Social and Linguistic Correlates of Adverb Variability in English: A

178 Pages·2011·1.71 MB·English

Social and Linguistic Correlates of Adverb Variability in
English: A Cross-varietal Perspective
by
Cathleen Moira Waters
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Linguistics
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Cathleen Waters 2011
Social and Linguistic Correlates of Adverb Variability in English:
A Cross-varietal Perspective
Cathleen Waters
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Linguistics
University of Toronto
2011
Abstract
Linguistic research on adverbs has taken many forms: typological, morphological,
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. However, little work has been conducted on adverbs using
the tools of quantitative sociolinguistics, and most of that work has focused solely on
morphological variation of the -ly suffix.
This work addresses the lacuna by examining two adverb phenomena using
quantitative variationist methodology. Data come from two large, socially stratified,
sociolinguistic corpora of vernacular English. The two corpora contain data collected in
Ontario, Canada and in Northern Britain, and are comprised of the speech of over 150
speakers across all age groups.
In the first case study, I examine a claim in usage guides (e.g., Swan 2001) that North
American English widely permits pre-auxiliary adverbs in canonical, declarative sentences,
while British English prohibits them unless accompanied by contrastive stress. As I show, the
varietal differences in speech are not only minimal and unrelated to stress, but instead are
highly circumscribed. In addition, I demonstrate that the positioning of adverbs observed
here must involve post-syntactic processes.
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The second case study examines variability in the discourse adverb actually and
several related adverbials (e.g., really and in fact) and examines the path of
grammaticalization (Traugott & Dasher 2002) in the two communities. I demonstrate that
Canadians, regardless of sex or education level, prefer the more grammaticalized forms of
actually; in the UK, the more grammaticalized use is less common, though some young men
are leading a shift to the more grammaticalized pattern.
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Acknowledgments

I would gratefully like to acknowledge the Sociolinguistics Laboratory at the University of
Toronto (Sali A. Tagliamonte, Director), which houses the corpora used in this study. The
Toronto English Archive was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada between 2003 and 2005 (Grant #410-2003-0005). The York English
Corpus was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom
with research grants between 1996 and 2003 (R000221842, R000238287, R000239097).

To the community of Canadian sociolinguists: thanks for welcoming me and I look forward
to trying to live up to the unbelievable standard of your work.

Sali Tagliamonte, thank you for all the encouragement and guidance from the very
beginning, on this project and many others, and for making the effort to shape me into a
researcher despite my unconventional background. Jack Chambers, thank you for sharing
your expertise and experience and for helping me see the path forward on many occasions.
Diane Massam, thank you for your help with the syntax, and for asking such great questions.
Naomi Nagy, thank you for making sure I kept the micro and macro in line. Karen Corrigan,
thank you for the helpful and thought-provoking insights.

Many thanks go to the many members of the UofT LVC group for invaluable ideas and
feedback. Over the years, I have also been grateful to have drawn on the expertise, assistance
and counsel of Elly van Gelderen, Karen Adams, Keren Rice, Elizabeth Cowper, John
Paolillo, Becky Roeder, Scott Mackey, Alex D’Arcy, Derek Denis, Olena Tsurska and Mary
Hsu. I thank Cori Hanson, Dylan Usher and Michael Ritter for their help with my work in the
lab over the years.

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On both a personal and professional level, I am privileged to now be able to count among my
friends many of my colleagues at UofT : Annick Morin, Bridget Jankowski, Jacqueline
Peters, Julia Su, Kenji Oda, Laura Baxter, LeAnn Brown, Liisa Duncan and Maria Kyriakaki.
Thanks for your support and for sharing your knowledge. I was extremely fortunate to have
wonderful friends from outside my PhD life, too numerous to list individually here (you
know who you are, and thanks for sticking with me through this thing), but to one in
particular, April Bially, I have to say thanks for being a voice (and an ear) from outside the
maelstrom and for buying me dinner more times than I can count.

