刊讯｜SSCI 期刊 《语言》 2023年第3-4期

LANGUAGE

Volume 99, Issue 3-4, 2023

LANGUAGE（SSCI一区，2022 IF：2.1，排名：51/194）2023年第3-4期共发文19篇，其中研究性论文16篇，书评3篇。涉及发音音系学、词中语音省略 、元音省略、社会语言学研究、第二语言和传统语言等方面。欢迎转发扩散！（2023年已更完）

目录

Issue 3

ARTICLES

■ Vowel deletion as grammatically controlled gestural overlap in Uspanteko, by Ryan Bennett, Robert Henderson, Meg Harvey, Pages 399-456.

■ Partial control with overt embedded subjects in Chirag, by Dmitry Ganenkov, Pages 457-490.

■ Language play is language variation: Quantitative evidence and what it implies about language change, by Marisa Brook, Emily Blamire, Pages 491-530.

■ The development of phonological patterns in an urban dialect contact setting: Evidence from Seoul Korean, by Soohyun Kwon, Pages 531-562.

■ The syntax of English presentatives, by Jim Wood, Raffaella Zanuttini, Pages 563-602.

■Anti-Pied-Piping，by Kenyon Branan, Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, Pages 603-653.

■Language and Public Policy (Online-only):/Mainstreaming translanguaging pedagogy through language policy: Opportunities and challenges in a South African university, by Liqhwa Siziba, Busani Maseko, Pages e135-e152.

■Teaching Linguistics (Online-only):Pedagogical linguistics: Connecting formal linguistics to language teaching, by Andreas Trotzke, Pages e153-e175.

■ Research Report (Online-only):'What' clauses can and 'which' cannot: A Romanian puzzle, by Ivano Caponigro, Anamaria Fălăuș, Pages e176-e190.

REVIEWS

■Variation in second and heritage languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives ed. by Robert Bayley, Dennis R. Preston, and Xiaoshi Li (review), by Elaine Tarone, Pages 654-658.

Issue 4

ARTICLES

■Assessing the inferential strength of epistemic must, by Giuseppe Ricciardi, Rachel Ryskin, Edward Gibson, Pages 659-691.

■ Listener beliefs and perceptual learning: Differences between device and human guises, by Georgia Zellou, Michelle Cohn, Anne Pycha, Pages 692-725.

■English contracted negation revisited: Evidence from varieties of Scots, by Gary Thoms, David Adger, Caroline Heycock, E Jamieson, Jennifer Smith, Pages 726-759.

■The interpretation and grammatical representation of animacy, by Maziar Toosarvandani, Pages 760-808.

■Linguistic emancipation, by John Baugh, Pages 809-843.

■Language and Public Policy (Online-only)：Linguist is as linguist does: A comparative study on the employment and income of graduates from linguistics programs in Canada, by Kaitlyn Battershill, Victor Kuperman, Pages e191-e209.

■Teaching Linguistics (Online-only)：Engaging students in research and self-discovery: An integrative and student-centered approach to History of the English Language, by Maria Ornella Treglia, Pages e210-e221.

REVIEWS

■The Cambridge handbook of Korean linguistics ed. by Sungdai Cho and John Whitman (review), by Hee-Rahk Chae, Pages 844-850.

■ Explanations in sociosyntactic variation ed. by Tanya Karoli Christensen and Torben Juel Jensen (review), by James A. Walker, Pages 850-853.

摘要

Vowel deletion as grammatically controlled gestural overlap in Uspanteko

Ryan Bennett, Robert Henderson, Meg Harvey

Abstract o is an endangered Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko often delete, though deletion is variable within and across speakers. Deletion appears to be phonological: it is sensitive to foot structure, morphology, and certain phonotactics, and it occurs in slow, careful speech. But deletion also has characteristics more typical of a phonetic process: it is intertwined with a pattern of gradient vowel reduction and is insensitive to most phonotactics. Electroglottography data shows that even 'deleted' vowels may contribute voicing to inline graphic intervals when flanked by voiceless consonants. This suggests that 'deleted' vowels are represented in the input to speech production, even when they are acoustically masked by articulatory overlap with adjacent segments. We conclude that vowel deletion is grammatically controlled gestural overlap, consistent with the claim that phonological representations encode information about the relative timing and coordination of articulatory gestures (e.g. Browman & Goldstein 1986, Gafos 2002). At a minimum, language-specific phonetic processes must have access to more fine-grained, abstract grammatical information than is usually assumed.

