1 - Comparing Syntactic Variables

Summary

This chapter deconstructs and compares two English syntactic variables as case studies to explore the linguistic/social interface in variation. The two variables are: (1) complementizer alternation (that/Ø) and (2) subject relative pronoun alternation (who/that/Ø). While both are internally and externally conditioned, the nature and strength of the predictors (also known as factors) differ significantly. I argue that the results from quantitative linguistic analysis, statistical modelling and a comparative perspective grounded in social and historical context provide unique insight into the synergy of social, cognitive, stylistic and linguistic factors. In the case of complementizers, the overwhelming influence of verb is the linguistic footprint that a particular collocation (e.g. I think) has grammaticalized into an epistemic parenthetical away from the original matrix plus complement construction. In the case of relative pronouns, the preponderance of who for subject, animate antecedents aligns with a well-known typological pattern (i.e. human animates contrast with non-humans), which is overlain with social evaluation originating from its prestigious origins that endures in current usage in the speech community. In sum, interpreting the varying roles played by multiplex influences on linguistics features is key to understanding variation.

1.1 Introduction

Studies of language variation and change in the variationist tradition (Labov 1969) are based on the assumption that both linguistic and social factors are implicated in language variation and change. Indeed, the embedding of linguistic phenomena in the speech community is one of the five founding problems for the study of variation (Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968, 185–6):

1. i. Constraints What are the constraints on change?

2. ii. Transition How does language change?

3. iii. Embedding How is a given language change embedded in social and linguistic systems?

4. iv. Evaluation How do members of a speech community evaluate a given change and what is the effect of this evaluation on the change?

5. v. Actuation Why did a given linguistic change occur at a particular time and place that it did?

This chapter grapples specifically with the embedding problem and the evaluation problem, which involve both social and linguistic systems. On one hand, language-internal mechanisms are involved, including analogy, reanalysis, metaphorical extension and others (Joseph 2004, 61). On the other hand, social influences can impact variation as well, from broad categorizations such as (biological) sex, level of education, social class and other externally defined factors (Labov 1963, 1966) to style, attention to speech, audience and stance (Bell 1984, 2002).

Over the past forty years or more, variationist work has consistently demonstrated these cross-cutting influences of the language/society interface (e.g. Labov 1963; Sankoff 1980; Tagliamonte 1998). Studies using quantitative methods typically test social categories such as age, sex, education and job type along with a broad range of linguistic factors. More recently, additional predictors have led to novel insights such as considerations of processing (Grondelaers et al. 2009), psycholinguistic influences (Grondelaers and Speelman 2007), prescriptivism-related predictors (Hinrichs, Szmrecsanyi and Bohmann 2014) and stance (Kiesling 2009). However, simply testing and reporting the results of a myriad of variegated predictors is not sufficient to understand and explain syntactic variation; it is also necessary to understand what the function of the variation is in the grammar and what it means in the history and current state of the community. As I demonstrate in this chapter, deconstructing two syntactic variables and comparing the patterns of variation across them offers fresh insights into the relationship between linguistic and social predictors in the analysis of variation and its explanatory adequacy.

To elucidate these ideas I consider two syntactic linguistic variables: the alternation between that and zero complementizers, henceforth variable (that); and between that, who and zero relative pronouns, henceforth variable (who). The foundation of my observations and discussion comes from previous analyses conducted on these variables in large spoken language corpora from two communities: York, England (YRK) and Toronto, Canada (TOR) (Tagliamonte and Smith 2005; D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010; Tagliamonte 2012).¹

1.2 The Variables – Complementizers and Relative Pronouns

Variable (that) and variable (who) involve syntactic structure. Both focus on the linguistic form that links a subordinate clause with a matrix clause. The first variable is the choice of complementizer, as in (1). The second case is the choice of subject relative pronoun, as in (2). Note the alternation in closely proximate utterances.

1. (1) I always said that I wouldn’t leave it a five year gap … and so I always said Ø I wanted them very close together. (YRK, female, 31)

1. (2) There’s one lady that lives in my building who had been in a concentration camp. (TOR, female, 83)

The mechanisms that underlie the frequency and patterning of these variants are essentially linguistic, involving the nature of the syntactic constituents and grammatical categories involved, for example subject versus object, lexical verb, syntactic construction (e.g. existential) and others. Issues involved with syntactic reanalysis come to the forefront with regard to the complementizer (Elsness 1984; Thompson and Mulac 1991a; Cheshire 1996; Jaeger 2005; Tagliamonte and Smith 2005; Torres Cacoullos and Walker 2009). Social, interactional and register-based factors are prominent in discussions of the choice of relative pronouns (Shnukal 1981; Guy and Bayley 1995; Ball 1996; Sigley 1997; Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2002; Tagliamonte 2002b; D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010). The question is: What do the different variable profiles of these syntactic variables reveal about the synergy of social and linguistic factors more generally?

