Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:02:33.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Was/were variation across the generations: View from the city of York

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sali Tagliamonte
Sali Tagliamonte
Affiliation:
University of York
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I describe a new research project on York English (YrkE), a variety in northeast England. In addition to providing the first systematic linguistic documentation of YrkE, I conduct a quantitative analysis of a linguistic feature which not only is well documented in the literature, but also recurs pervasively in varieties of English worldwide—was/were variation in the past tense paradigm. Two separate tendencies are observed, neither of which can be explained by any unidimensional notion of analogical leveling of the paradigm: (1) nonstandard was in existential constructions, and (2) nonstandard were in negative tags. Both trends can be tracked in apparent time in which the contrasting behavior of men and women reveals that women are leading both types of linguistic change. In other contexts, nonstandard was is a synchronic remnant which can be traced to earlier stages in the history of English.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , July 1998 , pp. 153 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, A. (1974). Stability and change in an English county town: A social study of York, 1801–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bock, K. J. (1992). Regulating mental energy: Performance unites in language production. Journal of Memory and Language 31:99–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, K. J., & Eberhard, K. M. (1993). Meaning, sound and syntax in English number agreement. Language and Cognitive Processes 8:57–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, K. J., & Kroch, A. S. (1988). The isolability of syntactic processing. In Carlson, G. N. & Tanenhaus, M. K. (Eds.), Linguistic structure in language processing. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 157–196.Google Scholar
Bock, K. J., & Miller, C. A. (1991). Broken agreement. Cognitive Psychology 23:45–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breivik, L. E. (1983). Existential there: A synchronic and diachronic study (Vol. 2). Bergen: Department of English, University of Bergen.Google Scholar
Britain, D. (forthcoming). Was/weren't levelling in Fenland English. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics.Google Scholar
Brittain, L. (1778). Rudiments of English grammar. Louvain.Google Scholar
Brunner, K. (1970). An outline of Middle English grammar. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K. (1995). Sociolinguistic theory: Linguistic variation and its social significance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K. (1997, 04). Mass media and literacy in language change. Paper presented at Invited Lecture Series, University of York.Google Scholar
Cheshire, J. (1982). Variation in an English dialect: A Sociolinguistic study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Christian, D., Wolfram, W., & Dube, N. (1988). Variation and change in geographically isolated communities: Appalachian English and Ozark English (No. 74). Tuscaloosa, AL: American Dialect Society.Google Scholar
Corrigan, K. (in progress). A diachronic syntactic analysis of South Armagh English, 1942–1974, Manuscript, University of Newcastle.Google Scholar
Curme, G. O. (1977). A grammar of the English language (Vol. 1–2). Essex, CT: Verbatim.Google Scholar
de Wolf, G. D. (1990). Social and regional differences in grammatical usage in Canadian English: Ottawa and Vancouver. American Speech 65:3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diesing, M. (1992). Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Earle, J. (1887). The philology of the English tongue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eisikovits, E. (1991). Variation in subject-verb agreement in Inner Sydney English. In Cheshire, J. (Ed.), English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 235–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, A. J. (1869–1889). On early English pronunciation: With especial reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer (Vol. 1–5). New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Feagin, C. (1979). Variation and change in Alabama English: A Sociolinguistic study of the White community. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Forsström, G. (1948). The verb ‘to be’ in Middle English: A survey of the forms. Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup.Google Scholar
Hazen, K. (1996). Dialect affinity and subject-verb concord: The Appalachian Outer Banks. The SECOL Review 20:25–53.Google Scholar
Henry, A. (1995). Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, O. H. (1954). A modern English grammar on historical principles. Part VI. Morphology. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. H. (1964). Essentials of English grammar. University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Johansson, S. (1979). American and British English grammar: An elicitation experiment. English Studies 60:195–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroch, A. S. (1989). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1:199–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W. (1996). The leaders of linguistic change. Paper presented at NWAVE-XXV, Las Vegas, NV.Google Scholar