Key words Mayan, articulatory phonology, gestural coordination, syncope, vowel deletion, phonetics-phonology interface

Partial control with overt embedded subjects in Chirag

Dmitry Ganenkov

Abstract This article documents a previously unattested variety of obligatory control (OC) in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Chirag Dargwa, which lies at the intersection between two phenomena known from previous research: overt controlled subjects and partial control. Despite being less widespread crosslinguistically, these two phenomena do occur in various unrelated languages and are known to not quite fit in with existing theories of OC. Combined in a single construction, they yield a new empirical option in the typology of OC and provide evidence in favor of a pro analysis of controlled subjects.

Language play is language variation: Quantitative evidence and what it implies about language change

Marisa Brook, Emily Blamire

Abstract  This article argues that language play is intimately related to linguistic variation and change. Using two corpora of online present-day English, we investigate playful conversion of adjectives into abstract nouns (e.g. made of awesome∅), uncovering consistent rule-governed patterning in the grammatical constraints in spite of this option stemming from deliberate subversion of standard overt suffixation. Building on Haspelmath's (1999) notion of 'extravagance' as one of the keys to language change, we account for the systematic patterning of deliberate linguistic subversion by appealing to tension between the need to stand out and the need to remain intelligible. While we do not claim that language play is the only cause of linguistic change, our findings position language play as a constant source of new linguistic variants in very large numbers, a small proportion of which endure as changes. Our conclusion is that language play goes a long way toward accounting for linguistic innovations—with respect to where they come from and why languages change at all.

Key words sociolinguistics, linguistic variation, language play, morphology, language change, English, computer-mediated communication

The development of phonological patterns in an urban dialect contact setting: Evidence from Seoul Korean

Soohyun Kwon

Abstract This study investigates the linguistic outcome of migration-induced dialect contact in contemporary urban settings by tracking the development of the variable deletion of /w/ in Seoul Korean. The results from apparent-time and real-time analyses reveal that the rate of postconsonantal /w/-deletion, which previously had been rising, has begun to fall. In addition, the strong effect of the preceding consonant on this deletion has weakened significantly. Meanwhile, the rate of non-postconsonantal /w/-deletion has continued to rise, and, for younger speakers, non-postconsonantal /w/-deletion now patterns similarly with postconsonantal /w/-deletion. I argue that the dilution of the original pattern of the deletion rule is the result of the interplay between linguistic diffusion induced by a massive influx of migrants into Seoul and phonological restructuring by subsequent generations.

The syntax of English presentatives

Jim Wood, Raffaella Zanuttini

Abstract In this article, we analyze the syntax of sentences such as Here is my daughter, which we refer to as presentatives. Presentatives turn out to have a wide range of properties that distinguish them sharply from ordinary declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives, and exclamatives. Drawing on recent work on the left periphery, we develop a novel account of their syntactic structure that uses only independently proposed syntactic primitives. We argue that English presentatives involve an ordinary DP combined with two left-peripheral heads, encoding the time and location of the speaker, along with an anaphoric T head and a light verb. The resulting structure is a triple consisting of the speech time, speech location, and an entity denoted by a DP. The overall picture that emerges suggests that presentatives may constitute their own minor clause type, one that we might expect to be widely available crosslinguistically, since it is built from a particular combination of these widely available primitives. A brief survey of presentatives in languages other than English suggests that they are indeed widely available, and our analysis provides an explicit framework for detailed investigations of presentatives in other languages, which may use an overlapping, but not necessarily fully identical, set of primitives.

Anti-Pied-Piping

Kenyon Branan, Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine

Abstract Anti-pied-piping is a widespread but understudied phenomenon where a language targets a proper subpart of the logical focus for focus morphosyntax: for example, focus particle placement or focus movement. We show that anti-pied-piping is attested in over sixty languages from over forty distinct language groups. We present a theory of focus particle syntax/semantics that involves severing the pronounced position of a focus particle and the logical position of its corresponding semantic contribution, which successfully accounts for both anti-pied-piping and pied-piping behavior. Constraints on attested anti-pied-piping behavior and its interaction with movement show that particle placement takes place at particular, punctuated points in the derivation, in a cyclic model of syntactic structure building. We also discuss the relation of particle placement to other processes such as linearization and stress assignment.

