Grammatical change in present-day English: convergence and divergence

in speech and writing

Christian Mair, Freiburg

Roadmap

1. The corpus-based "real time" study of ongoing change: potential and (some)

limitations

2. Three case studies for illustration

3. Conclusions

1. The corpus-based "real time" study of ongoing change – why we need it so badly

We used to say, "I hope to go to the football." Now I hear, "I hope I get to go …" In the past ten years our language has become cluttered with unnecessary words. "Up" is a favoured addition: winds "strengthen up" or "stiffen up" and rain "eases up." Managers "head up" a team or a company; actors "act up." […] Sometimes there is a second addition as in: James "met up with" Ann. Is there a difference between meeting a woman and meeting up with her? (Wignell 2002: 7)

1. The corpus-based "real time" study of ongoing change – why technology matters

The process of linguistic change has never been directly observed; we shall see that such observation, with our present facilities, is inconceivable. (Bloomfield 1933: 347; emphasis C.M.)

Fluctuation in the frequency of speech forms is a factor in all non-phonetic changes. This fluctuation can be observed, to some extent, both at first hand and in our written records. (Bloomfield 1933: 393; emphasis in the original)

1. The corpus-based "real time" study of on-going change – modest and ambitious aims

(a) to empirically verify/ falsify hypotheses on linguistic change in present-day English proposed in the linguistic literature;

(b) to uncover instances of change and/ or variation not previously noticed in the literature through a systematic and exhaustive comparison of frequencies in the corpora;

(c) to use recent developments in national standard varieties of English in order to investigate the precise mode of interaction between synchronic variation and diachronic change.

15+ years of real-time corpus-based investigations of ongoing change in WRITTEN English:the "Brown family": Brown, LOB, Frown, F-LOB, B-LOB, …TIME Corpus 1923-2006, COCA, COHA (Mark Davies, http://corpus.byu.edu/time/)

3 years of real-time corpus-based investigations of ongoing change in SPOKEN English:Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English (DCPSE)

• five major constellations (not always attested in "clean" form):

(a) parallel and simultaneous development in speech and writing

(b) writing following speech, but with a time lag

(c) speech following writing, but with a time lag

(d) innovations exclusive to the spoken medium

(e) changes exclusive to the written language

The "1877" watershed: Alois Brandl1855 b. in Innsbruck

1878 PhD (after studies in Innsbruck and Vienna)

1881 „Habilitation“ (Vienna)

1888 Professor in Göttingen and, subsequently, Straßburg

1895 appointed Professor of English Philology at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin

1940 d. Berlin

The Lautkommission

Lager Wahn, Oktober 1916 - © Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar, Lautarchiv

Old Squire Fellow

I will now tell you how he used to find his private business out. Well, Sir, this here old squire had about twenty farms. And one day he had one of his cattle drovers driving about two hundred bullocks from the cattle market that the old Squire Fellow, the farmer, had bought at the cattle market the day before. When the old Squire got up the next morning to go and meet this here drover on the country road.

And now, Sir, when the old squire had got about three miles on the country road he see[s?] his drover coming along with his bullocks …

Example I

Variable:

I help you (to) repair the car.

This will help (to) pay for it.

Direction of change:

to zero

help in the OED

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

year

ins

tan

ce

s p

er

10

00

0 q

uo

tes

all relevant uses

help + to + inf

help +zero + inf

Example 2The variable:

All I did was (to) ask.

(All I was doing was asking.)

(All I did was I asked.)

Direction of change:

to zero

status of other variants uncertain

Complements in specificational clefts in five corpora of 20th century written

English

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

ing

bare inf.

to-inf.

Complements in specificational clefts in two corpora of 20th century spoken English

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

LLC ICE-GB

finite clause

ing

bare inf.

to-inf.

Example III

The variable: do support for got toI haven‘t got the time/ You haven‘t got to stayI ain‘t got the time/ You ain‘t gotta stayI don‘t got the time/ You don‘t gotta stay

Direction of changemodal idiom (have) got to main verb gottasociolinguistic status and details highly unclear

Conclusions: the corpus-based real time approach and its competitors

(1) Impressionistic and anecdotal observation

+ occasionally still needed to formulate hypotheses

- emphasises innovation at the expense of continuity

- emphasises the rare, bizarre and unusual at the expense of the frequent and shared

- dramatically overestimates speed of morpho-syntactic change

(2) Sociolinguistics

+ unbeatable in the study of ongoing sound change

+ provides solid theoretical framework for the study of the origin and spread of linguistic innovations

- weak on changes in the standard

- gaps in the study of morphosyntactic and lexical changes

Outlook

Needs for the future:

- corpora of spoken English with diachronic depth- corpora documenting dialect and nonstandard

speech

- strengthening current tendencies towards convergence of interests between sociolinguistics and corpus-linguistics

“This exploration on the boundaries of sociolinguistic variation, corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, and syntax demonstrates the value of bridging the gaps between subfields [...] the field could benefit from more such collaboration.” (Rickford et al. 1995: 128)