Above all, I have to thank my family: my parents (Jim and Joan), Chris, Maggie and John.
When I said I was giving up my corporate career to do a PhD in linguistics, you gave me
nothing but support. When the pursuit of it went on longer than anyone wanted or expected,
you put your roof over my head (or mine over yours) so I could do what I needed to finish.
It’s what everyone says, but it’s true... I couldn’t have done it without you. And to my
nephew, Christian, who acquired ACTUALLY in less time than it took me to write about it, I
dedicate this work.
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Table of Contents

List of tables………………………………………………………………………………..viii

List of figures……………………………………………………………………………….ix

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 1
1 Overview………………………………………………………………………. 1
2 Variation and change in Standard British and Standard North American
English ………………………………………………………………………… 2
3 Why adverbs? …………………………………………………………………. 8
4 The research questions and the case studies…………………………………… 9
5 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 12

2. Background on adverbs………………………………………………………………… 14
1 Adverb syntax………………………………………………………………… 14
2 Categories of English adverbs.……………………………………………….. 20
3 Change over time and grammaticalization..………………………………….. 25
4 Empirical studies of adverbs in English…..………………………………….. 30
5 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 34

3. Methodology and data………………………………………………………………….. 35
1 The corpora and the social variables….……………………………………… 35
2 Sociolinguistic variables……..………………………………………………..40
3 Comparative sociolinguistics…………………………………………………. 43
4 Issues in quantitative studies of adverbials……………………………………45
4.1 General issues…….…...…………...…………………..……………......... 46
4.2 A case study: NOW …..…..…….……………………………………….... .52
4.3 Complexities with discourse markers…………………………………...... 57
5 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 61

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4. Variability in adverb placement with respect to an auxiliary………………………...… 63
1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………... 63
2 Syntax.………………………………………………………………………... 66
3 Empirical studies…………………………………………………………....... 70
4 Methodology…………………………………………………………………. 74
4.1 Circumscribing the variable context.…………………..……………......... 74
4.2 Extracting the data…..………….……………………………………….... 76
4.3 Independent variables and speaker information………………………...... 77
5 Results………………………………………………………………………....82
5.1 Distributional analysis……………..…………………..……………......... 82
5.2 Multivariate analyses..………….……………………………………….... 93
6 Discussion…………………………………………………..………………... 97
6.1 Properties of the auxiliaries………..…………………..……………......... 97
6.2 Syntactic explanations.………….………………………………………... 99
6.3 Reduction and contraction of HAVE.………….…………………………. 105
7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………... 111

5. Adverbs marking realness…………………………………………………………….. 112
1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………. 112
2 Previous research.…………………………………………………………... 114
2.1 ACTUALLY and its variants: semantics, syntax and uses……………....... 114
2.2 The path of grammaticalization………………………………………..... 118
3 Methodology……………………………………………………………….. 119
3.1 Variant interchangeability……………………………..……………....... 119
3.2 Independent variables………….………………………………………... 123
4 Results………………………………………………………………………. 128
5 Discussion…………………………………………………..………………. 132
5.1 Toronto: Grammaticalization and specialization.……..……………....... 133
5.2 York: Social meaning and interaction with intensification……………... 140
6 Conclusion…………………………………………………..………………. 145

6. Conclusion and consequences..……………………………………………………….. 147
1 Summary……………………………………………………………………. 147
2 Consequences and future directions………………………………….……... 149