At the outset, there are important distinguishing characteristics that set these two variables apart. One variable simply involves presence or absence of that in its function as a complementizer. The other involves a similar overt versus covert alternation, that and zero, but with the added dimension of an overt wh- form, mostly who. While both linguistic variables involve the same overt form that, the internal structure of each variable is unique. The different variants of each variable appear with varying degrees of productivity. For variable (that), the zero variant dominates and there is no attested social nuance attached to the use of zero. The internal origin, that is, change from below (see Labov 1972), of the zero variant of the complementizer may be the explanation. For variable (who) the that variant dominates, but who is prescribed as standard. In this case, the origin and history of who is key. The wh- forms entered the English relative pronoun system as an exogenous change, instigated by contact with another system (i.e. French) (see D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2015). This external origin of the wh- variants as a change from above has a major impact on the way that linguistic and social factors play out in variation.

1.3 The Data

The data under consideration comprise an uncommonly large compendium of vernacular spoken language. These materials were collected in the UK and Canada between 1997 and 2010 according to standard sociolinguistic procedures, using ethnological fieldwork, conversational interviewing (i.e. the ‘sociolinguistic interview’; and judgement sampling (Labov 1972; Tagliamonte 2006; Schilling 2013). In the UK, the data come from York, a city in the north-east of England (Tagliamonte 1998), and small towns and villages all over the UK (Tagliamonte 2013). In Canada, the data come from Toronto, the largest city in Canada (Tagliamonte 2003–6). The corpora comprise speakers born and raised in the communities, and in most cases from pre-adolescents to senior citizens. For all intents and purposes, these data provide a comprehensive body of materials for analysing variable (that) and variable (who) in two major varieties of English.

1.4 Method

In order to study linguistic variation so as to provide a useful characterization of the grammatical mechanism(s) giving rise to variability, it is necessary to use careful methodological practice and appropriate statistical tools. Each of the ensuing analyses was founded on the exacting procedures developed in language variationist and change research. First, all contexts of the variable were circumscribed, extracted and coded according to existing protocols (Tagliamonte and Smith 2005; Tagliamonte, Smith and Lawrence 2005). Second, the main constraints tested in contemporary studies in the extant literature were operationalized. Third, each of the variables was probed using distributional analyses and cross-tabulations (e.g. Guy 1993; Wolfram 1993; Tagliamonte 2006). Finally, statistical tools were used to model the simultaneous application of multiple predictors (Labov 1994a, 3) while at the same time taking into account their possible interactions. In these investigations fixed effects logistic regression using Goldvarb (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith 2005) was employed in the original analyses, and some newer techniques using R, a language and environment for statistical computing (R Core Team 2007), were implemented in this updated comparison. The results expose regularities and tendencies from the data, namely the predictors that predispose the occurrence of the variants and the strength of the influence of each predictor. The choice of linguistic form may be probabilistically conditioned by specific characteristics of the internal linguistic environments in which it occurs, providing decisive insights into the inner mechanisms of grammatical organization.

The evidence for interpreting and understanding the results from the analysis comes from (1) frequency, (2) patterns, that is, the constraint hierarchy of the relevant predictors, and (3) the relative strength of the predictors (Tagliamonte 2002a, 2006). If the variable is conditioned by the same factors across communities, which in turn are ranked in the same order, this will be evidence of shared grammatical patterns (Poplack and Tagliamonte 2001; Labov 2007). If the patterns of the variants are found to be systematically different between the UK and Canada, then this will be evidence of locally situated usage patterns. Synthesizing all this information will lead to a greater understanding of the underlying processes that have led to contemporary patterns. This will establish a more accurate perspective of the synchronic variability across diverse populations and offer a map of the trajectory of linguistic change.

The evidence from variant frequency provides an indication of the appropriation and diffusion of forms as well as a baseline for comparison. However, frequency alone is not definitive because it can fluctuate considerably from one individual to the next, or one situation to the next, under the influence of topic, style or another external force (Tagliamonte 2002a). Patterns (i.e. constraints) are known to remain stable across diverse circumstances. They provide a measure of the variable grammar of the new form and offer insight into its phase of development (Poplack and Tagliamonte 2001, chapter 5). The method of comparing frequency, constraints and the relative weight of factors is often referred to as ‘comparative sociolinguistics’ (e.g. Tagliamonte 2002a). This technique was specifically developed for assessing correspondences across corpora and so is particularly appropriate for making comparisons across the UK and Canadian communities.

1.5 Variable (that)

Variation in the presence versus absence of the English complementizer that versus zero is widely studied and considered ubiquitous in English (Pesetsky 1982; Warner 1982; Elsness 1984; Rissanen 1991; Thompson and Mulac 1991a; Rohdenburg 1998; Tagliamonte and Smith 2005). Jespersen (1954, 38) suggested that the alternation is simply the result of ‘momentary fancy’. Since then, two theories regarding this variation have been proposed. The first claims that the zero variant is the result of grammaticalization of certain collocations into epistemic parentheticals, particularly I think (Thompson and Mulac 1991a, 1991b). These constructions are thought to have developed out of the structure in which complementizers are found, that is, I think that, but instead of functioning as a matrix clause these collocations have become reanalysed as discourse-pragmatic features indicating the speaker’s degree of ‘commitment to a proposition’ or to his or her beliefs about it (Denis 2015, 152, fn. 1). The second theory suggests that the alternation between the overt form and the zero variant is the result of processing effects whereby the complementizer, that, only occurs under conditions of structural complexity (Rohdenburg 1998). Which explanation is correct? The next step is to subject these hypotheses to empirical testing.

