- Home
- e-Journals
- Linguistic Variation
- Previous Issues
- Volume 16, Issue, 2016
Linguistic Variation - Volume 16, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 16, Issue 2, 2016
-
Locating variation in the dative alternation
Author(s): Alison Biggspp.: 151–182 (32)More LessThis paper investigates the structure of the dative alternation in dialects of Northwest British English. This includes theme passivization of apparent Double Object Constructions (It was given her). Detailed investigation shows that different dialects use distinct licensing strategies to derive the Theme passive structure. The main variety discussed is Liverpool English, where Theme passivisation is shown to derive from a prepositional dative with a null preposition. In contrast, Manchester English, a neighbouring variety, derives Theme passives of the Double Object Construction, via an Applicative configuration (Haddican 2010, Haddican and Holmberg 2012). The study shows that a range of syntactic properties and restrictions on a structure can be traced back to variation in the functional lexicon.
-
An extension of the comparative sociolinguistics approach for sociosyntax
Author(s): Philip Comeaupp.: 183–220 (38)More LessThis paper integrates aspects of both generative theory and variationist sociolinguistics. To compare the structure of two varieties of French (Acadian French and Laurentian French), I adapt the comparative sociolinguistics approach to compare the syntactic structure of these varieties. Specifically, I focus on the effects of a single linguistic constraint across multiple sociolinguistic variables. I argue that such a comparison provides insights into the underlying grammatical structures of the varieties under comparison, differences that may have remained hidden otherwise. To illustrate the approach, I focus on a single constraint, sentential polarity, and I analyze its effects on two sociolinguistic variables, yes/no questions and future temporal reference. Results show that the polarity constraint is operative in Laurentian French for both variables, but inoperative in Acadian French. To account for this difference, I argue that Laurentian French negative structures involve a negative head above the tense phrase while Acadian French does not.
-
Variant-centered variation and the like conspiracy
Author(s): Aaron J. Dinkinpp.: 221–246 (26)More LessThe conventional methodology of variationist linguistics foregrounds the variable as the object of study: each variant is situated in the envelope of variation against the other variants it competes with. This paper argues that it is necessary to look beyond the context of the alternations a variant participates in in order to get a full picture of the factors affecting variation. The multi-functional variant like is used as a case study to illustrate the value of a variant-centered analysis: the fact that several distinct variables are all simultaneously changing toward the variant like suggests that a variant can be targeted for change across multiple variables, parallelling Campbell-Kibler (2011)’s model of the variant as the carrier of sociolinguistic meaning. It is conjectured that the set of changes toward like can be explained as a top-down discursive change targeting like as an indicator of vague literality, a function it retains in multiple distinct variable contexts.
-
Constant effects and the independence of variants in controlled judgment data*
Author(s): Bill Haddican, Daniel Ezra Johnson and Nanna Haug Hiltonpp.: 247–266 (20)More LessThis article proposes that Kroch’s (1989) Constant Rate Hypothesis – the generalization that contextual effects tend to be stable in processes of diachronic variation in production data – be extended to synchronic variation in controlled judgment data. Two recent, large-sample judgment experiments are discussed suggesting that shared contextual effects across speakers in acceptability judgments can be used to infer a single abstract source for patterns of variation across superficially different contexts. At the same time, the results suggest that not all sets of variants – or “ways of saying the same thing” (Labov 1972: 271) – are linguistic variables of this formally defined type.
-
Variation as a testing ground for grammatical theory
Author(s): Heather Burnettpp.: 267–299 (33)More LessThis paper addresses the contribution that corpus-based studies of syntactic variation can make to the construction, elaboration and testing of formal syntactic theories, with a particular focus on the testing dimension. In particular, I present a new empirical study of obligatory and optional asymmetric negative concord phenomena, and I show how an influential analysis for obligatory concord patterns (de Swart, 2010) can be tested using variation data through looking at the predictions that its natural probabilistic extension makes for the forms, interpretations and frequency distributions of expressions in languages in which asymmetric concord is optional. In obligatory negative concord languages like Spanish, negative indefinites, such as nadie ‘no one’, appear bare in preverbal position (i.e. in an expression like Nadie ha venido ‘No one came’), but they co-occur with the negative marker no in postverbal negative concord structures such as No he visto a nadie ‘I did not see anyone.’ (lit. ‘I did not see no one.’). Furthermore, in this language, co-occurrence between a negative marker and an n-word is either prohibited (*Nadie no ha venido), or it is obligatory (*He visto a nadie). Québec French shows a variable version of the Spanish pattern in which the negation marker optionally co-occurs with postverbal negative indefinites (J’ai (pas) vu personne ‘I saw no one’) but is prohibited with preverbal negative indefinites *Personne est pas venu (Ok: Personne est venu. ‘No one came’). I show how the predictions for Montréal French of de Swart’s analysis of Spanish can be tested (and, in this case, mostly verified) using a quantitative study of the distribution of bare and concord structures in the Montréal 84 corpus of spoken Montréal French (Thibault & Vincent, 1990) through looking at its natural extension within Boersma (1998)’s stochastic generalization of the Optimality Theory framework, which is the framework in which de Swart’s proposal is set.
-
The dynamics of variation in individuals
Author(s): Meredith Tamminga, Laurel MacKenzie and David Embickpp.: 300–336 (37)More LessThis paper examines the factors conditioning the production of linguistic variables in real time by individual speakers: what we term the dynamics of variation in individuals. We propose a framework that recognizes three types of factors conditioning variation: sociostylistic, internal linguistic, and psychophysiological. We develop two main points against this background. The first is that sequences of variants produced by individuals display systematic patterns that can be understood in terms of sociostylistic conditioning and psychophysiological conditioning. The second is that psychophysiological conditioning and internal linguistic conditioning are distinct in their mental implementations; this claim has implications for understanding the locality of the factors conditioning alternations, the universality and language-specificity of variation, and the general question of whether grammar and language use are distinct. Questions about the dynamics of variation in individuals are set against community-centered perspectives to argue that findings in the two domains, though differing in explanatory focus, can ultimately be mutually informative.
Most Read This Month

-
-
A typology of Bantu subject inversion
Author(s): Lutz Marten and Jenneke van der Wal
-
-
-
Unspeakable sentences
Author(s): Liliane Haegeman
-
- More Less