The persistence of variation in individual grammars: Copula absence in ‘urban sojourners’ and their stay‐at‐home peers, Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines)1

Abstract

Recent work on phonological variation largely supports the apparent‐time construct, though some change across an individual's lifespan is possible. But how much change is possible in an individual'sgrammar? How much is grammar affected by extended absence in a new, urban speech community? Social dialect surveys traditionally exclude individuals who have left their community for an extended period of time, under the assumption that dialect contact causes levelling or restructuring of the linguistic system. However, our ongoing work in a Caribbean speech community suggests that the kinds of changes that can affect grammatical variables are more constrained than we might think. Raw frequencies of vernacular variants may fluctuate, but language‐internal constraints persist. Drawing on recordings from Bequia we compare the group norms for absence of copula/auxiliarybein three villages. We show that ‘urban sojourners’– Bequians who have spent an extended period overseas – may sound very different from their stay‐at‐home peers, but close examination shows only superficial restructuring of their grammars. Overall frequencies ofbeabsence may be dramatically reduced but the ranking of language‐internal constraints remains largely unchanged. These results reaffirm the validity of modelling variable rules in a community grammar, rather than as an aggregation of idiolectal norms.