The choice of genitive construction in English is conditioned by numerous semantic, syntactic and phonological factors. The present study explores the influence of these factors across different modalities (speech vs writing) and genres (e.g. press, fiction, etc.), and models the mediating effect of language-external variables on internal cognitive and linguistic factors within the context of a probabilistic grammar of genitive choice. The discussion revolves around debates concerning the driving force(s) behind recent changes in newspaper genitives, concluding that the trend reflects a push toward more economical modes of expression in reportage texts. Curiously, analysis finds few significant interactions with low-level processing-related factors, e.g. possessor frequency and lexical density – a surprising result in light of recent research. However, analysis further reveals significant inter-genre variability among several other crucial factors including possessor animacy and final sibilancy, which are significantly reduced in journalistic prose. These latter findings offer indirect evidence in favor of economization, and offer insight into the connections between external stylistic concerns, specific linguistic practices and internal probabilistic weights associated with specific grammatical constructions.

This article introduces a quantitative method for identifying newly emerging word forms in large time-stamped corpora of natural language and then describes an analysis of lexical emergence in American social media using this method, based on a multi-billion-word corpus of Tweets collected between October 2013 and November 2014. In total 29 emerging word forms, which represent various semantic classes, grammatical parts-of-speech and word formation processes, were identified through this analysis. These 29 forms are then examined from various perspectives in order to begin to better understand the process of lexical emergence.

While a number of recent studies have documented the back vowel changes affecting White varieties nationally, few studies have examined back vowel fronting in non-Anglo dialects or compared the social and linguistic commonalties and contrasts in the progress of the shift and the vowel classes affected. The present study explores how ethnic and regional alignment affects the dispersion of fronting in three key back vowel classes, the BOOT, BOOK, and BOAT classes. Using instrumental acoustic measurement of relevant vowel classes, this article will examine both the social and linguistic conditioning governing the fronting of these classes in White and Black speakers in Memphis, TN, looking at these results in light of those found by Anderson, Milroy & Nguyen (2002), Ash (1996), and Labov (1994) elsewhere in the US.

In this article, we draw on a socially stratified corpus of dialect data collected in northeast England to test recent proposals that grammaticalization processes are implicated in the synchronic variability of general extenders (GEs), i.e. phrase- or clause-final constructions such as and that and or something. Combining theoretical insights from the framework of grammaticalization with the empirical methods of variationist sociolinguistics, we operationalize key diagnostics of grammaticalization (syntagmatic length, decategorialization, semantic-pragmatic change) as independent factor groups in the quantitative analysis of GE variability. While multivariate analyses reveal rapid changes in apparent time to the social conditioning of some GE variants in our data, they do not reveal any evidence of systematic changes in the linguistic conditioning of variants in apparent time that would confirm an interpretation of ongoing grammaticalization. These results lead us to question Cheshire's (2007) recent hypothesis that GEs are grammaticalizing in contemporary varieties of British English. They additionally raise caveats with regard to the assumption that the linguistic conditioning of GE variability in contemporary data sets is the product of change.

This article discusses deletion in spoken and written English. It notes that subjects are frequently dropped both in informal spoken English (Napoli 1982; Zwicky & Pullum 1983b) and in certain registers of written English such as diaries (Haegeman 1990, 1997, 2007; Haegeman & Ihsane 1999, 2001). The article argues in favour of Napoli's phonological analysis of left-edge deletion in spoken English, and provides a formalisation of Napoli's account in the framework of Selkirk's (1995, 2001, 2011) optimality-theoretic analysis of syntax–phonology mapping. A comparison is drawn with the case of subject drop in the diary register. Due to the difference in surface distribution of the phenomenon between the spoken and written cases, the analysis cannot transfer directly. However, I suggest that, combined with arguments made by Haegeman (2002) for a sentence-medial position for modifiers in written English, the phonological analysis can account for a large subset of the diary drop cases.

