{"title":"Contextualizing /s/ retraction: Sibilant variation and change in Washington D.C. African American Language","authors":"Kaylynn Gunter, Charlotte Vaughn, Tyler Kendall","doi":"10.1017/S095439452100020X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S095439452100020X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent work has demonstrated an ongoing change across varieties of English in which /s/ retracts before consonants, particularly before /tɹ/ clusters (e.g., Lawrence, 2000; Shapiro, 1995; Stuart-Smith et al., 2019). Much of this work has focused on the social and linguistic distributions of /stɹ/ within single communities, without an examination of the broader sibilant space (e.g., /s/ and /ʃ/). Meanwhile, analyses across multiple corpora have shown that /s/ and /ʃ/ also show within-community variability, beyond /stɹ/ contexts (Stuart-Smith et al., 2019, 2020). Intersecting these approaches, this paper explores sibilant variation and change across /stɹ/, /s/, and /ʃ/ using a corpus of Washington D.C. African American Language (AAL). Results indicate that /stɹ/-retraction is a stable variant in this variety of AAL and /s/ and /ʃ/ show evidence of socially stratified variation and change. Overall, this paper demonstrates the need to examine the sibilant space more holistically when examining changes in /stɹ/.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"331 - 357"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42502668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Word-order variation in a contact setting: A corpus-based investigation of Russian spoken in Daghestan","authors":"C. Naccarato, A. Panova, N. Stoynova","doi":"10.1017/S095439452100017X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S095439452100017X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper deals with word-order variation in a situation of language contact. We present a corpus-based investigation of word order in the variety of Russian spoken in Daghestan, focusing specifically on noun phrases with a genitive modifier. In Daghestanian Russian, the nonstandard word order GEN+N (prepositive or left genitive) often occurs. At first glance, this phenomenon might be easily explained in terms of syntactic calquing from the speakers’ left-branching L1s. However, the order GEN+N does not occur with the same frequency in all types of genitive noun phrases but is affected by several lexicosemantic and formal features of both the head and the genitive modifier. Therefore, we are not dealing with simple pattern borrowing. Rather, L1 influence strengthens certain universal tendencies that are not motivated by contact. The comparison with monolinguals’ Russian, in which prepositive genitives sporadically occur too, supports this hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"387 - 411"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48565431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structure, Chronology, and Local Social Meaning of a Supra-Local Vowel Shift: Emergence of the Low-Back-Merger Shift in New England","authors":"Monica Nesbitt, James Stanford","doi":"10.1017/S0954394521000168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394521000168","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Low-Back-Merger Shift (LBMS) is a major North American vowel chain shift spreading across many disparate dialect regions. In this field-based study, we examine the speech of fifty-nine White Western Massachusetts speakers, aged 18–89. Using diagnostics in Becker (2019) and Boberg (2019b), we find the LBMS emerging at the expense of the Northern Cities Shift (Labov, Yaeger, & Steiner, 1972) and traditional New England features (Boberg, 2001; Kurath, 1939; Nagy & Roberts, 2004). In Becker's LBMS model (2019:9), the low-back merger (lot-thought) triggers front-vowel shifts. Our results suggest that local social meaning can sometimes override this chronology such that the front-vowel shifts occur before the low-back merger, even as the overall configuration comes to match Becker's predictions. Sociosymbolic meaning associated with the older New England system has led to a different temporal ordering of LBMS components, thus providing new theoretical and empirical insights into the mechanisms by which supralocal patterns are adopted.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"269 - 295"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47102019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lifespan “Changes from Above” in the Standardization of Japanese Regional Dialects: Levels of Grammar, Lexical Properties and Community Characteristics","authors":"Shoji Takano","doi":"10.1017/S0954394521000211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394521000211","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines sociolinguistic properties of lifespan changes in language use from a non-Western perspective. Based on real-time studies in a change from above context (standardization) and panel surveys of prosody, the paper demonstrates that the stability of individuals’ language use over time varies along the following interwoven factors: (1) levels of grammar; (2) lexical properties; (3) progressive stages of a community in transition; and (4) locally constructed social identities. While segmental phonology and morphosyntax remain intact, lexical accents and vocabulary items tend to change in close linkage to sociolinguistic properties of individual words. Such changes are also motivated by the coexistence of an incoming standard, revitalized traditional dialect, and newly emerging “diaglossic” in-between variants in a community that is shifting to bidialectalism. Lifespan changes could also be community-specific, varying even within a single dialect region between two communities across which the stages of standardization and members’ locally constructed social identities differ.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"297 - 329"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43658327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New ways of analyzing complementizer drop in Montréal French: Exploration of cognitive factors","authors":"Yiming Liang, Pascal Amsili, Heather Burnett","doi":"10.1017/S0954394521000223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394521000223","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, we return to the well-studied yet still puzzling phenomenon of complementizer omission in a large spoken corpus of Quebec French, with the help of modern computational methods for annotation and mixed effects logistic regression models. Supporting previous work, our study reveals that complementizer que omission is conditioned by social factors and grammatical factors; however, we also find that que omission is conditioned by cognitive factors such as information density. Our paper thus illustrates an important way in which older variationist corpora can continue to be valuable resources for studying fine-grained patterns of variation, particularly in their cognitive aspects.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"359 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41618052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crosslinguistic perceptions of /s/ among English, French, and German listeners","authors":"Zack Boyd, Josef Fruehwald, Lauren Hall-Lew","doi":"10.1017/S0954394521000089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394521000089","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study reports the results of a crosslinguistic matched guise test examining /s/ and pitch variation in judgments of sexual orientation and nonnormative masculinity among English, French, and German listeners. Listeners responded to /s/ and pitch manipulations in native and other language stimuli (English, French, German, and Estonian). All listener groups rate higher pitch guises as more gay- and effeminate-sounding than lower pitch guises. However, only English listeners hear [s+] guises as more gay- and effeminate-sounding than [s] or [s−] guises for all stimuli languages. French and German listeners do not hear [s+] guises as more gay- or effeminate-sounding in any stimulus language, despite this feature's presence in native speech production. English listener results show evidence of indexical transfer, when indexical knowledge is applied to the perception of unknown languages. French and German listener results show how the enregistered status of /s/ variation affects perception, despite crosslinguistic similarities in production.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"165 - 191"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0954394521000089","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43854782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Creoles conform to typological patterns? Habitual marking in Palenquero—Erratum","authors":"Hiram L. Smith","doi":"10.1017/s0954394521000156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954394521000156","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"33 1","pages":"267 - 267"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s0954394521000156","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42485237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}