Not always variable: Probing the vernacular grammar

Abstract

Written and spoken language are known to differ substantially (Biber, 1988; 1995; Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999). Standard written language is highly uniform and governed by prescription, whereas the vernacular is most revealing of structured heterogeneity (Weinreich, Labov, & Herzog, 1968). We focus on four English morphosyntactic variables that problematize assumptions about the nature of variation in the vernacular: the genitive, the comparative, the dative, and relative pronouns. Each is characterized in casual speech by functional divides that reflect discrete configurations of variant use. After detailing the patterning of these variables in speech, we explore a characteristic arguably shared by each: its historical pathway into the language, where analogy and prestige were powerful motivations for variant choice. We suggest that this combination of systemic and social factors contributed to the nature of these variables in the vernacular grammar. Furthermore, we advocate for greater scrutiny of written and spoken data and the outcomes of change from above and below within each register. The type of innovation and its trajectory may affect the nature of the emergent variable grammar.

The changingfuture: competition, specialization and reorganization in the contemporary English future temporal reference system

“…Rather than one form obsolescing, the end point of this grammatical change may be longitudinal partitioning (see e.g. D'Arcy & Tagliamonte 2015). While Labov (1982: 76) emphasized the need for in-depth linguistic analysis in order to uncover the ‘ordered series of shifts in underlying probabilities associated with each environmental factor’, he possibly did not foresee that different constraints within the same variable might exhibit distinct trajectories.…”

Mapping out particle placement in Englishes around the world: A study in comparative sociolinguistic analysis

“…In our data, direct objects longer than six words categorically favor the continuous variant ( n = 947 of 953, 99.4%), while the continuous order is almost never used when the direct object is a personal pronoun ( n = 7 of 3245, 0.2%). Thus, tokens containing pronominal direct objects or direct objects longer than 6 words were excluded from the analysis to restrict the scope of the study to truly variable contexts (D'Arcy & Tagliamonte, 2015). The final dataset consisted of n = 11,340 PV tokens.…”

‘I don't come off as timid anymore’: Real‐time change in early adulthood against the backdrop of the community

“…Who as a relativizer is restricted to human head nouns (D'Arcy and Tagliamonte : 392), which necessitates limiting the envelope of variation to [+human] head nouns on top of subject gaps. Since the Ø and which in (9) and (10) are both very rare in this context in the TEA (D'Arcy and Tagliamonte : 389–392, : 272), the variation in human subject relativizers is almost entirely represented by that and who . In the TEA, these variants exhibit a classic age‐graded pattern, with who as the standard form (D'Arcy and Tagliamonte : 393).…”

“…Relativization corresponding to subject gaps (D'Arcy and Tagliamonte , : 266–267, 271–272) involves four variants in most dialects of present‐day English, shown in (8) through (11).…”