During a merger-in-progress, occasionally one or two speakers will exhibit an unusual phonological pattern reminiscent of flip-flop (Labov et al. 1972). In such cases, the merging vowels appear to move past the point of coalescence in at least one phonetic dimension; difference is maintained but the vowel quality is opposite to the historical pattern on one or both dimensions. Flip-flop between the cot and caught vowels occurs for two speakers in a recent sample from San Francisco, California. The community shows robust change in progress toward a lower and fronter caught vowel nucleus, and no change in apparent time for cot. Further analysis shows that this is leading to a change in apparent time toward merger, and that the rate of vowel convergence is stronger among Chinese Americans than European Americans. The two speakers who produce flip-flop are seen to represent a key transitional generation with respect to the ethnic identity of the neighborhood, where flip-flop may be but one linguistic consequence of a lifetime of active negotiation between conflicting local meanings. The analysis suggests that ethnographic detail and attention to individual outliers allows for more comprehensive models of the range of phenomena associated with vowel mergers.

This article offers a constructional approach to complement-taking mental predicates (CTMPs), e.g. I think, accommodating a whole class of CTMP types (i think, i suppose, i imagine etc.) and their variant forms (e.g. I would think, I should have imagined) in a constructional taxonomy. CTMPs are generally believed to depend on their prototypical simple present form in order to convey an epistemic/evidential meaning. Corpus evidence shows, however, that there exist several variant forms that equally function as interpersonal modifications. Such variation has long presented a stumbling block to studies approaching CTMPs from the point of view of grammaticalization theory, since this framework has traditionally been rather inimical to the idea that a grammaticalized item may encompass a paradigm of variant forms and instead requires internal fixation into an unalterable form. It will be argued that CTMPs should be regarded as constructions constituting a taxonomy characterized by several levels of schematicity. It will be demonstrated that the most frequently used CTMP, i think, has reached the highest degree of entrenchment and schematicity, and consequently sanctions the widest range of variant forms, which are disseminated throughout the taxonomy by virtue of analogization.

In this diachronic study, we shed light on the development of the functions and structural properties of Adverb all, and suggest that degree modifiers in general should be analyzed in similar terms. We show that the harmonic relationship between Adverb all and its head is best accounted for in terms of boundedness rather than gradability (see Kennedy & McNally, 2005; Paradis, 2001). The stability over a millennium of indeterminacy between bounded and unbounded readings of Adverb all + head sequences, and of the ambiguity in many contexts between Adverb and Quantifier-floated all, shows that a division of labor over time between ambiguous meanings is not necessary (Geeraerts, 1997). Despite its long history, Adverb all has been treated as conversational or an innovation (Bäcklund, 1973; Waksler, 2001). We address the question why certain items like all come to be stereotyped as ‘new’ when in fact they are not.

Discussions of modality (e.g. Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca, 1994; Coates, 1983; Lyons, 1977; Palmer, 1986; Traugott, 1989) typically center around two issues: deonticity vs. epistemicity, and degree of subjectivity. Using diachronic evidence from the quasi-modal ought to, this paper argues for the need to recognize a third, crosscutting these two: narrow vs. wide scope. We argue that the epistemic use of ought to developed out of a wide-scope deontic construction, in which the modal was used with deontic meaning, but with propositional scope (contra Bybee, 1988). Rather than attributing an obligation to the subject (i.e. having narrow scope), the modal in this construction makes an assertion about the proposition as a whole, like an epistemic. However, such ought to constructions are found some four hundred years before the first epistemic examples, and thus can be shown to be distinct from epistemic uses (contra Gamon, 1994).

In this corpus-based article we explore the development of evidential meanings in English verbs of appearance, together with their acquisition of evaluative meanings. We explore the relationship of these semantic changes to the question of whether there is an increase in subjectivity diachronically, and we show that subjectivity is orthogonal to both develop-ments: an increase in subjectivity appears rather to go with the spread of small clause constructions.

Degree modifiers, degree words or intensifiers are linguistic elements which convey the degree or the exact value of the quality expressed by the item they modify. They are typically adverbs, as in very hot, really interesting, greatly appreciate or completely absurd, but adjectives may also fulfil this function, as in utter nonsense. As noted by Bolinger (1972: 18), degree words offer a picture of ‘fevered invention’, and without any doubt constitute one of the major areas of grammatical change and renewal in English (Brinton & Arnovik 2006: 441), especially from the Early Modern English period onwards (Peters 1993). It is therefore no surprise that degree modifiers have attracted so much scholarly attention from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Pioneering studies, such as those by Stoffel (1901), Borst (1902) and Fettig (1934), provide comprehensive inventories of intensifying adverbs in both modern and earlier English, as well as valuable insights into how they originated. In the last decade, however, intensifiers have become the object of renewed interest; this can be attributed in part to the development of computerized corpora, and also to advances in theoretical linguistics, more specifically in the study of semantic change and of grammaticalization processes. This renewed interest has focused, for example, on the individual histories of particular degree items as seen from the perspective of grammaticalization, on the competition of different intensifiers within a given period and across time, and on their distribution across different social groups, varieties or registers.

The nominalizing -er suffix has been extremely productive throughout the history of English, and in Present-day English it has developed a wide range of base and referent types. Yet most formal linguistic treatments account satisfactorily for only a fraction of the types of -er nominals actually found. I propose a cognitive model which not only addresses the problems with verb-based forms that are encountered in other models, but includes an account of all the nonverb-based -er nominals as well.

It is generally agreed that the English ‘present tense’ is not appropriately analyzed as indicating present time: present-time events often cannot be expressed in the present tense; conversely, the present tense is often used for nonpresent occurrences. I will argue, however, that these problems are only apparent, arising from a failure to appreciate the numerous conceptual factors that are crucially involved. When these are properly elucidated, using notions available in cognitive semantics and cognitive grammar, the characterization ‘coincidence with the time of speaking’ proves remarkably adequate in accounting for present-tense usage.

This article integrates aspects of synchronic and diachronic phonological theory with points relevant to the study of a nonreference accent in order to investigate the patterns of consonantal lenition found in the variety of English spoken in Liverpool, England. Points of contact with variationist approaches are addressed, partly because the lenitions are variable processes. An implicational understanding of lenition is developed, thanks to which it is possible to describe the prosodic and melodic environments which inhibit the lenitions. New data from a small corpus investigation into Liverpool English are presented and a theoretical and practical methodology is proposed, which enables the data to be investigated. The descriptive focus is on the segments /t/ and /k/, which are typically realized as affricates or fricatives unless the lenition is inhibited. A notion of ‘melodic lenition inhibition’ is developed to account for some of the inhibitory patterns, whereby the sharing of autosegmental phonological elements gives a segment ‘strength’ in certain environments.

The English go future, a quintessential example of grammaticalization, has shown layering with will since at least 1490. To date, most synchronic evidence for this development comes from dialects where be going to represents a sizable proportion of the future temporal reference system. However, in the United Kingdom in the late twentieth century there were still dialects where be going to was only beginning to make inroads, representing a mere 10–15 per cent of future contexts. These varieties offer an effective view of the early stages of grammatical change.

Statistical analysis of nearly 5,000 variable contexts reveals that the use of be going to is increasing across generations, but at different rates, depending on location and orientation to mainstream norms. Major patterns of use mirror previous findings: be going to is favoured for subordinate clauses. However, other widely reported constraints conditioning be going to are radically different across age groups, exposing contrasts between incipient vs later stages of grammaticalization. In the most conservative dialects be going to is strongly correlated with negatives and questions especially in the first person singular. This suggests that these contexts may have been the ‘trigger’ environments for redistribution of meaning of the incoming grammatical form (Hopper & Traugott 1993: 85). The fact that strong effects of negatives and questions endure in contemporary urban varieties (Torres-Cacoullos & Walker 2009) confirms that grammaticalization begins in very specific syntactic contexts, and impacts on the system for generations to come. In contrast, other reported constraints – resistance of be going to in the first person singular and extension to inanimates and far future readings – emerge across generations, suggesting they are later developments.

Taken together, these findings demonstrate how synchronic dialects show us incremental steps in the grammaticalization process. Comparative sociolinguistic analysis thus offers insights into which patterns define the point of grammaticalization itself; which derive from systemic processes; which can be attributed to discourse routines and collocations; and how these factors converge in shaping the evolution of grammar.

