Asia-Pacific Language Variation - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2022

This paper explores intergenerational changes in Gurindji Kriol, in order to determine whether differences between adults and children are the result of an abrupt generational shift or an extended acquisition process. We analyse the production of Gurindji in the speech of five age groups of Gurindji Kriol speakers, using a set of 176 picture-prompt narratives from 70 different speakers. The data is analysed both synchronically (in apparent-time) and diachronically (in real-time). The synchronic snapshot of the data reveals that adults use significantly more Gurindji than children which can be interpreted as a generational shift towards Kriol. Nonetheless the real-time data shows that most children increase their use of Gurindji as they age which suggests an extended acquisition of Gurindji. Although contradictory on the surface, this study argues that these processes are occurring in tandem, with the extended acquisition of Gurindji by children slowing down the intergenerational shift towards Kriol.

This paper studies the variation that stems from language contact between the suffix ‑tou, a locative marker in the Chengdu dialect spoken in Southwest China, and its standard Chinese counterpart ‑mian. The data are drawn from sociolinguistic interviews with 40 native speakers of the Chengdu dialect. It is shown that the standard Chinese form ‑mian has outnumbered ‑tou in terms of occurrence, suggesting a change in progress over apparent time that essentially involves a dialect leveling that results from language standardization and contact-induced convergence. Meanwhile, the two variants undergo certain stylistic reallocation and begin to serve new socio-stylistic roles. To our knowledge, this is the first study that systematically investigates the variation of Chinese locatives.

This paper describes four patterns of variation in the subject-indexing paradigm of Vatlongos (Oceanic, Vanuatu). It explores their quantitative distribution in a corpus of monologic texts from speakers in three different communities: Mele Maat, a relocated peri-urban community; Endu, which has a distinct dialect; and Ase-Taveak, the other villages of Southeast Ambrym. Speakers in Mele Maat are more likely to use a zero variant of the third person singular Non-future prefix and shorter syllabic variants, and less likely to use the paucal number category. All three patterns suggest formal simplification in the Mele Maat community. The latter two patterns are also associated with higher levels of education, and consequent greater exposure to national and international languages. Overall these patterns suggest that changes which involve reduction of distinctions in morphological paradigms are more likely to be accelerated in contexts of language endangerment than phonological change or phonological reduction.

Under Talmy’s (2000a) framework of Figure and Ground segregation, this paper examines the word order variation between constructions [NPFigure V-măn NPGround] and [NPGround V-măn NPFigure] regarding Chinese existential phenomenon, that is, Mìfēng fēi-măn le huāyuán. ‘Bees swarm in the garden.’ and Huāyuán fēi-măn le mìfēng. ‘The garden swarms with bees.’

In this data-driven study, 263 monosyllabic verbs are investigated and 1456 news texts are collected for a quantitative analysis. This study has successfully identified linguistic factors that can better account for the distributional patterns of the word order alternation in the corpora. Results of the VARBRUL analysis indicate that topicality of the post verbal NP and definiteness of Figure NP play a relatively crucial role in determining the word order choice, while semantic type of verb and animacy of Figure NP are less influential. This paper presents a variationist perspective on the motivations that trigger the use of Chinese existential construction [NPGround V-măn NPFigure].