Corpus Linguistics Fest (CliF)

Adjective-Noun Placement Variation in French Twitter Corpora

Proceedings for Computer Science Conferences and Workshops

French written and spoken corpora reveal that variation of adjective-noun placement occurs more often within written corpora than in spoken ones (Lightfoot, 1979; Prévost, 2009; Thuilier, 2013). I examine adjective lemma variation of placement, adjective categories, frequency, and syllable length as a means of assessing current Twitter trends of adjective placement. In this preliminary study, a cross-section of 30 adjective lemmas within a corpus of approximately 6,000 French tweets demonstrates that parallels exist between the usage of adjectives on Twitter and norms of spoken French.