Labov, W., Cohen, P., Robins, C., & Lewis, J. (1968). A study of the non-standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City. Comparative Research Report, U.S. Regional Survey, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (1992). Phonology and morphology. In Blake, N. (Ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 23–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meechan, M. (1992, 10). In search of the missing link: Copula contraction in Canadian English. Paper presented at NWAVE-XXI, Ann Arbor, MI.Google Scholar
Meechan, M., & Foley, M. (1994). On resolving disagreement: Linguistic theory and variation— There's bridges. Language Variation and Change 6:63–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, J., & Milroy, L. (1993). Real English: The grammar of English dialects in the British Isles. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Milroy, L. (1987). Observing and analysing natural language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Milroy, L. (1996). Variation as an interactional resource? Paper presented at NWAVE-XXV, Las Vegas, NV.Google Scholar
Milsark, G. L. (1977). Towards an explanation of certain peculiarities of the existential construction in English. Linguistic Analysis 3:1–31.Google Scholar
Montgomery, M. B. (1989). The pace of change in Appalachian English. English World Wide 10:227–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mossé, F. (1952). A handbook of Middle English. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, J. A. H. (1873). The dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland: Its pronunciation, grammar and historical relations. London: Philological Society.Google Scholar
Orton, H. (1962). Survey of English dialects, Introduction. Leeds: E. J. Arnold.Google Scholar
Orton, H., & Halliday, W. J. (1963). Survey of English dialects, the basic material, the six northern counties and the Isle of Man (Vol. 1, Part 3). Leeds: E. J. Arnold.Google Scholar
Orton, H., Sanderson, S., & Widdowson, J. (1978). The linguistic atlas of England. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (1979). Function and process in a variable phonology. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Poplack, S., & Tagliamonte, S. (1991). African American English in the diaspora: The case of old-line Nova Scotians. Language Variation and Change 3:301–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyles, T. (1964). The origins and development of the English language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
Pyles, T., & Algeo, J. (1993). The origins and development of the English language. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., & Wrenn, C. L. (1960). An Old English grammar. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Rand, D., & Sankoff, D. (1990). GoldVarb. A variable rule application for the Macintosh (Version 2). Montreal: Centre de recherches mathématiques, Université de Montréal.Google Scholar
Schilling-Estes, N., & Wolfram, W. (1994). Convergent explanation and alternative regularization patterns: Were/weren't leveling in a vernacular English variety. Language Variation and Change 6:273–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smallwood, C. (1997). Dis-agreement in Canadian English existentials. Paper presented at the Canadian Linguistics Association, St. John, Newfoundland.Google Scholar
Smith, J., & Tagliamonte, S. (1998). We was all thegither, I think we were all thegither. Was variability in Buckie English. World Englishes 17:105–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stenström, A.-B., & Andersen, G. (1996). More trends in teenage talk: A corpus-based investigation of the discourse items cos and innit. In Percy, C. E., Meyer, C. F., & Lancashire, I. (Eds.), Synchronic corpus linguistics: Papers from the sixteenth International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 189–203.Google Scholar
Strang, B. M. H. (1966). Some features of S-V concord in present-day English. In Cellini, I. & Melchiori, G. (Eds.), English Studies today. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. 73–87.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S., & Smith, J. (forthcoming). Old was; new ecology: Viewing English through the sociolinguistic filter. In Poplack, S. (Ed.), The English history of African American English. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Traugott, E. C. (1972). A history of English syntax. A transformational approach to the history of English sentence structures. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1990). The dialects of England. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Visser, F. T. (1970). An historical syntax of the English language. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Wolfram, W. (1997, 04). Alternative regularization patterning and ethnic marking in a tri-ethnic rural southern community. Paper presented at SECOL 56, Charlotte, NC.Google Scholar
Wolfram, W., & Christian, D. (1976). Appalachian speech. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar