Pluralization of the Impersonal Verb Haber on Twitter

Abstract

The pluralization of the existential haber verb is prevalent in Caracas, Venezuela. The present study provides insights into this variant on Twitter, a novel source for this research. Data consisted of 1,157 Caracas tweets published between June 2018 and June 2021. The binomial logistic regression revealed a decrease of 21.68 percentage points in pluralization rates. Tense and mood with the imperfect and the present perfect conditioned the use of plural forms while the preterit level, the affirmative clause, and the argument’s frequency conditioned singular forms’ use. The results support the stabilization of linguistic change and the variability of the phenomenon. Due to the imperfect and the present perfect still being the only two plural tenses, linguistic change is stabilized. Furthermore, pluralization proved a variable phenomenon the rates of which depend on the corpus style (oral vs. written) and, if written, whether it is informal or edited (or a combination). The Twitter corpus yielded lower rates than interview corpora and higher than a source comprising magazines, newspapers, and film scripts. Finally, the present study does not probably reflect Caracas’ total pluralization rate due to the possibly reduced number of speakers with lower socioeconomic status who produce more plural haber forms than those with higher socioeconomic status.