References..…………………………………………………………...…………………..155

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List of Tables
3.1 Most frequent adverbs in the corpora…………..……............……………………….. 39
3.2 Examples and rates of some infrequent adverbs…...…………………………………. 48
3.3 Rates of now by function……………………………………………………………... 56
3.4 Items identified as discourse markers in two studies…………………………………. 61
4.1 Approach by author, adverb placement………………………………………………. 76
4.2 Rates of pre-auxiliary adverbs by age............................................................................ 83
4.3 Rates of pre-auxiliary adverbs by speaker sex............................................................... 83
4.4 Rates of pre-auxiliary adverbs by speaker education..................................................... 84
4.5 Rates of pre-auxiliary adverbs by auxiliary................................................................... 84
4.6 Rate of pre-auxiliary adverb by adverb type................................................................. 88
4.7 Collocation rates for auxiliaries and adverbs in TORONTO in percent........................ 89
4.8 Collocation rates for auxiliaries and adverbs in YORK in percent................................ 89
4.9 Rate of pre-auxiliary adverb by subject type.................................................................. 91
4.10 Rate of pre-auxiliary adverbs beyond the variable context.......................................... 92
4.11 Multivariate analysis results for pre-auxiliary position................................................ 94
5.1 Individual Clausal positions attested in the data, with examples................................. 125
5.2 Individual Phrasal positions attested in the data, with examples................................. 126
5.3 Coding negation........................................................................................................... 127
5.4 Variant distribution by location.................................................................................... 129
5.5 Multivariate analysis results for use of actually........................................................... 130
5.6 Multivariate analysis results within age group for Toronto......................................... 133
5.7 Variants in only negative contexts in Toronto, in percent........................................... 135
5.8 Variants in only affirmative contexts in Toronto, in percent....................................... 135
5.9 Variant count by age group in Toronto........................................................................ 137
5.10 Variants in only negative contexts in York, in percent.............................................. 140
5.11 Variants in only affirmative contexts in York, in percent.......................................... 141
5.12 Multivariate analyses by age in York......................................................................... 142
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List of Figures

4.1 Rate of pre-auxiliary adverb by lexical auxiliary in percent…………………………86
4.2 Rates of pre-auxiliary adverb by auxiliary phrase structure in percent.......................87
4.3 Rate of pre-auxiliary occurrence by adverb/adverb type in percent............................88
4.4 Rate of pre-auxiliary placement for selected adverbs (in %), by location………...…90
4.5 Rates of pre-auxiliary adverbs by form of HAVE in Toronto and York in %...............96
5.1 Use of ACTUALLY by age group and polarity in Toronto, in percent ........................134
5.2 Use of ACTUALLY by York speakers..........................................................................144

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Chapter 1
Introduction

1 Overview

There is an often-repeated saying1 which suggests that Anglophones on the two sides of the
Atlantic are divided by a common language. This (perceived) division has arisen over several
hundred years, with Strevens (1972: 27) dating American English from 1600, though other
scholars (e.g., van Gelderen 2006:51) place the divergence after 1700. As described below,
many studies of variation and change in English have focused on the differences between
British and North American varieties, with Canadian English generally subsumed under the
larger category of North American English (Brinton and Arnovick 2005:395). However, little
comparative work between these varieties has been conducted on adverbs, especially using
the tools of quantitative sociolinguistics, and much of the work that has been undertaken has
focused solely on morphological variation of the -LY suffix. This work addresses the lacuna
by examining two adverb phenomena using quantitative variationist methodology. Data
come from two large, socially stratified, sociolinguistic corpora of vernacular English. The
two corpora contain data collected in Ontario, Canada and in York, England, and are
comprised of the speech of over 200 speakers ranging in age from 9 to 92, though only adult
speakers were considered in this work.

In the first case study, I examine a claim in usage guides (e.g., Swan 2001) that North
American English widely permits pre-auxiliary adverbs, while British English2 prohibits
them unless accompanied by contrastive stress. As I show, the varietal differences in speech
are frequency-related, with usage differences not only minimal and unrelated to stress, but

1 Attributed to George Bernard Shaw in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations.
2 These claims, and others about adverb use, are generally applied to British English as a whole. However, as
Karen Corrigan (p.c. 8 August 2011) has pointed out to me, it is likely that contact with Celtic languages is a
factor in adverb placement in some varieties in the UK, and thus I restrict my generalizations based on the York
data to English English, while referring to British English in my discussions of other work.
1