Key words focus particles, focus movement, focus association, anti-pied-piping, pied-piping, particle placement, cyclic Spell-out, stress assignment

Mainstreaming translanguaging pedagogy through language policy: Opportunities and challenges in a South African university

Liqhwa Siziba, Busani Maseko

Abstract This article is a critical analysis of principles for the provision of translanguaging in the language policy of North-West University. It draws on the conceptualization of translanguaging as a transformative, inclusive, and empowering practice (Cenoz & Gorter 2022a,b, Kleyn & García 2019, Tai 2022) and attempts to uncover the mood and dispositions of the university toward mainstreaming this practice for the inclusion of indigenous African languages in teaching and learning. We discuss how the wording of the provisions reveals the language policy to be power-inflected, reproducing contestations between indigenous and ex-colonial languages. The article ends by suggesting a continuous review of the language policy to eliminate vague and escapist policy provisions.

Pedagogical linguistics: Connecting formal linguistics to language teaching

Andreas Trotzke

Abstract  This article reports on the beginning of a new pan-European enterprise called pedagogical linguistics, which can be distinguished from related approaches on several grounds. Crucially, pedagogical linguistics centers on teaching structural properties of 'language', not just properties of specific languages. Although this crosslinguistic perspective on language is already part of language practitioners' training, student teachers are often not able to draw the connection between formal linguistic training and their teaching in a multilingual classroom. Pedagogical linguistics addresses this lack of awareness and therefore aims at raising 'linguistic' awareness (in addition to language awareness) by highlighting the relevance of formal structural concepts for language pedagogy.

'What' clauses can and 'which' cannot: A Romanian puzzle

 Ivano Caponigro, Anamaria Fălăuș

Abstract  A previously unnoticed puzzle is presented concerning the distribution of wh-determiners in free relative clauses in Romanian: while care 'which' + NP can never introduce free relative clauses, ce 'what' + NP does so productively, as do all other wh-words. New evidence is provided showing that care 'which' + NP in interrogative clauses in Romanian exhibits strong discourse-anaphoric requirements, unlike ce 'what' + NP. This feature of care 'which' + NP is suggested to be responsible for the puzzle by triggering a clash with the basic set-denoting function of a free relative clause, along the lines of what is observed in light-headed relative clauses.

Variation in second and heritage languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives ed. by Robert Bayley, Dennis R. Preston, and Xiaoshi Li (review)

Elaine Tarone

Abstract  This edited volume centers upon variability in second and heritage languages as a necessary attribute of all language development and change, focusing particularly on variability in learners' language that is primarily tied to linguistic context. As the editors and authors of the introductory chapter correctly state, the idea that the utterances produced by second language (L2) learners are variably influenced by both social and linguistic context is not new. They state that the intended contribution of this volume is to expand scholarship in three areas of research on developmental variability: (i) the number of second and heritage languages (HLs) and language varieties included in the study of variation in second language acquisition (SLA), (ii) users' perceptions of the social meanings of variable forms in L2s and HLs, and (iii) the use of mixed-effects linear regression models (MELMs) in measuring the significance of research findings on such variation.

The book includes an introductory chapter and twelve research studies drawn from an impressive range of international locations and languages; the research studies are grouped by target language (that is, the language being acquired), namely: Mandarin, Korean, Cantonese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Catalan. Taken together, these studies produce important findings on the impact of linguistic context on a variety of features in the target language produced by L2 and HL learners. In Ch. 1, the editors (ROBERT BAYLEY, DENNIS R. PRESTON, and XIAOSHI LI) introduce the three main goals of the book enumerated above and suggest the possible contributions of its studies to current variationist research on SLA.

The first four studies examine the acquisition of Asian languages. Chs. 2 and 3 examine English speakers' acquisition of Mandarin Chinese as an L2: Ch. 2 by Li, Bayley, XINYE ZHANG, and YAQIONG CUI focuses on the acquisition of the particle le, and Ch. 3 by REBECCA LURIE STARR examines the acquisition of Mandarin phonological variants in Singapore. The third study in this section (Ch. 4 by MIHI PARK) turns to the acquisition of nominative argument realizations in Korean as a third language (L3) by bilingual Singaporean speakers of Mandarin Chinese and English, and the fourth (Ch. 5 by HOLMAN TSE) examines the acquisition of Cantonese sociophonetics by English-speaking heritage learners in Toronto.

