Sociolinguistics meets typology: Insight from vernacular speech to account for cross-linguistic patterns

This study explores how two English grammatical systems with alternative grammatical options expose typological tendencies. A study of negation, no vs. negative quantifiers (nothing) vs. negative polarity items (any/anybody) reveals that the syntactic patterning of English indefinites and negative objects lines up with the hard syntax of the same expressions in closely related languages. A study of variable possession (the vs. my/our) reveals that while much of the system is stable, but nuances of contrast between UK and Canadian patterns expose differences in conceptions of the personal domain that relate to the cultures in which the varieties are spoken. Taken together these results make several important contributions: 1) the value of natural speech data in providing insights into linguistic and sociolinguistic typology operating in tandem; 2) the importance of statistical tools to uncover relevant patterns and contrasts in variable data. The findings affirm that patterns in single variety, when viewed across communities, dialects and languages reveal that linguistic systems are a continuum of interlocking structural and tractile contrasts in the broader context of human language.