Variationist Analysis Research Articles

Continuity and change in the evolution of French yes-no questions

AbstractThis present study contributes to research on the structure of yes-no questions in French. Informed by previous historical linguistic research tracing developments from the Old French period onwards, we focus on qualitative analysis of grammatical commentary and variationist analysis of Acadian French spoken-language data. We compare the evolution of yes-no questions in Acadian, Metropolitan, and Quebec French, reconstructing the history of variants up to the present. While in most cases we encounter slow-moving change, we do find inter-varietal differences in degree of retention of individual variants, including outright loss; in development of stylistic differentiation; and in analogically based innovation. We also find inter-varietal differences in grammatical constraints governing usage and in the fine detail regarding sentential polarity, illuminated in terms of the semantico-pragmatic functions of negative yes-no questions. The overall results underline the importance of considering sociolinguistic histories, including histories of dialect contact, along with local linguistic markets.

Theget-passive in Tyneside English

AbstractThis paper provides a quantitative variationist analysis of the distribution ofget- versusbe-passives in spoken Tyneside English. Taking data from theDiachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English(1960s to 2010), the paper uses mixed-effects modelling to examine a wide range of possible constraints on the distribution ofgetversusbe, some of which have been discussed at length in the literature on theget-passive (e.g. subject animacy, adversative semantics) and some of which have received less attention (e.g. grammatical person, tense, aspectuality). It demonstrates that the use of theget-passive is determined by a complex combination of semantic and syntactic factors (subject animacy, telicity, non-neutral semantics, tense and grammatical person). Moreover, it argues that, despite the dramatic rise in frequency ofget-passives over time (with younger speakers using them even more frequently thanbe-passives), most of the constraints remain in place and the variant is pragmatically marked. This stands in sharp contrast to the findings of recent investigations into the grammaticalization ofget-passives in standard British and American English, which found that increased frequency in those varieties was also accompanied by semantic bleaching and generalization.

Der Konjunktiv II in Salzburger Varietäten: Grammatik, Gebrauch, soziale Faktoren

If one looks for linguistic information on the past subjunctive (Konjunktiv II) in Salzburg, there is not much to obtain. A few studies have commented on its morphology in dialect (Mauser 1998 und 2021a), the atlases of colloquial German (Eichhoff 1977–2000; Elspaß/Möller 2003–) provide some general insights as to the use of analytical forms, other studies aim at a broader scope on Bavarian dialects (e. g. Wiesinger 1989; Donhauser 1992). This article gives a first more detailed account. We present findings from a traditional dialectological investigation (relying on on-site interviews using a questionnaire) as well as a variationist analysis of online questionnaire data on colloquial Salzburg varieties. The dialectological analysis focuses on language-internal factors such as analytic vs. synthetic construction and variation of endings but also shows strong differences between the northern Flachgau, which surrounds the capital of Salzburg, and the remote and more rural southern Lungau. The online questionnaire allows for a quantitative inspection of the use of Konjunktiv II forms of brauchen, i. e. analytical vs. synthetical, (non-)use of umlaut, inflection with -ert/-at and -te. Statistical analysis shows that the participants’ preferences correlate with their age, region of origin, degree of education, and mobility: Younger speakers indicate the use of analytical forms more frequently, and standard (or near-standard) forms are favoured by participants near or directly from the city of Salzburg and those of higher education and mobility. In the end, we will shortly discuss the comparability of our outcomes and future research avenues, especially with regard to the Salzburg region and its neighbouring dialect areas.

A variationist analysis of first-person-singular subject expression in Louisiana French

AbstractIn this study, we investigate first-person-singular subject expression in Louisiana French. This variety is undergoing language death and features extreme variation, with twelve first-person-singular subject forms identified within our corpus. We demonstrate that variationist methods are robust for examining such variation in obsolescing languages, and we provide a model for undertaking such analyses. Examining different aspects of our data, we fit two mixed-effects models, one that analyzes the four most frequent phonological variants of the atonic pronounje‘I’ and the other that focuses on the tonic pronounmon‘me.’ Several linguistic and social factors predict the use of these subject forms, supporting the claim that variability in declining languages is systematic, just as variation in healthy languages is. We argue that variationist methodologies have contributions to make to research on obsolescing languages and that variationist examinations of endangered and minority languages can provide methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of language variation and change more broadly.