A valuable starting point is to situate variation. Where does it fit in time, space and with respect to society? Consider the use of complementizer variation in the history of English, as in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Frequency of zero complementizers in the history of English

This trajectory shows that the zero complementizer increases incrementally from Wycliffe’s sermons (1300s) (Warner 1982) to Early Modern English (1400–1700) (Rissanen 1991). These points in the evolution of this system come from written materials. The last three points on the trajectory come from contemporary spoken English: two Canadian locations (Quebec and Toronto) and one British (York) (Tagliamonte and Smith 2005; Torres Cacoullos and Walker 2009; Tagliamonte 2012). While written and spoken data are undoubtedly very different types of data, Figure 1.1 shows a regular pattern of development towards more and more zero forms.

Despite the longitudinal trajectory of change visible in Figure 1.1, the zero variant is not a change that has gone to completion. In contemporary spoken language, variation between overt and zero forms can be found within most speakers, and in the same speaker in the same stretch of discourse, as in (3a–b) from Walter Edwards,² an elderly man aged seventy-two born and raised in York, England.

1. (3)

   a.	Uh my mother decided that uh she’d have a- a new house built. (YRK, male, 72)
   b.	My mother, at the end of the meal, suddenly decided Ø she’d go to- in to town. (YRK, male, 72)

The question is, what is influencing the choice of one variant over the other? The extensive body of research on this variable has uncovered a set of significant constraints operating on the choice of form. These include the matrix verb (e.g. think), the grammatical person of the matrix, tense and intervening material (e.g. I really think). These constraints can be related to the two theories about the variation. If there is an ongoing process of grammaticalization in which particular collocations such as I think, I mean, I guess are gradually becoming epistemic parentheticals, then certain features of the contexts will become more prominent, such as the verb think, first-person and present tense. Indeed, there will also be an intervening period of ambiguity during which time some of the contexts that have no that but appear in constructions that are consistent with matrix + complement clauses may be interpreted as either complements or epistemic parentheticals, as in (4a–b). However, because the grammatical development takes place over a period of time, different constructions can remain layered in the language as well as in individuals: I think can function as an epistemic parenthetical (4a–b) or it can function as the matrix clause of a complement, as in (5a–b).

1. (4)

   a.	I think they mostly went into service in those days. (YRK, female, 63)
   b.	I think we pretty well all sound the same, you know. (TOR, male, 72)

1. (5)

   a.	I think that if you start sitting about vegetating you’ve had it haven’t you? (YRK, female, 63)
   b.	I think that the government is doing it on purpose. (TOR, male, 72)

Through the transition period tendencies can be observed in the linguistic data. Epistemic parentheticals tend to occur with first- and second-person subjects over other grammatical persons (Thompson and Mulac 1991a, 242), and the expression of the speaker’s beliefs are typically constructed with present tense (Tagliamonte and Smith 2005). This is observed earlier in (4) as well as in (6).

1. (6)

   a.	I guess we’re not doing that this year. (TOR, female, 19)
   b.	You know they didn’t know what you were saying. (TOR, female, 83)
   c.	I mean I used to go down to the Kensington Market. (TOR, male, 60)

Table 1.1 shows what happens when all the constructions in the data that comprise I think, you know and I mean are examined separately. The frequency of zero complementizers is near categorical, suggesting that these constructions have already undergone reanalysis to epistemic parentheticals and should be removed from consideration when the variation between that and zero is under the microscope.

Table 1.1 Frequency of zero in I think, you know, I mean

Matrix collocation	%	N	Total N
I think	98.5	974	989
you know	99	535	541
I mean	100	428	428

Once these collocations are removed, the remaining data set still exhibits robust variation, including the possibility of overt that when these same matrix verbs (i.e. think, know, mean) occur in linguistic environments other than their collocation, that is, with grammatical subjects, for example she or we with think and mean, as in (7a–b), or first-person singular, I, with know, as in (7c). This suggests that the foundation for the emergence of epistemic parentheticals was a variable system that was already hospitable to this development.

1. (7)

   a.	She thinks that fish can get in your pool. (TOR, female, 13)
   b.	We didn’t know that I’d actually go there. (TOR, female, 12)
   c.	I know that he is going to sell this in a week. (TOR, female, 54)

Another influence that operates on this variation is the nature of the subject of the complement clause. Pronominal subjects are said to be more likely to encode the topic of the discourse (Thompson and Mulac 1991a, 248). Thompson and Mulac’s claim is that this makes the preceding material – if it is a matrix clause – more likely to be epistemic, and therefore the zero option more favourable, as in (8). Of course, the preceding clause could also be a main clause, as in (7b–c). While these differences cannot easily be determined on a case-by-case basis, they can be discovered by quantitative analysis, from which the relevant patterns emerge as trends in variable data.

