
on very large data sample, such as those provided by contemporary, well-reasoned
linguistic corpora.
Among the future perspectives of this work is the analysis of the distributional
differences (or similarities) between obligatory and facultative liaison. Such dif-
ferentiation will also allow us to approach, within our distributional hypothesis,
the issue of realized vs. potential but non realized liaison. According to the meth-
odology inaugurated in the present study, the two types of realized liaison will
be analyzed over the whole dataset of attested liaisons first, and subsequently as
a function of basic sociolinguistic variables. It has to be verified, as a matter of
fact, whether sociolinguistic variation affects liaison production differently for
the two different types of liaison (i.e., obligatory vs. facultative); recent studies do
seem to suggest this (e.g., Chevrot et al. 2011 for children’s productions; Hornby
2012), and a distributional investigation across the PFC corpus is likely to uncover
important aspects of stratification in language use.ReferencesAshby, William J. 1981. “French liaison as a sociolinguistic phenomenon”. Linguistic Symposium
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