The next three chapters focus on the acquisition of Spanish as an L2 or HL. The first (Ch. 6 by CHELSEA ESCALANTE and ROBYN WRIGHT) studies Spanish rhotic development by uninstructed speakers of English in Ecuador; the second (Ch. 7 by KIMBERLEY L. GEESLIN and STEPHEN FAFULAS) is a quasi-longitudinal study of progressive and habitual verb marking by instructed speakers of English in the US; and the third (Ch. 8 by REBECCA POZZI) covers Americans' development of sociolinguistic competence during study abroad in Buenos Aires.

The next three chapters examine the acquisition of French as an L2. Ch. 9 (by KATHERINE REHNER, RAYMOND MOUGEON, and FRANÇOISE MOUGEON) focuses on French first language (L1) and L2 speakers' variable choice of prepositions with place names in Ontario. Ch. 10 (by VERA REGAN) reports on ne deletion produced variably by Polish migrants to France in relation to topic, speaker identity, and language attitudes, and Ch. 11 (by KRISTEN KENNEDY TERRY) examines English speakers' variable schwa deletion in clitics, after different periods of study abroad in different social networks in France.

The last two chapters focus respectively on the acquisition of Italian and of Catalan. Ch. 12 (by MARGHERITA DI SALVO and NAOMI NAGY) compares variable object marking in Italian as an HL by three generations of immigrants in Toronto with that of native speakers in Calabria, Italy...

Assessing the inferential strength of epistemic must

Giuseppe Ricciardi, Rachel Ryskin, Edward Gibson

Abstract This article presents four experiments that investigate the meaning of English and Italian statements containing the epistemic necessity auxiliary verb must/dovere, a topic of long-standing debate in the philosophical and linguistics literature. Our findings show that the endorsement of such statements in a given scenario depends on the participants’ subjective assessment about whether they are convinced that the conclusion suggested by the scenario is true, independently from their objective assessment of the conclusion’s likelihood. We interpret these findings as suggesting that English and Italian speakers use epistemic necessity verbs to communicate neither conclusions judged to be necessary (contrary to the prediction of the standard modal logical view) nor conclusions judged to be highly probable (contrary to the prediction of recent analyses using probabilistic models) but conclusions whose truth they believe in (as predicted by the analysis of epistemic must as an inferential evidential). We suggest that this evidential meaning of epistemic must/dovere might have arisen in everyday conversation from a reiterated hyperbolic use of the words with their original meaning as epistemic necessity verbs.

Partial control with overt embedded subjects in Chirag

Dmitry Ganenkov

Abstract This article documents a previously unattested variety of obligatory control (OC) in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Chirag Dargwa, which lies at the intersection between two phenomena known from previous research: overt controlled subjects and partial control. Despite being less widespread crosslinguistically, these two phenomena do occur in various unrelated languages and are known to not quite fit in with existing theories of OC. Combined in a single construction, they yield a new empirical option in the typology of OC and provide evidence in favor of a pro analysis of controlled subjects.

Listener beliefs and perceptual learning: Differences between device and human guises

Georgia Zellou, Michelle Cohn, Anne Pycha

Abstract  Listeners have a remarkable ability to adapt to novel speech patterns, such as a new accent or an idiosyncratic pronunciation. In almost all of the previous studies examining this phenomenon, the participating listeners had reason to believe that the speech signal was produced by a human being. However, people are increasingly interacting with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) devices that produce speech using text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis. Will listeners also adapt to novel speech input when they believe it is produced by a device? Across three experiments, we investigate this question by exposing American English listeners to shifted pronunciations accompanied by either a ‘human’ or a ‘device’ guise and testing how this exposure affects their subsequent categorization of vowels. Our results show that listeners exhibit perceptual learning even when they believe the speaker is a device. Furthermore, listeners generalize these adjustments to new talkers, and do so particularly strongly when they believe that both old and new talkers are devices. These results have implications for models of speech perception, theories of human-computer interaction, and the interface between social cognition and linguistic theory.

