Jennifer Smith

A perennial problem for sociolinguists interested in morphosyntactic variation is that such forms are often low frequency, making quantitative analysis difficult or impossible. However, sociolinguists have been generally reluctant to adopt methodologies from syntax, such as acceptability data gleaned from speaker intuition, due to the belief that these judgments are not necessarily reliable. In this article we present data from the Scots Syntax Atlas, which employs sociolinguistic methodologies in spoken data alongside the results of acceptability judgments. We target three morphosyntactic variables and compare and contrast these across the two data types in order to assess the reliability of the judgment data at community level. The results show that reliability is variable-dependent. For some variables, there is clear correlation; with others, it appears that, as Labov (1996) phrased it, ‘intuitions fail’. We discuss how factors such as salience, social stigma and local identity combine to govern the reliability of judgment data.

Increasingly globalized communication networks in the modern world may influence traditional patterns of linguistic change: in contrast to an orderlysequentialpathway of change, more recently a number of “mega trends” have been identified, which acceleratesimultaneouslyin time and space. The rise ofobviouslywithin the cohort of adverbs of evidentiality—naturally, evidently, clearly,andof course—may be one such trend. To examine this possibility, we conduct a large-scale sociolinguistic analysis of c12,000 adverbs of evidentiality across over thirty communities in the UK and Canada. The results reveal parallel development across time and space:obviouslyadvances rapidly among individuals born in the 1960s in both countries. The rise ofobviouslyillustrates key attributes that are beginning to emerge from other rapidly innovating features: “off the shelf” changes that (1) are easily borrowed, (2) receptive to global trends, but (3) exhibit parallel patterns as the change progresses.

This article presents a sociolinguistic investigation of a rapidly expanding innovation in the UK, glottal replacement, in a variety spoken in northeast Scotland. Quantitative analysis of the form shows a dramatic change in apparent time: from a minority variant in the older generation to a full 90 per cent use in the younger generation. Further analysis of the constraints on use provide a detailed snapshot of how this variant moves through social and linguistic space. Males use higher rates of the non-standard form in the older generations but this constraint is neutralised in the younger generations as the form increases. Styleshifting according to interlocutor also neutralises through time. While these results across the social constraints are in line with previous analyses, the linguistic constraints differ in this variety. In contrast to most other varieties, intervocalic contexts such asbottleshow high rates of glottal replacement. Moreover, word-internal foot-initial contexts (e.g.sometimes) also frequently allow the non-standard variant, despite this being rare in other dialects. Although glottal replacement is largely considered to be a ‘torchbearer’ of geographical diffusion, this in-depth analysis suggests that different varieties may have different pathways of change in the rapid transition from [t] to [ʔ] throughout the UK.

The Englishgofuture, a quintessential example of grammaticalization, has shown layering withwillsince at least 1490. To date, most synchronic evidence for this development comes from dialects wherebe going torepresents a sizable proportion of the future temporal reference system. However, in the United Kingdom in the late twentieth century there were still dialects wherebe going towas only beginning to make inroads, representing a mere 10–15 per cent of future contexts. These varieties offer an effective view of the early stages of grammatical change.Statistical analysis of nearly 5,000 variable contexts reveals that the use ofbe going tois increasing across generations, but at different rates, depending on location and orientation to mainstream norms. Major patterns of use mirror previous findings:be going tois favoured for subordinate clauses. However, other widely reported constraints conditioningbe going toare radically different across age groups, exposing contrasts between incipient vs later stages of grammaticalization. In the most conservative dialectsbe going tois strongly correlated with negatives and questions especially in the first person singular. This suggests that these contexts may have been the ‘trigger’ environments for redistribution of meaning of the incoming grammatical form (Hopper & Traugott 1993: 85). The fact that strong effects of negatives and questions endure in contemporary urban varieties (Torres-Cacoullos & Walker 2009) confirms that grammaticalization begins in very specific syntactic contexts, and impacts on the system for generations to come. In contrast, other reported constraints – resistance ofbe going toin the first person singular and extension to inanimates and far future readings – emerge across generations, suggesting they are later developments.Taken together, these findings demonstrate how synchronic dialects show us incremental steps in the grammaticalization process. Comparative sociolinguistic analysis thus offers insights into which patterns define the point of grammaticalization itself; which derive from systemic processes; which can be attributed to discourse routines and collocations; and how these factors converge in shaping the evolution of grammar.