This paper concerns the null subject phenomenon attested in abbreviated written registers in English and in French (diaries, instructions) and in informal spoken English. Neither a pro drop analysis nor a topic drop analysis will account for the incompatibility of the English null subjects with wh-preposing and with embedded contexts. Rizzi's (1994) analysis for null subjects in child production is adopted here in a slightly modified form. Like the early null subject, the (adult) null subject in abbreviated registers is an antecedentless empty category in the A-specifier of the root. Null subjects depend on the truncation of CP, which turns the specifier of IP into the highest specifier of the clause. The paper explores apparent noninitial null subjects, i.e. null subjects co-occurring with preposed adjuncts (though not arguments) and shows that these can be accounted for in terms of partial truncation within an articulated CP. The null subject is an antecedentless empty category in the (A-)specifier of an AGR-projection dominating the Topic Projection. The incompatibility with wh-preposing and with argument preposing is accounted for. In a more speculative vein I also consider the deletion of be in the abbreviated styles, which I claim can also be analysed in terms of truncation.

English permits adverbial subordinate clauses to be placed either before or after their associated main clause. Previous research has shown that the positioning is conditioned by various factors from the domains of semantics, discourse pragmatics and language processing. With the exception of Diessel (2008), these factors have never been investigated in concert, which makes it difficult to understand their relative importance. Diessel's study, however, discusses only temporal constructions and identifies iconicity of sequence as the strongest predictor of clause position. Since this explanation is, in principle, unavailable for other types of subordinate clauses, the generalizability of Diessel's findings is somewhat limited. The present study offers a multifactorial analysis of 2,000 concessive constructions from the written part of the BNC and assesses the variable importance of six factors for the ordering choice, showing that semantic and discourse-pragmatic factors are much stronger predictors of clause position than processing-based, weight-related ones. On a methodological note, the study proposes that random forests using conditional inference trees constitute the preferred tool for the general type of problem investigated here.

This article discusses the emerging variation between determiner genitives and noun modifiers in Present-day English. Based on the results of corpus analyses and previous studies I show that this variation (1) was not present in earlier English, and (2) results from the fact that determiner genitives have come to be used with nouns low in animacy while noun modifiers have come to be used with nouns high in animacy (mainly) in the course of Modern English. This semantic shift (or rather ‘convergence’) of genitives and noun modifiers has helped to create contexts which are compatible with both determiner and classifier function, i.e. the functions typically expressed by determiner genitives and noun modifiers, respectively. The article complements earlier work on the gradience between s-genitive constructions and noun+noun constructions (Rosenbach, 2006a), providing fur-ther evidence for the claim that semantic overlap may give rise to constructional gradience.

On the basis of extensive corpus analysis, we reconstruct the history of very and the paths of change along which it acquired new meanings. We propose an analytical model that, firstly, assigns general semantic functions to the (sub)modifier relations in the English noun phrase and, secondly, identifies subsenses of these functions on the basis of collocational, semantic and pragmatic distinctions observed in different contexts. Thus, we arrive at a comprehensive description of the various (sub)modifier relations in which very has functioned in its history. Having been borrowed into English as part of fixed collocations such as very Ihus (‘the true Jesus’) and croice verra (‘the true cross’), very successively acquired the functions of descriptive modifier, noun-intensifier, focus marker, adjective-intensifier, classifier, postdeterminer-intensifier, quantifier-intensifier and postdeterminer. This description allows us to interpret the history of very as a paradigm case of progressive grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification involving leftward movement in the English NP (Adamson 2000). Our analytical model allows us to capture finer mechanisms of change such as collocational extension, pragmatically driven host class expansion, invited inferences and analogy.

This paper examines subject omission in English finite clauses. Contrary to what is claimed in Haegeman (1997), it is shown that embedded subject omission is attested in diary-style registers. These data pose a problem for the theory of empty categories in the Principles and Parameters framework. The main body of the paper describes the contexts in which subjects of embedded finite clauses are omitted. No syntactic constraints have been identified. Based on the observation that the omission of embedded subjects coincides with pronoun omission of reflexives, we tentatively suggest that in specific registers pronoun ellipsis is licensed by a specifier–head relation with a head carrying agreement features.