Key words speech perception, accent adaptation, phonetic learning, listener beliefs, human-computer interaction

English contracted negation revisited: Evidence from varieties of Scots

Gary Thoms, David Adger, Caroline Heycock, E Jamieson, Jennifer Smith

Abstract This article is concerned with the syntactic position of negation and how that connects to negation’s morphological realization and semantic and pragmatic effects. We focus on the case of contracted negation in English, which may appear both before and after the grammatical subject, and which has been classically analyzed as involving a single syntactic element placed by syntactic rule into distinct linear positions. We argue that this analysis is incorrect and that, in fact, there are multiple negations in English which are not related by a syntactic movement rule. We use the rich and complex morphosyntactic and semantico-pragmatic variation in the behavior of negation in varieties of Scots to motivate the argument and to develop a new approach that comes with both empirical and theoretical advantages.

Key words  negation, clitic, affix, microcomparative syntax, varieties of English, Scots

The interpretation and grammatical representation of animacy

Maziar Toosarvandani

Abstract  We are used to thinking about person, number, and gender as features to which the grammar is sensitive. But the place of animacy is less familiar, despite its robust syntactic activity in many languages. I investigate the pronominal system of Southeastern Sierra Zapotec, identifying an interpretive parallel between animacy and person. Third-person plural pronouns, which encode a four-way animacy distinction in the language, exhibit associativity, a cluster of interpretive properties that have been argued also to characterize first-and second-person plural pronouns. Building on Kratzer’s (2009) and Harbour’s (2016) theories of person, I propose a plurality-based semantics for animacy that captures their shared properties. The compositional mechanism underlying this semantics ties person and animacy features to a single syntactic position inside the noun phrase. This enables an understanding of these features’ shared relevance to syntactic operations, including those underlying pronoun cliticization. In these Zapotec varieties, it is constrained both by person (in the well-known person-case constraint) and by animacy.

Linguistic emancipation

John Baugh

Abstract The term linguistic emancipation embraces various interpretations. One relates to occasions where linguists have helped people overcome problems that are attributable to various linguistic calamities. Another pertinent vector relates to methodological innovations that extricate linguistic research from methodological confinement and that embrace new technologies to help advance our collective scientific mission. These alternative perspectives are illustrated here in small measure through studies of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and gender modification in the speech of a trans woman. The legacy of inventive methodological advances in linguistics is celebrated by emphasizing some liberating linguistic research trajectories in which experimental, self-generated data and descriptive investigations of endangered and underrepresented languages or dialects stand side by side, serving a comprehensive linguistic science in which alternative analytical procedures abound in harmonious complementarity.

Key words AAVE, situational variability, forensic linguistics, gender-affirming speech adaptation, linguistic justice, methodological innovation

Linguist is as linguist does: A comparative study on the employment and income of graduates from linguistics programs in Canada

Kaitlyn Battershill, Victor Kuperman

Abstract This study attempts to answer a perennial question asked of and by every student of linguistics: ‘What can you do with this degree?’. We address the question through an in-depth analysis of administrative and tax data from Statistics Canada (2009–2018). Specifically, this article (i) maps out educational and employment pathways of linguistics graduates in Canada, (ii) compares their earnings to graduates from other ‘competitor’ programs that future linguists consider as viable alternatives, and (iii) verifies the range of careers advertised by linguistics departments against the reality of the industries in which graduates from those departments are employed. These findings enable us to draw conclusions about the optimal and suboptimal educational and career pathways that involve a linguistics degree. Linguistics graduates tend to earn less than their peers in comparable programs, unless they pursue a lengthy educational path. The findings also point to a partial mismatch between potential careers advertised by Canadian linguistics departments and actual areas of employment after graduating with a linguistics degree. We provide suggestions for linguistics departments on how best to align the policies and practices of these programs with the ground truth of the labor market.

Engaging students in research and self-discovery: An integrative and student-centered approach to History of the English Language

Maria Ornella Treglia

Abstract  This article illustrates how a student-centered, culturally responsive pedagogical approach to teaching History of the English Language (HEL) to community college students from diverse ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds promotes self-knowledge and academic confidence. I outline how several areas—including language theory, etymology of names, language policy, varieties of English, and language identity—can be effectively taught at an introductory HEL level through ethnographic research and multiple-draft writing assignments. Throughout the article, excerpts of student writing demonstrate their engagement in ethnographic research with a focus on their own communities, revealing their experience-based knowledge and their viewpoints on language-equality issues.

