This article describes a morphosyntactic feature of the Xining dialect that is unique among all Chinese dialects: that is, the use of a postposition to express ablative nominal relationships. The postposition [t[curly-tail lowercase c]ia] is invariably pronounced in the neutral tone and has no cognates in either earlier varieties of Chinese or among present Chinese dialects. The morpheme's origin is shown to have come from a neighboring non-Sinitic language. Moreover, the variations within the syntactic expression of the ablative are correlated with various sociolinguistic groups. These correlations suggest an ongoing change in the dialect's morphosyntactic system of a kind rarely observed among Chinese dialects. Finally, the process of linguistic change is correlated with demographic changes within the Xining region that show Xining is a place where language contact and rapid linguistic change are likely to be found.

In this article we address Labov's claim that sound changes that are not stigmatized are led especially by young women who are the “movers and shakers” in the community, people with energy and enterprise. Such young women, at the same time, are conservative with respect to sound changes or stable linguistic variables that are stigmatized. We investigated this claim by comparing the pronunciation of the non-stigmatized front vowels /I/, /ε/, and /æ/ with that of the stigmatized diphthongs /ai/ and /a[inverted omega]/ in New Zealand English. When we considered the pronunciation of each variable, the young women did not unequivocally support Labov's claim. However, when we examined the behavior of individual speakers across the two sets of variables, Labov's claim was supported. This result leads us to emphasize the importance of considering the behavior of individual speakers in a more holistic way rather than focusing only on the averaged data for single variables.

This article deals with divergence on the lexical, phonological, and morphological levels in three dialects that were the same until the mid-20th century (Maaseiks in Belgium, Susters in the Netherlands, and Waldfeuchts in Germany) and that have changed under the influence of three different standard languages (Belgian Dutch, Netherlandic Dutch, and Standard German). The investigation is carried out among girls aged 14 to 16 years and women aged 35 to 50 years. Due to the unique laboratory-like situation, it was possible to gain a detailed understanding of the role of the structure of the dialect and the dialect–standard language situation in the process of dialect change under the influence of a standard language. The data indicate that the linguistic route of the change is largely the same for all dialects. This means that the receiving dialect plays an important part in the linguistic embedding of a change. However, the rationale of the linguistic road is still far from clear. The divergence of the similar dialects occurred relatively recently. Whereas the women of the three places use the old dialect forms almost exclusively, the girls use forms of the standard languages or “mixed” forms, especially in Waldfeucht. The dialect of Waldfeucht is clearly affected much more strongly by Standard German than are the dialect of Maaseik by Belgian Dutch and the dialect of Susteren by Netherlandic Dutch. This can be explained by a number of factors: the position of the dialect at school, comprehensibility of the dialect, attitude towards the dialect, and the use of the dialect.

The present study examines the pattern of the variation of the auxiliary avoir and être in the passé composé tense in Vermont French in 22 adult speakers who migrated from Québec or are first-generation Franco-Americans. The purpose of the study is to determine if the process of replacement of être by avoir in progress in Canadian French is also taking place in Vermont and which linguistic and social constraints influence this linguistic change. Results of the study reveal that the process of replacement of être by avoir is also taking place in Vermont, and that it is significantly favored by the presence of a main verb that has a transitive homonym and by the presence of a low-frequency main verb. The fact that social factors do not significantly influence this replacement indicates a later stage of linguistic change, supporting patterns found in the literature of language death.

This article aims to contribute (1) new data on verbal -s by systematically examining its behavior in Devon English (DE), a variety spoken in southwest England, and (2) a broader historical and cross-dialectal perspective for understanding the origin and function of verbal -s in nonstandard varieties of English in North America. We focus on the linguistic contexts of its occurrence from the diachronic and synchronic literature. The results show that verbal -s is conditioned by phonological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical factors. These include the few variable constraints on verbal -s attested throughout the evolution of verbal -s in the history of the English language. Moreover, DE exhibits patterns of verbal -s variability that have previously been associated with African American Vernacular English (AAVE). The detailed nature of these linguistic correspondences—not only in frequency of the features examined, but most importantly in the details of an entire set of internal linguistic factors conditioning them—reveal that verbal -s is a linguistic feature of AAVE that originated in British dialects.