Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T04:19:24.664Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An existential problem: The sociolinguistic monitor and variation in existential constructions on Bequia (St. Vincent and the Grenadines)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2013

Miriam Meyerhoff  and
James A. Walker
Miriam Meyerhoff
Affiliation:
University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019 Auckland 1142, New ZealandM.Meyerhoff@auckland.ac.nz
James A. Walker
Affiliation:
Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics York University, 4700 Keele St. Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canadajamesw@yorku.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Existential constructions in a corpus of spontaneous English from Bequia (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) are used to explore a linguistic problem (Is variation in verb form in existential constructions best viewed as grammatical or lexical?) and a sociolinguistic problem (What aspects of variation change over a lifetime?). We compare “urban sojourners” (Bequians who have been away) with their home village norms. We observe differences in the frequency of the type of existential preferred in different villages and by the urban sojourners. We also observe differences in whether or not the main verb agrees in number with a postposed plural subject. Building on William Labov's early discussions of constraints on variation imposed by the “sociolinguistic monitor,” we suggest that variation in individual speakers supports the notion that variables that are fundamentally grammatical are less likely to mark social factors than lexical variables are. (Bequia, Caribbean English, existentials, subject-verb agreement)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , September 2013 , pp. 407 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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

Adger, David (2006). Combinatorial variability. Journal of Linguistics 42:503–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allsopp, Richard (1996). Dictionary of Caribbean English usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ashby, William (1981). The loss of the negative particle ne in French: A syntactic change in progress. Language 57:674–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blake, Renée (1997). Defining the envelope of variation: The case of “don't count” forms in the copula analysis of African American Vernacular English. Language Variation and Change 9:57–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birner, Betty J., & Ward, Gregory (1996). A cross-linguistic study of postposing in discourse. Language and Speech 39:113–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, Kathryn; Butterfield, Sally; Cutler, Anne; Cutting, J. Cooper; Eberhard, Kathleen M.; & Humphreys, Karin R. (2006). Number agreement in British and American English: Disagreeing to agree collectively. Language 82:64–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Britain, David (2002). Diffusion, leveling, simplification and reallocation in past tense BE in the English Fens. Journal of Sociolinguistics 6:16–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Britain, David, & Sudbury, Andrea (2002). “There's sheep and there's penguins”: Convergence, “drift” and “slant” in New Zealand and Falkland Island English. In Jones, Mairi C. & Esch, Edith (eds.), Language change: The interplay of internal, external and extra-linguistic factors, 211–40. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K. (2004). Dynamic typology and vernacular universals. In Kortmann, Bernd (ed.), Dialectology meets typology: Dialect grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective, 127–45. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny (1998). Taming the vernacular: Some repercussions for the study of syntactic variation and spoken grammar. Te Reo 41:6–27.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny (2005). Syntactic variation and beyond: Gender and social class variation in the use of discourse-new markers. Journal of Sociolinguistics 9:479–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, & Fox, Sue (2009). Was/were variation: A perspective from London. Language Variation and Change 21:1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Conway, Dennis; Potter, Robert B.; & Phillips, Joan (2005). The experience of return: Caribbean return migrants. In Potter, Robert B., Conway, Dennis, & Phillips, Joan (eds.), The experience of return migration: Caribbean perspectives, 1–25. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Daleszyńska, Agata (2012). Variation in past tense marking in Bequia Creole: Apparent time change and dialect levelling. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh dissertation.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. (2007). Clause types. In Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, vol. 1: Clause structure, 224–75. 2nd edn.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisikovits, Edina (1991). Variation in subject-verb agreement in Inner Sydney English. In Cheshire, Jenny (ed.), English around the world, 235–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feagin, Crawford (1979). Variation and change in Alabama English: A sociolinguistic study of the white community. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund (1963). Civilization and its discontents. (Trans. Riviere, Joan; rev. and ed. by Strachey, JamesLondon: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Gmelch, George (1992). Double passage: The lives of Caribbean migrants abroad and back home. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Groat, Erich M. (1995). English expletives: A minimalist approach. Linguistic Inquiry 26:354–65.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer, & Schreier, Daniel (2004). Reversing the trajectory of language change: Subject-verb agreement with be in New Zealand English. Language Variation and Change 16:209–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, & Kuteva, Tania (2002). World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, Alison (1995). Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hundt, Marianne (1998). New Zealand English grammar – Fact or fiction? A corpus-based study in morphosyntactic variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. (2000). Parameters and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William (1993). The unobservability of structure and its linguistic consequences. Paper presented at NWAV 22, University of Ottawa.Google Scholar