The Cambridge handbook of Korean linguistics ed. by Sungdai Cho and John Whitman (review)

 Hee-Rahk Chae

Abstract  In this review, I offer a bird’s-eye view of the topics discussed in The Cambridge handbook of Korean linguistics (henceforth, ‘the handbook’) and augment this list with additional important topics from other materials, aiming to encompass significant research areas in Korean linguistics. I then delve into prevailing, yet questionable, practices in the field, especially those concerning the morphosyntactic status of linguistic units. Additionally, I address examples from the handbook that raise controversies regarding whether they should be considered words or phrases.

The handbook succeeds Brown & Yeon 2015 as the second handbook on Korean linguistics. It comprises six parts with thirty chapters, beginning with an introductory section (Part I: Korean overview) and followed by five thematic areas (Part II: Phonetics and phonology, Part III: Morphology and syntax, Part IV: Semantics and pragmatics, Part V: Sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, Part VI: Language pedagogy). With its comprehensive coverage and in-depth discussions, the handbook is expected to make a significant contribution to the advancement of Korean linguistics.

Part I contains an introduction by editors SUNGDAI CHO and JOHN WHITMAN (Ch. 1), which provides a clear and concise overview of the topics covered in the book, followed by a phonology overview by YOUNG-KEY KIM-RENAUD (Ch. 2) and a synopsis of the syntax chapters by JAMES HYE SUK Yoon (Ch. 3). It also includes an article on politeness strategies by Sungdai Cho (Ch. 5), along with two papers on special topics: ‘On the centrality of Korean in language contacts in northeast Asia’, by ALEXANDER VOVIN (Ch. 4), and ‘Korean Kugyŏl’, by JAE-YOUNG CHUNG, translated by John Whitman (Ch. 6). Kugyŏl refers to an ancient writing system that employed Chinese characters to write Korean.

Most chapters in Parts II–IV cover traditional and widely discussed topics in theoretical linguistics. Part II features papers on the following topics: vowel harmony, by SEONGYEON KO (Ch. 7); stop laryngeal contrasts, by YOONJUNG KANG, JESSAMYN SCHERTZ, and SUNGWOO HAN (Ch. 8); the phonetics-prosody interface and prosodic strengthening, by TAEHONG CHO (Ch. 9); constituent structure and sentence phonology, by SEUNGHUN J. LEE (Ch. 10); and effects of linguistic experience on the perception of stops, by SANG YEE CHEON (Ch. 11).

The articles in Part III focus on right-dislocation (by HEEJEONG KO: Ch. 12), experimental insights on anaphors (by CHUNG-HYE HAN: Ch. 13), person-denoting nominals (by SHIN-SOOK KIM and PETER SELLS: Ch. 14), lexical nominalization (by James Hye Suk Yoon: Ch. 15), and the processing of a long-distance dependency (by NAYOUNG KWON: Ch. 16). It is worth noting that Ch. 13 and Ch. 16 not only address theoretical issues but also provide empirical insights into their respective subjects.

Part IV explores a range of topics, featuring discussions on (inter)subjectivity by HO-MIN SOHN (Ch. 17), discourse studies by HAEYEON KIM (Ch. 18), metaphoric and metonymic patterns with nwun ‘eye(s)’ by EBRU TÜRKER (Ch. 19), WH-indefinites by JIWON YUN (Ch. 20), ‘expletive’ negation by SUWON YOON (Ch. 21), and case stacking by EUNHEE LEE (Ch. 22). The inclusion of Ch. 22 in this part is rooted in the author’s syntax-semantics interface account, where it is posited that the particles -i/ka and -ul/lul (when stacked) are not case markers but discourse markers/delimiters (cf. Chae 2023). Ch. 5 (dealing with politeness) could have been assigned to this part. [End Page 844]

Within the last two parts, which delve into applied linguistics, Part V (Sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics) covers grammaticalization (by SEONGHA RHEE: Ch. 23), gender (by MINJU KIM: Ch...

