Mechanisms of Grammaticalization in the Variation of Negative Question Tags

This paper presents an investigation of the extent to which Heine’s (2003) mechanisms of grammaticalization—erosion (phonetic reduction), decategorialization (loss of morpho-syntactic properties), desemanticization (semantic bleaching) and extension (context expansion)—are evident in the variation of negative question tags in three varieties of British English spoken in Glasgow, Tyneside, and Salford. The study considers the variation in terms of three types of variant—full (e.g., isn’t it), reduced (e.g., int it), and coalesced (e.g., innit)—which each represent a stage in the erosion process. Quantitative variationist analysis of informal conversational data shows that erosion of negative tags occurs to different degrees in each of the three communities. The locality with the least tag erosion—Tyneside—displays particularly strong social stratification in the variation that suggests a change in progress led by younger men. However, there is little to no evidence of decategorialization in the negative tags, nor does variation in tag meaning correlate with phonetic form in a consistent manner. The results therefore suggest that erosion and desemanticization/extension do not occur in lockstep as these constructions grammaticalize, while decategorialization occurs at a later stage in the change.

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Locating variation in the dative alternation

Linguistic Variation ◽

10.1075/lv.16.2.01big ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 151-182 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alison Biggs

Keyword(s):

Double Object ◽

British English ◽

Double Object Construction ◽

Dative Alternation ◽

Object Construction ◽

Main Variety ◽

Syntactic Properties

This paper investigates the structure of the dative alternation in dialects of Northwest British English. This includes theme passivization of apparent Double Object Constructions (It was given her). Detailed investigation shows that different dialects use distinct licensing strategies to derive the Theme passive structure. The main variety discussed is Liverpool English, where Theme passivisation is shown to derive from a prepositional dative with a null preposition. In contrast, Manchester English, a neighbouring variety, derives Theme passives of the Double Object Construction, via an Applicative configuration (Haddican 2010, Haddican and Holmberg 2012). The study shows that a range of syntactic properties and restrictions on a structure can be traced back to variation in the functional lexicon.

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Sentence Repetition: A Clinical Marker for Developmental Language Disorder in Danish

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-l-18-0327 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (12) ◽

pp. 4450-4463

Author(s):

Rikke Vang Christensen

Keyword(s):

Language Disorder ◽

Future Research ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Developmental Language Disorder ◽

Older Children ◽

Likelihood Ratios ◽

Clinical Marker ◽

Sentence Repetition ◽

Good Identification ◽

Syntactic Properties

Purpose The aim of the study was to explore the potential of performance on a Danish sentence repetition (SR) task—including specific morphological and syntactic properties—to identify difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) relative to typically developing (TD) children. Furthermore, the potential of the task as a clinical marker for Danish DLD was explored. Method SR performance of children with DLD aged 5;10–14;1 (years;months; n = 27) and TD children aged 5;3–13;4 ( n = 87) was investigated. Results Compared to TD same-age peers, children with DLD were less likely to repeat the sentences accurately but more likely to make ungrammatical errors with respect to verb inflection and use of determiners and personal pronouns. Younger children with DLD also produced more word order errors that their TD peers. Furthermore, older children with DLD performed less accurately than younger TD peers, indicating that the SR task taps into morphosyntactic areas of particular difficulty for Danish children with DLD. The classification accuracy associated with SR performance showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity (> 90%) and likelihood ratios indicating good identification potential for clinical and future research purposes. Conclusion SR performance has a strong potential for identifying children with DLD, also in Danish, and with a carefully designed SR task, performance has potential for revealing morphosyntactic difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.10314437

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1030: Do Younger Men have Better Biochemical Outcomes Following Radical Prostatectomy?

The Journal of Urology ◽

10.1016/s0022-5347(18)38267-3 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 171 (4S) ◽

pp. 272-272

Author(s):

Stephen J. Freedland ◽

Joseph C. Presti ◽

Christopher J. Kane ◽

William J. Aronson ◽

Martha K. Terris ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Radical Prostatectomy ◽

Younger Men

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Many prostate biopsies are done on very elderly men who are less likely than younger men to benefit from treatment

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e556572006-012 ◽

2002 ◽

Keyword(s):

Elderly Men ◽

Very Elderly ◽

Prostate Biopsies ◽

Younger Men

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New forms of intra-European migration, labour market dynamics and social inequality in Europe

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v11i2.234 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 125-136 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Roland Verwiebe ◽

Laura Wiesböck ◽

Roland Teitzer

Keyword(s):

Labour Market ◽

Social Inequality ◽

Social Stratification ◽

Labour Markets ◽

Second Step ◽

Market Dynamics ◽

Migration Patterns ◽

European Continent ◽

The Past ◽

European Migration

This article deals mainly with new forms of Intra-European migration, processes of integration and inequality, and the dynamics of emerging transnational labour markets in Europe. We discuss these issues against the background of fundamental changes which have been taking place on the European continent over the past two decades. Drawing on available comparative European data, we examine, in a first step, whether the changes in intra-European migration patterns have been accompanied by a differentiation of the causes of migration. In a second step, we discuss the extent to which new forms of transnational labour markets have been emerging within Europe and their effects on systems of social stratification.

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Recent change in non-present perfect constructions in British and American English

Corpora ◽

10.3366/cor.2013.0036 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 115-135 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Xinyue Yao ◽

Peter Collins

Keyword(s):

American English ◽

Recent Change ◽

Past Tense ◽

Present Perfect ◽

British English ◽

Spoken English ◽

Communicative Functions ◽

General Decline ◽

Modal Auxiliaries

A number of recent studies of grammatical categories in English have identified regional and diachronic variation in the use of the present perfect, suggesting that it has been losing ground to the simple past tense from the eighteenth century onwards ( Elsness, 1997 , 2009 ; Hundt and Smith, 2009 ; and Yao and Collins, 2012 ). Only a limited amount of research has been conducted on non-present perfects. More recently, Bowie and Aarts’ (2012) study using the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English has found that certain non-present perfects underwent a considerable decline in spoken British English (BrE) during the second half of the twentieth century. However, comparison with American English (AmE) and across various genres has not been made. This study focusses on the changes in the distribution of four types of non-present perfects (past, modal, to-infinitival and ing-participial) in standard written BrE and AmE during the thirty-year period from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Using a tagged and post-edited version of the Brown family of corpora, it shows that contemporary BrE has a stronger preference for non-present perfects than AmE. Comparison of four written genres of the same period reveals that, for BrE, only the change in the overall frequency of past perfects was statistically significant. AmE showed, comparatively, a more dramatic decrease, particularly in the frequencies of past and modal perfects. It is suggested that the decline of past perfects is attributable to a growing disfavour for past-time reference in various genres, which is related to long-term historical shifts associated with the underlying communicative functions of the genres. The decline of modal perfects, on the other hand, is more likely to be occurring under the influence of the general decline of modal auxiliaries in English.

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: Social Stratification in Polynesia . Marshall D. Sahlins.

Far Eastern Survey ◽

10.1525/as.1960.29.9.01p1398f ◽

1960 ◽

Vol 29 (9) ◽

pp. 140-140

Author(s):

Felix M. Keesing

Keyword(s):

Social Stratification

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Doing Bodhisattva’s Work

Journal of Vietnamese Studies ◽

10.1525/vs.2020.15.4.4 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 4-32

Author(s):

Le Hoang Anh Thu

Keyword(s):

Social Interaction ◽

Social Class ◽

Social Status ◽

Social Stratification ◽

Social Groups ◽

The State ◽

Ho Chi Minh City ◽

Class Identity ◽

The Social

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.

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