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Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English

  • Andrea Sand
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The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation
This chapter is in the book The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation

Abstract

In previous studies on contact varieties of English, a number of shared features have been claimed. The present study presents a corpus-based investigation of two of these features, subject-verb concord and interrogative constructions. By comparing ICE-corpora from Great Britain, New Zealand, India, Kenya, Jamaica, Singapore as well as two smaller corpora from Northern Ireland, the possible roles of substrate influence and more general language contact phenomena are investigated in a systematic way. Corpus evidence suggests that there is indeed a qualitative difference between contact and non-contact varieties due to typological and SLA trends.

Abstract

In previous studies on contact varieties of English, a number of shared features have been claimed. The present study presents a corpus-based investigation of two of these features, subject-verb concord and interrogative constructions. By comparing ICE-corpora from Great Britain, New Zealand, India, Kenya, Jamaica, Singapore as well as two smaller corpora from Northern Ireland, the possible roles of substrate influence and more general language contact phenomena are investigated in a systematic way. Corpus evidence suggests that there is indeed a qualitative difference between contact and non-contact varieties due to typological and SLA trends.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora 1
  5. Part I. Creating discourse
  6. Introduction 13
  7. ' And so now …': The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now 17
  8. Self-repetition in spoken English discourse 37
  9. Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech 61
  10. Pressing -ing into service: I don't want you coming around here any more 85
  11. Part II. Moving across varieties
  12. Introduction 101
  13. Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora 107
  14. The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation 129
  15. Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English 147
  16. Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English 163
  17. Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English 183
  18. South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect 203
  19. Part III. Levelling out variability
  20. Introduction 223
  21. Feature loss in 19th century Irish English 229
  22. The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia 245
  23. The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? 269
  24. Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres 291
  25. Her daughter's being taken into care or her daughter being taken …? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English 311
  26. Subject index 335
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.2.15san

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora 1
  5. Part I. Creating discourse
  6. Introduction 13
  7. ' And so now …': The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now 17
  8. Self-repetition in spoken English discourse 37
  9. Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech 61
  10. Pressing -ing into service: I don't want you coming around here any more 85
  11. Part II. Moving across varieties
  12. Introduction 101
  13. Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora 107
  14. The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation 129
  15. Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English 147
  16. Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English 163
  17. Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English 183
  18. South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect 203
  19. Part III. Levelling out variability
  20. Introduction 223
  21. Feature loss in 19th century Irish English 229
  22. The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia 245
  23. The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? 269
  24. Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres 291
  25. Her daughter's being taken into care or her daughter being taken …? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English 311
  26. Subject index 335
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