Labov, William (2008). The cognitive capacities of the sociolinguistic monitor. Paper presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium 17, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Ravindranath, Maya; Weldon, Tracey; Baranowski, Maciej; & Nagy, Naomi (2011). Properties of the sociolinguistic monitor. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15:431–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meechan, Marjory, & Foley, Michele (1994). On resolving disagreement: Linguistic theory and variation—there's bridges. Language Variation and Change 6:63–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam, & Walker, James A. (2007). The persistence of variation in individual grammars: Copula absence in “urban sojourners” and their stay-at-home peers, Bequia (St. Vincent and the Grenadines). Journal of Sociolinguistics 11:346–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millman, Jennifer; Dunmore, Stuart; Ingram, Emma; Kendra, Jenny; & Meyerhoff, Miriam (2008). Constraints and systems: A preliminary exploration of 3s inflection in Bequian English. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, ms.Google Scholar
Milsark, Gavin (1977). Towards an explanation of certain peculiarities of the existential construction in English. Linguistic Analysis 3: 1–31.Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen F. (1992). The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In Mann, William C. & Thompson, Sandra A. (eds.), Discourse description: Diverse linguistic analyses of a fund-raising text, 295–325.Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickford, John R. (1999). African American Vernacular English: Features and use, evolution, and educational implications. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Roberts, Nicholas S. (2012). Future temporal reference in Hexagonal French. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 18:2. Selected Papers from NWAV 40. Online: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol18/iss2/12.Google Scholar
Rupp, Laura (2005). Constraints on nonstandard -s in expletive there sentences: A generative–variationist perspective. English Language and Linguistics 9:255–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian, & Blondeau, Hélène (2007). Language change across the lifespan: /r/ in Montreal French. Language 83:560–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie, & Wolfram, Walt (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
Schreier, Daniel (2002). Past be in Tristan da Cunha: The rise and fall of categoricality in language change. American Speech 77:70–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schütze, Carson T. (1999). English expletive constructions are not infected. Linguistic Inquiry 30:467–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Jennifer (2000). Synchrony and diachrony in the evolution of English: Evidence from Scotland. York: University of York dissertation.Google Scholar
Stowell, Tim (1978). What was there before there was there? Chicago Linguistic Society 14:458–71.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali, & Smith, Jennifer (2000). Old was, new ecology: Viewing English through the sociolinguistic filter. In Poplack, Shana (ed.), The English history of African American English, 141–71. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
van Gelderen, Elly (1997). Verbal agreement and the grammar behind its “breakdown.” Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Suzanne Evans, & Sankoff, Gillian (2011). Age grading in the Montréal French inflected future. Language Variation and Change 23:275–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, James A. (2007). “There's bears back there”: Plural existentials and vernacular universals in (Quebec) English. English World-Wide 28:147–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, James A. (2008). Form, function and frequency in phonology: (t/d)-deletion in Toronto. Paper presented at NWAV 37, Rice University.Google Scholar
Walker, James A. (2009). (Dis)agreement in the Eastern Caribbean: Evidence from Bequia. Paper presented at the Eighth Creolistics Workshop, Justus-Liebig-Universität, GieÔen, Germany.Google Scholar
Walker, James A., & Meyerhoff, Miriam (2006). Zero copula in the eastern Caribbean: Evidence from Bequia. American Speech 91:146–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, James A., & Sidnell, Jack (2011). Inherent variability and coexistent systems: Negation on Bequia. In Hinrichs, Lars & Farquharson, Joseph (eds.), Variation in the Caribbean, 39–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Gregory (1999). A comparison of postposed subjects in English and Italian. In Kamio, Akio & Takami, Ken-ichi (eds.), Function and structure: Studies in honor of Susumu Kuno, 3–21. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Jeffrey P. (2010). Euro-Caribbean English varieties. In Trudgill, Peter, Schreier, Daniel, Schneider, Edgar, & Williams, Jeffrey P. (eds.), The lesser-known varieties of English: Volume 1, 136–57.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfram, Walt (2003). Reexamining the development of African American English: Evidence from isolated communities. Language 79:282–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar