Sociolinguistic patterns in grammaticalization:He, they, andthosein human indefinite reference

Abstract

A B S T R A C T Sociolinguistic patterns in language change are largely based on generalizations from linguistic variables consisting of lexemes or morphemes. This article takes a diachronic, corpus-based approach to the diffusion of a change in a more extensive morphosemantic function consisting of several linguistic subsystems. It focuses on the pronoun variants he, they, and those used for human indefiniteness in two contexts: (a) epicene anaphoric uses with indefinite pronouns and (b) cataphoric personal references. The quantitative corpus analyses show that the pronoun selection in Early and Late Modern English developed a greater tendency to use one pronoun type over the other in both contexts. The main data come from the Corpus of Early English Correspondence and its Extension. Statistical analyses compare the observed correlations of the pronouns with a set of social, external variables and language-internal factors. This article concludes that it is possible to establish sociolinguistic patterns in larger shifts if we account for the closely related internal developments in the language.In his discussion of sociolinguistic variation, Labov (2001) suggests that it would be surprising if abstract levels of grammar, such as large-scale typological changes in a language, exhibited sociolinguistic patterns found in socially evaluated variables. At the same time, he suggests that stable sociolinguistic variables, which may persist over several generations of speakers, are typically "located at an intermediate level of structure . . . [like] the use of allophones or allomorphs in a particular structural context" (2001:83).This article concentrates on these two proposals and examines them using diachronic corpus data. I have two underlying themes that can be outlined as follows. (a) Tackling Labov's notion of sociolinguistic patterns in large-scale changes, I concentrate on one abstract morphosemantic function in English, human indefinite reference in the pronouns he, they, and those. I suggest that the use of the pronominal forms with which this function was coded through time constitutes a change in the typological tendencies in English, and I examine the extent to which one can establish sociolinguistic patterns in its diachronic development. My interest is social diffusion of the variants, which are elaborated

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