Mechanisms of Grammaticalization in the Variation of Negative Question Tags

This paper presents an investigation of the extent to which Heine’s (2003) mechanisms of grammaticalization—erosion (phonetic reduction), decategorialization (loss of morpho-syntactic properties), desemanticization (semantic bleaching) and extension (context expansion)—are evident in the variation of negative question tags in three varieties of British English spoken in Glasgow, Tyneside, and Salford. The study considers the variation in terms of three types of variant—full (e.g., isn’t it), reduced (e.g., int it), and coalesced (e.g., innit)—which each represent a stage in the erosion process. Quantitative variationist analysis of informal conversational data shows that erosion of negative tags occurs to different degrees in each of the three communities. The locality with the least tag erosion—Tyneside—displays particularly strong social stratification in the variation that suggests a change in progress led by younger men. However, there is little to no evidence of decategorialization in the negative tags, nor does variation in tag meaning correlate with phonetic form in a consistent manner. The results therefore suggest that erosion and desemanticization/extension do not occur in lockstep as these constructions grammaticalize, while decategorialization occurs at a later stage in the change.

Gender assignment: Monolingual constraints contribute to a bilingual outcome

Aims and objectives: This study explores the well-researched topic of gender assignment to English nouns in Spanish discourse through a usage-based framework. The goal is to elucidate the relative impact of both previously studied and novel constraints on the variable application of feminine determiners. Methodology: A variationist analysis of English nouns surrounded by Spanish discourse in the spontaneous speech of bilinguals. Data and analysis: Data come from the New Mexico Spanish–English Bilingual Corpus. Tokens ( N = 707) were coded for independent variables and submitted to a logistic regression. The goodness of fit was determined via the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve method. Findings: All independent variables were selected as significant by the logistic regression model. Based on factor weight ranges, the hierarchy of constraints is the following, from the most to the least impactful: Analogical Gender, Phonological Shape, Syntactic Role, and Determiner Definiteness. These results suggest that bilinguals utilize a variety of constraints in gender assignment, as opposed to a single default strategy. Originality: While previous studies have tested and found similar results for constraints such as analogical gender and phonological shape, none have offered a unified analysis explaining findings from a usage-based approach. The originality and utility of this approach is most apparent in the discussions of prototypicality and schematicity. Significance/implications: A corpus-based approach and usage-based theory is shown to bring new insight to a topic of interest in many other linguistic sub-fields. The discussion reinterprets previous conclusions about gender assignment using a framework not proposed in previous research, despite similar overall results.

First-Person Plural Subject Pronoun Expression in Mexican Spanish Spoken in Georgia

AbstractVariationist research on subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Spanish typically incorporates all grammatical persons/numbers into the same analysis, with important exceptions such as studies focusing exclusively on first-person singular (e.g., Travis, Catherine E. 2005. The yo-yo effect: Priming in subject expression in Colombian Spanish. In Randall Gess & Edward J Rubin (eds.),Selected papers from the 34th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), 329–349. Amsterdam, Salt Lake City: Benjamins 2004; Travis, Catherine E. 2007. Genre effects on subject expression in Spanish: Priming in narrative and conversation.Language Variation and Change19. 101–135; Travis, Catherine E. & Rena Torres Cacoullos. 2012. What do subject pronouns do in discourse? Cognitive, mechanical and constructional factors in variation.Cognitive Linguistics23(4). 711–748), third-person singular (Shin, Naomi Lapidus. 2014. Grammatical complexification in Spanish in New York: 3sg pronoun expression and verbal ambiguity.Language Variation and Change26. 303–330), and third-person plural subjects (Lapidus, Naomi & Ricardo Otheguy. 2005. Overt nonspecific ellos in Spanish in New York.Spanish in Context2(2). 157–174). The current study is the first variationist analysis (to the best of my knowledge) to focus solely on first-person plural SPE. It is well-established thatnosotros/nosotrasexhibits one of the lowest rates of SPE relative to the other persons/numbers; however, factors conditioning its variation are less understood. Conversational corpus data from Mexican Spanish are employed to examine tokens of first-person plural SPE (n=660) in terms of frequency and constraints, incorporating factors such as TMA, switch reference, and verb class in logistic regression analyses. Results suggest thatnosotros, like other subjects, is strongly impacted by switch reference and tense-mood-aspect (TMA). However, the TMA effect is unique in that preterit aspect is shown to favor overtnosotrosrelative to other TMAs, diverging from previous studies. Furthermore, verb class — a factor found to be repeatedly significant in the literature — is inoperative fornosotros. These results suggest thatnosotrosdoes not respond to the same factors as other persons/numbers. Additionally, the findings lend support to researchers regarding the importance of studying individual persons/numbers in subject variation research.