1. (8)

   a.	I think Ø it’s really funny. (YRK, male, 20)
   b.	You know Ø they didn’t think it was worthwhile. (TOR, male, 72)

In contrast, when the complement subject is a noun phrase, as in (9), Thompson and Mulac (1991a, 248) claim that the matrix subject is more likely to function as the topic, making it more prone to be non-epistemic, producing an overt complementizer.

1. (9)

   a.	I know that Kennedy won the election. (TOR, male, 66)
   b.	I think that a bit of that must have rubbed off on me. (YRK, male, 58)

Another explanation for variation between that and zero is that there are psycholinguistic influences underlying the realization of the complementizer. In this view, anything that increases the processing load of the matrix + complement construction will lead to more use of an overt complementizer. Matrix/complement constructions are considered more complex when they involve negation, past tense, complex tenses and modals, leading to more use of that, as in (10). Similarly, if any linguistic material intervenes between the matrix clause and the complement clause, this leads to more overt forms as well. This can be observed in the examples in (11).

1. (10)

   a.	We [weren’t] aware that there was such devastation. (TOR, female, 75)
   b.	I [can’t] see really that it would change a great deal. (TOR, female, 81)
   c.	I [’m not saying] that we would have gotten as far like. (TOR, female, 22)

1. (11)

   a.	I must say that [as much as I miss the way things used to be] I’m having the time of my life. (TOR, male, 61)
   b.	The man knows [it was um for economic reasons] that [um they wanted to um] give us what they could. (TOR, female, 34)

All these influences are multiplex and variegated. Which of them exert a statistically significant influence on the spoken language data? Tables 1.2 and 1.3 display fixed effects logistic regressions of the simultaneous contribution of these factors when all of them are included in a statistical model. This method permits the combined contribution of all the contextual factors to be modelled simultaneously and determine which of them contribute statistically significant effects to the variation, the nature of the constraints and their relative strength (see, e.g., Tagliamonte 2006). Note that these models exclude the (near) categorical epistemic parenthetical cases (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.2 Fixed effects logistic regression of predictors conditioning zero complementizer – Toronto (Canada), excluding tokens of I think, I mean and you know

Input probability	0.87
Total N	2,148
	FW	%	N
Lexical verb in matrix clause
think	.70	93	461
say	.54	85	647
know	.46	85	196
other	.38	80	680
tell	.30	64	164
Range	40
Matrix subject
1st-person singular	.60	88	985
Other pronoun	.45	83	894
Other	.30	67	267
Range	30
Additional elements in matrix verb phrase
Nothing	.56	87	1,512
Something	.37	76	636
Range	19
Complement clause subject
Pronoun	.54	86	1,703
Other	.37	74	443
Range	17
Intervening material
None	.52	85	1,963
Some	.35	71	185
Range	17
Matrix verb tense
Present	.56	87	917
Past	.44	84	861
Range	12

Table 1.3 Fixed effects logistic regression of predictors conditioning zero complementizer – York, England, excluding tokens of I think, I mean and you know

Input probability	0.89
Total N	1,810
	FW	%	N
Lexical verb in matrix clause
think	.75	95.5	829
say	.57	76.8	228
other	.34	65.4	619
know	.33	68.7	134
Range	41
Matrix subject
1st-person singular	.72	91.8	1,167
NP	.39	61.0	246
Other pronoun	.38	61.2	397
Range	34
Verb tense
Present	.59	87.4	1,285
Past	.42	65.0	525
Range	17
Intervening material
None	.58	85.0	1,425
Some	.42	65.7	385
Range	16
Complement clause subject
Pronoun	.58	82.9	1,356
Other	.42	74.9	464
Range	16
Additional elements in matrix verb phrase
Nothing	.57	85.1	1,356
Something	.43	68.3	464
Range	14

Table 1.2 shows that verb type trumps every other predictor, with a range value of forty: the matrix verbs think especially and say strongly favour the zero complementizer. The nature of the complement subject also exerts a strong influence. Other predictors are significant, but less so.

The same model can be tested in another community, in this case a different majority variety of English, namely British English as spoken in York. The regression returns the same result. Verbs such as think and say favour zero. Simple present tense favours zero. First-person singular favours zero and pronominal subjects in the complement clause favour zero. The model is virtually identical to the one in Table 1.2 for Toronto.

An updated perspective on the York and Toronto data can be achieved using a random forest analysis (Strobl, Malley and Tutz 2009; Tagliamonte and Baayen 2012), which can expose the relative importance of the social and linguistic predictors involved in complementizer variation. This is shown in Figure 1.2 (York) and Figure 1.3 (Toronto). Note that these models include all the data in the analysis, including the near categorical cases in Table 1.1, but exclude the subject of the complement clause to facilitate comparison.

Figure 1.2 Random forest analysis of internal and external predictors for complementizer variation in York

Figure 1.3 Random forest analysis of internal and external predictors for complementizer variation in Toronto

In this type of analysis, the farther to the right of the dot, the greater the importance of the predictor. Predictors to the right of the vertical dashed line are significant. The solid line shows zero on the x axis. Figure 1.2 (York) shows that although both linguistic and social factors are significant, the matrix subject and matrix verb are the most important predictors. Of much less importance are the tense of the matrix clause, intervening material and individual age. Social factors such as occupation, education and sex are even less important. Figure 1.3 (Toronto) shows a similar profile in that the variation is again almost entirely explained by the matrix subject and matrix verb, whereas social factors are less important. While the relative strength of the social factors, particularly age, differs across varieties in both locales, the variation is overwhelmingly governed by the same two linguistic constraints. Note that the York and Toronto data structures were built separately at different points in time and are not internally consistent with each other, so the effect of variety cannot be tested across them.

Taken together, these results demonstrate that contemporary English speakers use complementizer that variably determined by a suite of the following strong linguistic contexts:

• with verbs other than think, say or know

• with tense and aspects other than the simple present

• with matrix subjects other than first-person singular ‘I’, and

• with NP subjects in the complement clause.

1.5.1 Summary

Variable (that) in contemporary English is a stable variable that has been part of the English language since Wycliffe’s sermons in the 1400s (Figure 1.1) and is present in both written and spoken registers in the early twenty-first century. In the contemporary literature it is widely studied and consistently exhibits intricate linguistic conditioning. Statistical modelling of the variable constraints on its use in two varieties of English demonstrates that the matrix verb and matrix subject are the most important influences, followed by other internal factors and social influences. The significance and direction of these patterns in the data do not support the old idea of ‘momentary fancy’ (Jespersen 1954, 38), but instead align with contemporary hypotheses of the grammatical development of certain constructions into epistemic parentheticals, for example, I think. In the canonical structure of matrix + subordinate sequence, for example, I think that’s it, these constructions may appear to be matrix clauses, but they are not. Over and above these frequent collocations, a range of constraints – matrix verb, complement subject, tense, intervening material – maintain a strong effect. However, the idea that that surfaces only in contexts where the syntactic structure is complex and/or interrupted by false starts and disfluency is also very strong. In essence, the syntactic strings themselves are not monolithic. In some cases, the construction has already grammaticalized into a different form and function. In other cases, a matrix + complement construction in which use of an overt complementizer emerges when there is complexity in the syntactic structure is still structurally sound. While additional social influences are present (see Figures 1.2 and 1.3), these operate well below the linguistic constraints in the system.³

1.6 Variable Relative Pronouns

Variation in the forms used to mark English relative clauses is also widely studied, and variation in form appears to be present in every variety of English that has been studied to date (e.g. Quirk 1957; Shnukal 1981; Rissanen 1984; Montgomery 1989; Guy and Bayley 1995; Tottie 1995; Ball 1996; Tottie and Harvie 2000; Beal and Corrigan 2002; Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2002; Tagliamonte 2002b; D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010; Cheshire, Adger and Fox 2013).

However, the relative pronoun system is critically partitioned by type in terms of its preferred variants. First, there are two types of relative clauses. Non-restrictive relatives, as in (12), present add-on information that is supplemental to what is expressed in the rest of the sentence. These types are near categorically marked with wh- forms, either who or which (Quirk et al. 1985, 1239; Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 1035). The nature of these relative clauses as additional commentary is made clear in (12c), where which does not refer to the ‘doorman’.

1. (12)

   a.	In those days he built a log house, which is still sitting here. (TOR, male, 83)
   b.	I worked with a guy named Robin B, who’s pretty famous. (TOR, male, 40)
   c.	Now we have a doorman, which I like. (TOR, female, 22)

The disproportionate, in fact mostly categorical, use of wh- forms in non-restrictive relatives is why most studies only include restrictive relative clauses in the analysis of variation. If non-restrictive clauses were included, they would raise the incidence of wh- forms and mask the variation within the restrictive relative cohort.

Restrictive relative clauses can be identified semantically by the fact that they ‘serve to identify their antecedent’ (Denison 1998, 278). This is where the relative clause system is variable, since the relative clause can be marked by either that, who or zero, as in (13). However, the varying linguistic characteristics of restrictive relative clauses by antecedent type, grammatical role and other factors distinguish relative clauses near categorically by form to the point where they have been described as ‘different populations’ (Ball 1996, 233). Therefore, at the outset of variation analysis it is critical to separate subject relative clauses, as in (13a–c), from all other types, as in (13d–e).

1. (13)

   a.	He’s a person that has qualities that tick me off. (TOR, female, 19)
   b.	There was a huge trestle Ø went across the Etobicoke Creek to carry the trolley on. (TOR, male, 82)
   c.	I’ve got a friend that lives across the street. (TOR, male, 11)4
   d.	Of course any samples that you got in the candy line, you ate. (TOR, female, 81)
   e.	Well, nudes is all Ø I’ve ever sold. (TOR, female, 22)

Moreover, as we shall see, the nature of the antecedent is also of great importance, namely the contrast between human antecedents, as in (14), or non-human antecedents, as in (15). Note too that the examples in both (14) and (15) come from the same individual, a female aged 81 in (14) and a male aged 82 in (15), demonstrating intra-speaker variability.

1. (14)

   a.	The chap Ø I was going with went over.
   b.	I have a sister who is a nun.
   c.	The boys that played rugby with my brother … (TOR, female, 81)

1. (15)

   a.	Again that’s all a tradition that’s gone by the boards.
   b.	There was a huge trestle Ø went across the Etobicoke Creek to carry the trolley on. (TOR, male, 82)

With these characteristics of the variability in mind, the next step is to probe the historical trajectory of the forms vying for marking relative clauses in the history of English in order to understand how this system evolved. Figure 1.4 shows the results of a quantitative investigation of the relative pronoun system in the history of English (Ball 1996).

Figure 1.4 Frequency of restrictive wh- relatives in the history of English

This trajectory shows that the wh- forms increased dramatically from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century to the point of virtual saturation of the system by the twentieth century, at least for subject relatives with human subjects. Non-human relative clauses follow the same trajectory, but remain more robustly variable. As with previous studies of the complementizer system, these results come from written materials. Here too the question arises as to what is influencing the choice of forms and, further, what led to the dramatic rise in wh- relatives in the eighteenth century?

Although Figure 1.4 makes it appear that the wh- relatives are moving towards completion, several studies have questioned this conclusion. In a widely cited statement from Romaine (1982, 212), she claims that ‘the infiltration of WH into the relative system can be seen as completed in the modern written language. … but it has not really affected the spoken language’.

Let us now turn to an analysis of the contemporary spoken language. As observed in (14–15), two overt forms and zero can be found within most speakers, and in the same speaker in the same stretch of discourse.

Tables 1.4 and 1.5 display the distribution of relative pronouns in subject relative clauses and in non-subject relative clauses respectively in the city of York in northern England (Tagliamonte 2002b).

Table 1.4 Variation of relative markers (subject only)

	%	N
that	62	850
Ø	12	170
who	21	294
which	3	46
what	1	16
as	0.07	1
Total		1,377

Table 1.5 Distribution of relative markers (non-subject)

	%	N
that	41	358
Ø	54	465
who	1	8
which	3	23
what	2	15
Total		869

With this perspective, it now becomes apparent that the wh- form who is actually a fairly minor part of the system – occurring at a frequency of only 21 per cent in its most favoured context: human antecedents in subject function. Instead, that is a dominant form in both subject and non-subject relatives, and in the latter, Ø actually dominates.

Figure 1.5 exposes yet another dimension to this variability. The form who is dramatically more frequent in York, an urban centre in northern England (Yorkshire), than in the outlying small towns and villages of Cumnock (Ayrshire), Maryport, Wheatley Hill, Tiverton (Devon) or Wincanton (Somerset).

Figure 1.5 Frequency of relative who across communities, UK

Given the results exhibited in Figure 1.4, it is clear that who has not diffused very far in spoken varieties. Moreover, it has penetrated these spoken vernaculars to different degrees. In Tagliamonte (2002b, 103) I argued that the geographic split was due to ‘the relative proximity of the dialects to mainstream norms’. As an urban centre, York was further ahead in the encroachment of who into the English relative system, while the small, peripheral communities lagged behind.

While this geographic perspective is informative with respect to the frequency of who for subject relatives, it is now important to understand what governs its choice. Table 1.6 shows a fixed effects regression of the constraints underlying these overall frequencies.

Table 1.6 Three fixed effects logistic regression analyses of the contribution of factors to the probability of subject restrictive relative clauses in the UK

	that	zero	who	Total N
Community				Ns/cell
Ayrshire	.68	.59	.26	355
Maryport	.63	.78	0	65
Wheatley Hill	.44	.51	.47	113
York	.38	.30	.74	470
Somerset	.45	.69	.44	208
Devon	.48	.53	.43	166
Range	23	48	48
Antecedent type
Human	.74	.55	.86	927
Non-human	.38	.41	.02	450
Range	36	14	84
Sentence type
Other	.58	.29	.55	819
Cleft, possessive	.52	.60	.49	332
Existential	.21	.94	.34	226
Range	37	65	21

Consistent with Figure 1.5, who is most likely in York. In certain locales – the northern towns of Ayrshire (southwest Scotland) and Maryport (northwest England) – that and zero predominate. Zero predominates in the south, in Somerset and Devon. As expected, who is favoured with human subjects. Sentence type is most relevant for the choice of zero. Zero is highly favoured for clefts, possessive constructions and particularly existentials. In an earlier study, separate analyses of the different places also revealed cross-dialectal consistency of the internal constraints on relative pronoun choice (Tagliamonte et al. 2005). However, at least in the UK, who is still undergoing diffusion into the relative pronoun system.

The next step is to corroborate these results with a study of another major variety of English, in this case Canadian English as spoken in Toronto. In the interests of brevity, an analysis of subject relative clauses only is presented. In this context of maximal variation amongst all the forms – who, that and zero – let us first assess whether the linguistic constraints on subject relative pronouns are parallel in Toronto.

D’Arcy and Tagliamonte (2010, 392) demonstrated that use of who is strongly influenced by antecedent type, consistent with the findings for the UK shown in Table 1.6, as can be seen in Table 1.7.

Table 1.7 Distribution of relative markers by animacy of the antecedent, subject function only in Toronto, Canada

	that			who			Ø			Total N
	%	N		%	N		%	N
Things	96.2	583		0.0	0		3.5	21		606
Humans	45.2	306		50.8	344		3.7	25		677
people	41.9	122		54.6	159		3.1	9		291
Collectives	71.4	50		24.3	17		5.7	4		71
Animals	87.1	27		6.5	2		6.5	2		31
Total N		1,088			522			61		1,675

Not shown: whose and which (N = 5)

Human subjects (humans plus the lexical item people) are the main locus for the use of who. The socially stratified Toronto data permits quantitative assessment of the social conditions on the variation by including categories such as sex, education and job type in the model that were not possible in the UK corpora.⁵ This also enables me to probe the potential pathway who may be taking across time by using the apparent time construct as a proxy for change in progress (Labov 1994b). Table 1.8 displays a fixed effects logistic regression analysis of social predictors.

Table 1.8 Fixed effects logistic regression analyses of the contribution of factors to the probability of subject relative who – Toronto, Canada

Input Total N	0.488 968
	FW	%	N
Age
10–16	.41	50.7	140
17–29	.45	55.3	219
30–59	.71	72.2	259
60–92	.40	35.4	350
Range	31
Education
+ post-secondary	.59	62.1	605
– post-secondary	.27	24.1	212
Range	32
Occupation
Professional	0.55	57.4	484
Non-professional	0.40	36.0	253
Range	15
Sex
Female	[0.53]	58.6	490
Male	[0.47]	45.2	478

Table 1.8 shows that even in a place where subject relative who represents nearly half of the system (input = 0.488), social constraints are highly important. We can now see that it is highly favoured amongst middle-aged speakers (30–59), who use it significantly more than anyone else in the community. Moreover, post-secondary education and professional-level jobs significantly favour its use.

It is curious that despite this, the variation does not exhibit an effect of speaker sex as per Labov’s Principles 3 and 4 (Labov 2001), in which women are widely held to lead linguistic change. Here, sex is not selected as significant despite the fact that females show a higher frequency of use (58.6% > 45.2%). It may be that this is not a change in progress, but the result of long-term stability. Probing the data further, we conducted a cross-tabulation of sex and occupation, as in Figure 1.6.

Figure 1.6 Distribution of that in subject relative clauses by job type

Figure 1.6, depicting the proportions, suggests that neither effect is significant. Chi square tests of the differences reveal non-significance for both: p = 0.0247 for professionals, and p = 0.7802 for non-professionals. However, when we coded the data for the nature of the conversational dyad, as in Figure 1.7, a new insight emerged.

Figure 1.7 Distribution of that in subject relative clauses by job type and interlocutors

Figure 1.7 shows that the depressed use of that and therefore heightened use of who have to do with the nature of the dyad amongst professional-level speakers. When both the interviewer and the interviewee are women (F+F), the rate of who in subject relative pronouns rises, distinguished from all other dyads of professionals as a whole, with a chi square of p = 0.0098 and no significant difference amongst the other dyads.

The conclusion is that contemporary English speakers use relative who according to a suite of predictors as follows:

• variably with human antecedents in subject relatives

• amongst middle-aged speakers

• who are educated professionals

• and especially when two women are talking together.

1.6.1 Summary of Relative Pronouns

The findings up to this point confirm that the use of who is a partitioned variable in both contemporary varieties of English: the syntactic function of the antecedent and humanness explain most of the variation (Tagliamonte 2002b, Tagliamonte et al. 2005, D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2015). Within the highly circumscribed locations of variability relative pronoun shows signs of being stable and age-graded in contemporary English. Relative who is much less frequently used than previously hypothesized, and highly socially circumscribed. Consistent with its original entry into the relative system (Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2002), who is used most often by middle-aged people who are educated and hold a professional-level job or, as in the case of northern British communities (Tagliamonte and Smith 2005), hold local leadership positions. The discovery in the Toronto English data of a new ‘interactional’ effect, women talking to women, adds an additional status-based nuance to this suite of predictors. Women, widely known to favour prestige forms (Principle 2; Labov 2001) have even more enhanced uses. Relative who was a change from above, but it appears to be maintained in English as a stable linguistic variable that marks prestigious associations and social alignment, a fact that offers a possible test of the famed ‘sociolinguistic monitor‘ (see Smith and Holmes-Elliott, this volume). This finding offers a test of the sociolinguistic monitor (Gadanidis et al., 2021) and is consistent with the results from Smith and Holmes-Elliott (Chapter 2 in this volume) where interviews with a local interviewer differed substantially from those of a non-local.

1.7 Discussion

I have now provided an overview of findings arising from the analysis of two syntactic variables in two major varieties of English. Variable (that) and variable (who) are both ubiquitous, and have been studied quantitatively from the perspective of reanalysis, complexity and language variation and change. It is evident that exhaustive probing of patterns from all sources of potential influence – social, geographic, linguistic, cognitive – is necessary in order to ‘get to the bottom’ of the variable system and to understand what is going on. Of particular importance is to first identify the distributional characteristics of the data set and to distinguish between categorical, near-categorical and variable sections of the system under investigation (see an alternative procedure in Chapter 3 of this volume), where both categorical and variable uses are included in the meaning hypotheses tested). It is also critical to study syntactic variables in the context of their social and historical evolution in order to understand why they operate as they do ‘on the ground’ in the existing sociolinguistic situation. On one hand, based on the extensive study of complementizer variation in written materials, the trajectory into the modern period using spoken data shows stable variation based in large part on grammaticalization, processing and complexity. On the other hand, wide-ranging studies of relative pronouns in written materials led to the expectation of increasing frequency of who; however, the spoken vernacular shows resistance to this development. In these conditions of diachronic trajectories of change and ongoing variation, it is not sufficient simply to test internal factors influencing syntactic variables. Their structural importance is only relevant in the context of the internal character of the variable system. Indeed, both syntactic variables seem to function meaningfully for different externally motivated situations. While social factors are of lesser importance to variation between the overt and zero complementizer, grammatical change is key, and once epistemic parentheticals have split away, processing and pragmatic factors can continue to influence variation. For the relative pronoun system, internal factors are strong and important, but the impact of age, sex, education and job type are crucial for understanding the current situation. With these considerations in mind, let me return to an explicit discussion of what the approach I have taken here offers for understanding the functions of complementizer that and relative who in contemporary English. Taking the overarching patterns for each variable as a focal point, what does making the choice of that and who encode for language users?

1.7.1 Function of ‘That’

In matrix + complement clause constructions, complementizers are typically thought to mark the relationship between a matrix and complement clause (Brittain 1778). However, many researchers have argued that the use of that also signals register. It is associated with written language, particularly formal and institutional genres (Biber and Finegan 1994, 1997). As a consequence, it is considered less personal, friendly and emotive (Storms 1966; Quirk et al. 1972; Leech and Svartvik 1975; Huddleston and Pullum 2002). In some cases, researchers have said that that is simply the result of ‘momentary fancy’ Jespersen (1954, 38). However, what that actually seems to be doing, at least in contexts where it is still functioning as a complementizer, is ensuring intelligibility. If you want to make yourself absolutely clear, you use it.

1.7.2 Function of ‘Who’

Relative pronouns are typically thought to mark the type of relative clause subject, who for human beings (e.g. Denison 1998, 278), which for things (e.g. Curme 1947) and that for either people or things (Curme 1947, 166; Swan 1995). However, there are inconsistencies in the literature as to whether these claims are true, and, indeed, just how far who has infiltrated the contemporary English system (Romaine 1982; Ball 1996). In fact, the story of who in contemporary English – at least in the spoken languages – presents a decidedly social story. It is reported to be used in high registers, and is considered a learned variant with formal connotations (Dekeyser 1986; Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2003). It is used by certain individuals, with a profile of advanced education, involvement in community affairs and with class aspirations (Romaine 1982; Beal and Corrigan 2002; Tagliamonte et al. 2005). Moreover, it is used most often in female-to-female speech (D’Arcy and Tagliamonte 2010). If you want to sound smart, you use it.

All this serves to emphasize that it is useful and important for the explanatory adequacy of our interpretations to assess syntactic variables in context, not simply to assess syntactic configurations or provide complex statistical models, nor even to elucidate single tokens or socially imbued interpretations. I suggest it is the dialectic of linguistic and social interpretations that are key to understanding variation. Linguistic, social, stylistic, cognitive, prescriptive and possibly other factors impact syntactic variation. However, the details are inevitably different, depending on the nature of the variable, whether it has evolved as change from above or change from below, how it is situated in time and place, and in the nuances one variant or the other holds in discourse. The frequency of forms, the details of the predictors, in patterning and strength combine to inform explanatory insights. Synthesizing across all these influences leads to informed explanations.

1.8 Conclusion

The results of distributional analysis and statistical modelling with a comparative perspective grounded in social and historical context provide insights into the mechanics of variation and offer discernment to the embedding problem and the evaluation problem. First, I can now categorize the two syntactic variables according to type. In the case of complementizers, the variation comprises an overt and unrealized form. In contrast, the choice of subject relative pronouns is almost always between competing overt forms (i.e. that and who), which have contrasting historical origins and a legacy of social evaluation. Whether this is a systematic difference between linguistic variables that predominately involve information load and clarity and therefore implicate processing, that is, cognitive factors, and those that predominately involve a choice amongst distinct forms with differing social evaluations and therefore implicate external factors, remains for future comparative study. Second, I can evaluate the application or not of different types of predictors. While variation in the choice of complementizer is relatively indifferent to sex, education or job type, the choice of relative pronoun is highly predisposed to these same factors as well as interactional factors. Third, the relative contributions of predictors add another dimension. In the case of complementizers, the overwhelming influence of verb and matrix subject demonstrates how particular collocations may have begun to grammaticalize away from matrix + complement constructions into epistemic parenthetical (e.g. I think), while the preponderance of who for subject, animate antecedents reflects a well-known typological pattern favouring the marking of human subjects that is overlaid with social evaluation from the speech community. These interpretations of the dialectic between linguistic and social embedding are key to understanding how variation functions in the speech community and brings us closer to addressing the elusive actuation problem, all part of the oeuvre that Labov set his sights on in the early 1960s ‘to gather data from the secular world’ (Labov 1972, xvi–xvii).