{"title":"A corpus-based quantitative analysis of twelve centuries of preterite and past participle morphology in Dutch","authors":"Isabeau De Smet, Freek Van de Velde","doi":"10.1017/S0954394520000101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394520000101","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Germanic preterite morphology has been the subject of a bewildering number of studies, looking especially at the competition between the so-called strong inflection (operating with ablaut), and the so-called weak inflection (operating with suffixation). In this study over 250,000 observations from twelve centuries of Dutch were analyzed in a generalized linear mixed-effect model gauging the effects of a multitude of language-internal factors, ranging from various frequency measures to various form-related factors and how they interact with each other. This study confirms the well-known effects of token and type frequency, finding that formal similarities can be both a driving and conservative force in language change and demonstrates that not all members (i.e., preterites and past participles) of a verb paradigm change at the same time, which is both an effect of their frequency and their formal coherence within the paradigm.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"32 1","pages":"241 - 265"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0954394520000101","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47598301","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":"The split of a fricative merger due to dialect contact and societal changes: A sociophonetic study on Andalusian Spanish read-speech","authors":"Brendan Regan","doi":"10.1017/S0954394520000113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394520000113","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In line with a growing body of literature suggesting that mergers are reversible given the adequate dialect contact and social context, the present study examines the phonetic split of the Andalusian Spanish merger of ceceo into the Castilian Spanish feature of distinción. Specifically, the study analyzes 19,420 coronal fricatives produced by 80 Western Andalusian speakers from the city of Huelva and the nearby town of Lepe using a reading passage and wordlist. The analyses find that leaders of this change are younger speakers, women, those with more educational attainment, those of service and professional occupations, and those from Huelva. The implications are that large-scale societal changes have allowed for the split of the ceceo merger into distinción in both speech communities, albeit at different rates of change due to their unique socioeconomic histories, demonstrating that a split is possible given the right social context.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"32 1","pages":"159 - 190"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0954394520000113","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43918784","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 -way(s) with -ward(s): lexicalization, splitting and sociolinguistic patterns","authors":"Karlien Franco, Sali A. Tagliamonte","doi":"10.1017/S0954394520000083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394520000083","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper investigates the distribution of a morphological variable that has not gained much attention in the literature: adverbial -s versus -Ø. This morpheme predominantly occurs with adverbs ending in -ward(s), like forward(s), afterward(s), and inward(s), or -way(s), such as anyway(s) or halfway(s). Using a large database of sociolinguistic interviews of Ontario English and an apparent-time perspective, we show that the use of the variants changes over the twentieth century, with the adverbial suffixes -ward(s) and -way(s) behaving differently. -Ward(s) shows a trend towards -s, while most words in -way(s) increasingly take -Ø–splitting by adverbial suffix. Anyway(s) is an exception to this pattern, with a change from below towards -s, strongly conditioned by social standing. We also find evidence for lexicalization of forms without -s in phrasal verbs like to move forward. We explain these findings against the background of variationist sociolinguistic theory and principles of language change.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"32 1","pages":"217 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0954394520000083","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49394041","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":"Linking gender, sexuality, and affect: The linguistic and social patterning of phrase-final posttonic lengthening","authors":"Lewis Esposito","doi":"10.1017/S0954394520000095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394520000095","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper furthers our understanding of the social forces driving prosodic variation by reporting on production and perception studies of phrase-final posttonic lengthening in American English. Building on past research showing gender-based variation in the production of phrase-final lengthening, I show that this gender effect surfaces only when comparing straight men and straight women. Gay men and straight women lengthen their phrase-final posttonic syllables equally, and both groups do so more than straight men. A matched-guise social-perception experiment shows that listeners associate increased lengthening not only with femininity and male gayness, but with expressive affect. I suggest that the link between increased lengthening and expressive affect is forged iconically and that this link underlies the gender and sexuality patterns observed in the production study. What surfaces from this work theoretically is how variability in expressions of affect may drive correlations between gender/sexuality-based categories and linguistic variants.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"32 1","pages":"191 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0954394520000095","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48406406","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":"Variation and change in the short vowels of Delhi English","authors":"Raphaël Domange","doi":"10.1017/S0954394520000010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394520000010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although the sound system of Indian English has been the object of numerous publications over the years, there has been a remarkable scarcity of variationist sociolinguistic research carried out on the topic. The present study addresses this gap by describing the short front vowels of 22 lifelong English-speaking Delhi residents born between 1948 and 1992. Focusing more specifically on variation in the relative configuration of trap /æ/, dress /ɛ/, and kit /ɪ/, the study provides apparent-time evidence for a series of interrelated changes affecting the system. Those include an ongoing lowering of /æ/ and /ɛ/, as well as age-related variation in a previously unreported allophonic split of /ɪ/. I argue that these apparent-time patterns are amenable to an analysis in terms of chain shift, and I discuss the implications of such a claim, linking the phenomenon described to similar patterns reported in various other parts of the English-speaking world.","PeriodicalId":46949,"journal":{"name":"Language Variation and Change","volume":"32 1","pages":"49 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0954394520000010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41577391","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}