Å knyte til struktur og variasjon i lydendring

“Structured heterogeneity”, a founding concept of variationist sociolinguistics, puts focus on the ordered social differentiation in language. We extend the notion of structured heterogeneity to formal phonological structure, i.e., representations based on contrasts, with implications for phonetic implementation. Phonology establishes parameters for what varies and how. Patterns of stability and variability with respect to a given feature’s relationship to representations allow us to ground variationist analysis in a framework that makes predictions about potential sound changes: more structure correlates to more stability; less structure corresponds to more variability. However, even though all change requires variability, not all variability leads to change. Two case studies illustrate this asymmetry, keeping a focus on phonetic change with phonological stability. First, Germanic rhotics (r-sounds) from prehistory to the present day are minimally specified. They show tremendous phonetic variability and change but phonological stability. Second, laryngeal contrasts (voicing or aspiration) vary and change in language contact. We track the accumulation of phonetic change in unspecified members of pairs of the type spelled <s> ≠ <z>, etc. This analysis makes predictions about the regularity of sound change, situating regularity in phonology and irregularity in phonetics and the lexicon. Structured heterogeneity involves the variation inherent within the system for various levels of phonetic and phonological representation. Phonological change, then, is about acquiring or learning different abstract representations based on heterogeneous and variable input.

A Variationist Analysis of Second Language Spanish Trill Production

AbstractThe current study examines the production of the Spanish trill by advanced second language (L2) learners using a variationist approach. Findings indicate that learners produced less multiple occlusion trills than native speakers and their variation was not constrained by the same factors as native speakers. Phonetic context conditioned the use of the multiple occlusion variant for native speakers, whereas frequency and speaker sex conditioned this variation for learners, and in the opposite direction of effect as expected from previous native speaker research. Nevertheless, the majority of tokens produced by learners were other variants also produced by native speakers, and when the variation between native and non-native variants was examined, learners’ variation was conditioned not only by frequency, but also phonetic context. Some of the phonetic contexts in which learners produced non-native variants were comparable to those in which native speakers were least likely to produce the multiple occlusion trill, indicating that articulatory constraints governed variation in trill production similarly for both groups. Thus, although L2 learners do not exhibit native-like trill variation, they appear to be developing toward a more native-like norm. These insights provide support for adopting a multifaceted variationist approach to the study of L2 phonological variable structures.

Grammaticalization and language contact in a discourse-pragmatic change in progress: The spread ofinnitin London English

AbstractThis variationist analysis investigates the development and spread ofinnitas an invariant tag in London English. The sociolinguistic distribution ofinnitin a socially stratified corpus of vernacular speech suggests that the form's emergence and spread were initiated and propelled system-internally through changes associated with grammaticalization. Frequency triggered phonetic reduction ofisn't ittoinnit; loss of syntactic-semantic usage constraints and growing functional versatility enabledinnitto seize the range of contexts and functions of grammatically-dependent tags (e.g.didn't you,weren't we), virtually ousting these from the system of negative-polarity interrogative tags. Examination of cross-linguistic data and comparisons with relevant pre- and non-contact varieties indicate multiple language contact and grammatical replication may have played an ancillary role. I flag some challenges of establishing contact effects in discourse-pragmatic change, and propose that the promotion ofinnitfor invariant use was governed by its low salience and social indexicality of localness. (Innit, question tags, (Multicultural) London English, grammaticalization, language contact, grammatical replication)*

Clitic position in Old Occitan affirmative verb-first declaratives coordinated bye

AbstractThis paper offers a variationist analysis of object and adverbial clitic position in coordinated affirmative verb-first main declaratives introduced bye(t)“and” in Old Occitan. In this context, clitics occur in either preverbal (e·l vestit“and clothed him”) or postverbal position (e perdonet li“and pardoned him”). Following recent work on Medieval Romance coordination, I posit that proclitic and enclitic examples reflect different coordination structures at the underlying syntactic level. Data from complete analyses of five major 13th- and 14th-century texts, analyzed in a variationist approach using logistic regression, reveal that the choice between coordination structures – and hence, between proclisis and enclisis – is principled rather than random and depends on the degree of continuity or rupture/discontinuity between the conjuncts.

A Variationist Analysis of Quotatives in Ottawa English

This study investigates variation and change in the quotative system in Ottawa English and provides a comparative sociolinguistic analysis of its development. A corpus of spontaneous speech of 30 speakers of Ottawa English stratified according to age and sex is compiled to provide a quantitative analysis of the effects of some social and linguistic factors on the distribution of quotative variants in this variety. The results show that the choice of quotative variants is socially and linguistically constrained. The results also show that the distribution of the quotative variants in Ottawa English has changed due to the incorporation of the incoming variant be like. The results also confirm that younger speakers use this variant more than their older counterparts with younger female speakers leading the change. Moreover, the results provide a further piece of evidence in favor of the advanced stage of grammaticalization that be like has undergone. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that while be like is completely absent from the speech of older speakers in Ottawa English, it seems that this variant has eventually found its way to the discourse of older female speakers in Ottawa English. This result in particular shows the efficacy of conducting more variationist studies on an intensively discussed variable to provide updates regarding the level of variation and change it has reached. Keywords: Canadian English, Language Variation & Change, Ottawa English, Quotative System, Variationist Approach.

The Interaction of Functional Predictors and the Mechanical Predictor Perseveration in a Variationist Analysis of Caribbean Spanish Heritage Speaker Subject Pronoun Expression

Subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Spanish has been widely studied across monolingual and bilingual varieties, showing a consistent effect of functional predictors. In recent papers, the role of the mechanical predictor priming, or perseveration, has been the source of debate. Additionally, little is known about the interaction of perseveration and significant functional predictors (e.g., grammatical person). In this paper, we expand on previous research by examining first-person singular (1sg) and third-person singular (3sg) data from sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish–English bilinguals from Florida to explore the possible difference in priming in deictic vs. referential subjects. The results from a mixed-effects variable rule analysis only offered clear evidence of priming in 1sg. We hypothesize that this result could be due to either surprisal (1sg overt pronominal subjects are rarer in the corpus that 3sg overt pronominal subjects) or to 3sg involving reference-tracking and perseveration only being evident in contexts where the subject form does not signal for pragmatic content.

¿La reversión de un cambio lingüístico? Pasado y presente de la variación en las relativas oblicuas de lugar en español

The panchronic perspective adopted in this study shows an apparently contradictory outcome in a phenomenon of variation and change that has a long tradition in Spanish. The variationist analysis of several oral corpora representative of current Peninsular Spanish displays an apparent regression of the pronominal forms of the relative in locative sentences (‘la casa en la que vivo’ [the house in which I live]), in favour of the adverbial ones (‘la casa donde vivo’ [the house where I live]). This result contrasts with a movement in the opposite direction, previously found in the analysis of a historical corpus composed of texts of immediacy, between the sixteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. However, this apparent reversal of the change contrasts with the constraints attested in the internal grammar and the extralinguistic context, which reveal a robust persistence over time, and, in addition, with the same direction of effect. To sum up, mainly due to some irregularities between the corpora analyzed, rather than the reversion of a linguistic change, what the panchronic analysis reveals is a remarkable stability of the variation over more than five centuries of history. This result sheds light on variation not leading to language change, and confirms the need to transcend the most superficial aspects in the study of change.

A Usage-Based Perspective on Spanish Variable Clitic Placement

This study provides a usage-based analysis of Spanish Variable Clitic Placement (VCP). A variationist analysis of VCP in spoken Argentine Spanish indicates that VCP grammar is constrained by lexical (finite verb) and semantic (animacy) factors. Considering the finite effect, the study focuses on usage-based accounts for the gradience attested across finite verb constructions. Grammaticalized meaning and increased frequency tend to account for VCP in general. However, one [tener que + infinitive] construction is found exceptional in that it favors enclisis despite its grammaticalized meaning of obligation and its high frequency of use. Data from a larger corpus indicate that the [tener que + infinitive] construction lacks unithood, signaling great analyzability of its component elements. Through an exemplar analysis, the [haber que ‘must’ + infinitive] construction that categorically takes enclisis and which is strongly linked to [tenerque + infinitive] diachronically, semantically, and structurally emerges as a likely analogical model for VCP with tener que, pushing tener que towards enclisis. This study not only illustrates how usage-based linguistics can capture VCP more generally, but also how this framework provides powerful tools to discover the constraints on VCP in naturalistic use in order to account for individual construction behavior.

Clitic doubling in Peninsular and Rioplatense Spanish: a comparative corpus investigation

The current study compares the distribution of clitic doubling (CD) in two varieties of Spanish: Peninsular Spanish and Rioplatense Spanish. Based on two corpora of colloquial speech we investigate under which conditions CD with pronominal and nominal objects[1] is possible and which factors favour the occurrence of CD in the variable contexts.Based on a variationist analysis with Rbrul, we show that personal prounouns are almost categorically doubled in both corpora. The presence of dative case marking is a sufficient condition for CD to be possible with pronominal and nominal objects. This is in principle independent of semantic factors like definiteness, specificity and animacy, which also favour CD. In Rioplatense, CD of dative noun phrases is advanced in comparison to Peninsular Spanish as it is almost categorical and independent of the semantic specification of the object, whereas specificity still plays a role for CD of dative nominal objects in Peninsular Spanish. CD of accusative objects occurs less frequently and is more restricted. Non-personal pronouns show that definiteness is a necessary and decisive feature for CD of accusatives, indefinite non-personal pronouns cannot be doubled. In Buenos Aires, doubling of direct nominal objects also presupposes their definiteness (and specificity). DOM favours CD to occur, but it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for CD.Overall, our study confirms that the factors determining the distribution of CD can be ordered on an implicational (definiteness) scale and that CD has a wider distribution and is less restricted in Rioplatense Spanish in comparison to Peninsular Spanish. We conclude that this reflects that Rioplatense Spanish has reached a more advanced stage of CD on a grammaticalization cline than Peninsular Spanish[1] Throughout our paper, we use the terms pronominal and nominal objects in order to distinguish between pronouns and non-pronominal noun phrases in object position, although it is of course clear to us that pronouns are also nominal objects. We will also use the abbreviation DP (determiner phrase) to refer to non-pronominal noun phrases.

The Gettysburg Corpus

Corpus studies of regional variation using raw language data from the internet focus predominantly on lexical variables in writing. However, online repositories such as YouTube offer the possibility of investigating regional differences using phonological variables, as well. This article demonstrates the viability of constructing a naturalistic speech corpus for sociophonetic research by analyzing hundreds of recitations of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. We first replicate a known result of phonetic research, namely, that English vowels are longer in duration before voiced obstruents than before voiceless ones. We then compare /æ/-tensing in recitations from the Inland North and New York City dialect regions. Results indicate that there are significant regional differences in the formant trajectory of the vowel, even in identical phonetic environments (e.g., before nasal codas). This calls into question the uniformity of “/æ/-tensing” as a cross-dialectal phenomenon in American English. We contend that the analysis of spoken data from social media can and should supplement traditional methods in dialectology and variationist analysis to generate new hypotheses about socially conditioned speech patterns.

Are the systems the same?

AbstractAlthough two languages in contact may contain similar structures, superficial structural similarities may abscond important differences. The comparative method critically determines whether the languages differ in relative rates of variant use, the significance of independent variables, constraint rankings, and ordering within factor groups (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001). The study explored intensifier (i.e., degree modifier) variation between Spanishmuyandbienand Catalanmoltandben“very”, as based on 84 sets of responses from bilinguals on a 24-item contextualized preference task (40 in Catalan, 44 in Spanish). Results indicated significantly higher selection ofmuyin Spanish thanmoltin Catalan. Moreover, independent variables played a greater role in Spanish, with adjective quality, animacy, and verb type all predicting intensifier selection, whereas in Catalan only adjective quality was predictive. The study provided the first variationist analysis of Catalan intensification, while also revealing key systemic differences between the two languages despite surface similarities.

“I ain't sorry”: African American English as a strategic resource in Beyoncé’s performative persona

In this paper, we examine the role language plays in the development of the performative persona of musical artist Beyoncé, as she moves from female pop star to Black Feminist icon. Examining Beyoncé's five solo albums, we present a variationist analysis of a single feature, zero copula, and its use over the course of her career. We argue that this feature is an important symbolic resource for the assertion of an unapologetically Black and feminist persona. As Beyoncé has moved steadily away from popular expectations for representations of Black womanhood, language is a central tool that she uses strategically in the evolution of a newly transgressive persona.

El artículo en las relativas introducidas por <em>con</em> en el siglo XVIII: contextos y evolución

A partir de un corpus formado por textos cercanos al polo de la inmediatez comunicativa (sobre todo, cartas privadas) del siglo XVIII, el artículo ofrece los resultados de un análisis variacionista en torno a un cambio gramatical que empieza a extenderse en la citada centuria: la inserción del artículo en las cláusulas de relativo oblicuas, en este caso, las introducidas por la preposición con. Los datos muestran que, pese a que la forma etimológica, sin artículo, continúa siendo dominante, algunos contextos lingüisticos comienzan a favorecer la difusión de la variante innovadora, seleccionados como significativos por el análisis de regresión.