Explanations in sociosyntactic variation ed. by Tanya Karoli Christensen and Torben Juel Jensen (review)

James A. Walker

Abstract  Since the sociolinguistic variable was first extended ‘above and beyond’ phonology (Sankoff 1973), the status of syntactic variation and explanations for its conditioning have proven controversial (e.g. Lavandera 1978, Weiner & Labov 1983) and remain so, as illustrated by recent publications (see, for example, Beaman et al. 2020), including the present volume (which arose from a symposium held at the University of Copenhagen in 2014). Each of the contributions to this volume addresses methodological and analytical questions raised by syntactic variation, through an examination of a range of variables in different languages (Danish, Dutch, English, Spanish) in various locales (Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, the US). Several questions, identified by the editors, arise repeatedly throughout the volume: How should the variable context for syntactic variation be defined? Are syntactic variables socially stratified in ways similar to phonetic variables (cf. Cheshire 1998)? If so, does such stratification reflect social indexing or other considerations, such as dialect, style, or register (Cheshire 2005)? Can variables be ranked on a hierarchy of their availability to a ‘sociolinguistic monitor’ (Labov 1993)?

As the editors state in their introduction, linguistic variation is ‘increasingly examined as an empirical fact of naturally occurring language use, even within approaches to language that traditionally have ignored or dismissed variable language use’ (5). They divide syntactic variables into three types: those involving the presence or absence of a syntactic constituent (e.g. copular verbs, complementizers, subject pronouns), those involving considerations of word order (e.g. dative constructions, auxiliary/participle placement), and those involving paradigmatic substitution (e.g. the form of pronouns or of negation). Noting that ‘[s]yntactic alternations lie (restlessly) at the interface of grammar and social action, of category and variation, of syntax and lexis’ (22), they outline various explanations that have been offered to account for syntactic variation: functional, cognitive, structural, and social.

In Ch. 1, SALI A. TAGLIAMONTE addresses two of the five ‘problems’ of language change identified by Weinreich et al. (1968): its EMBEDDING in social and linguistic systems and its EVALUATION by members of the speech community (the problem of its ACTUATION is raised at the end of the chapter but not addressed). The distribution and conditioning of two syntactic variables [End Page 850] in English are examined (complementizer that versus zero; relative that, zero, and WH-form), based on data from sociolinguistic interviews conducted in York (UK) and Toronto (Canada) between 1997 and 2010. Complementizer variation is complicated by frequent subject-verb collocations (I think, you know) that function more as epistemic discourse markers than as matrix clauses (e.g. Torres Cacoullous & Walker 2009)—once these tokens are removed from consideration, the matrix verb and the subject and complexity of the subordinate clause are significant in multiple-regression analyses in both locales. Random-forest analyses concur on the importance of the matrix verb and subject, with social factors ranked below linguistic factors. In the relative marker system, WH-forms occupy a minor role in the variation and are conditioned by formality and social class, in keeping with their historical trajectory. Relative that is favored in contexts where it provides ‘clarity’ as to the status of the antecedent NP. In both locales, antecedent animacy is the most important factor in the choice of relative marker.

In Ch. 2, JENNIFER SMITH and SOPHIE HOLMES-ELLIOTT examine two English variables, negative concord and the use of never in contexts of didn’t, from Buckie (Scotland). Speakers of three generations were recorded in sociolinguistic interviews twice between 2013 and 2016, once by a community insider and once by an outsider. While negative concord is the community norm for most speakers regardless of generation, all speakers decrease their use of negative concord when talking to the outsider interviewer. Use of nonstandard never is ‘robust’ throughout the community, although higher among younger speakers. The interviewer effect is...

期刊简介

Language, a journal of the Linguistic Society of America, is published quarterly and contains articles, short reports, and book reviews on all aspects of linguistics, focusing on the area of theoretical linguistics. Since 2013, Language features online content in addition to the print edition, including supplemental materials and articles presented in various sections: Teaching Linguistics; Language and Public Policy; Commentaries; Research Reports; and Perspectives. Language has been the primary literary vehicle for the Society since 1924.

《语言》是美国语言学会的期刊，每季度出版一次，包含有关语言学各个方面的文章、简短报告和书评，重点关注理论语言学领域。自 2013 年以来，除了印刷版外，《语言》还提供在线内容，包括各个部分的补充材料和文章：语言学教学、语言与公共政策、评论、研究报告和观点。自 1924 年以来，《语言》一直是该协会的主要作品呈现载体。

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