Previous studies of agreement variation in existential there constructions treat the variable as binary, distinguishing between agreeing and nonagreeing variants. Using new data from a corpus of English spoken in California, we argue that this widely studied variable cannot be fully understood without instead making a three-way distinction between agreement (there are/were + plural), nonagreement using a full form of the verb (there is/was + plural), and nonagreement using there's. We motivate this three-way distinction by showing that the two nonagreeing variants differ in their distributions with respect to polarity and determiner type, as well as speaker age and education level. Full form nonagreement is more frequent among speakers with less formal education, while there's is favored by younger speakers. These results suggest that the two nonagreeing variants differ in their longitudinal trajectories, a finding that would be obscured in an analysis that makes only a binary distinction between variants.
Previous research demonstrates that listeners make social inferences about people based on how they speak, and that these inferences vary depending on the linguistic and social context. An open question is exactly how contextual enrichment (i.e. information about the speaker and speaking situation) comes to influence sociolinguistic perception. This paper addresses this question by analyzing data from 10 perception experiments investigating three different linguistic phenomena: number agreement in existential there constructions, intonation contours in declarative sentences, and overlapping speech in conversation. We observe an overall trend that increasing contextual enrichment obscures the effects of linguistic forms. In contextually impoverished stimuli, number nonagreement and rising declaratives trigger perceptions that speakers are less educated and more polite, respectively, but show no effect on listener perceptions when embedded in more contextually rich stimuli. By contrast, overlapping speech shows robust effects on perceived interruptiveness, even in contextually rich stimuli. Drawing on theories from social psychology and linguistic anthropology, we argue that if listeners are able to form sufficient impressions of speakers before encountering the target linguistic feature, they will not modify their impressions to incorporate the social meanings conveyed by the target linguistic feature, unless these social meanings are highly enregistered.
Speakers use overlapping speech to achieve a range of interactional moves. Competitive overlaps, or interruptions, challenge an interlocutor's control of the conversational floor, while non-competitive overlaps, like back-channeling and coconstructed discourse, communicate engagement with the conversation and ratify the interlocutor's right to be speaking. Being able to evaluate the intentions behind moments of overlap is critical for interlocutors, as well as researchers seeking to model human-human interaction. Researchers have analyzed the acoustics of overlapping speech in order to understand what determines whether an overlap is heard as competitive or noncompetitive. They have overwhelmingly found that prosodic prominence plays an important role; incoming overlaps with higher pitch and intensity are more competitive or interruptive. However, no research has directly tested whether and how listeners use prosodic cues to evaluate moments of overlap. Furthermore, much of the current research on classifying overlapping speech ignores listener variability. The present study uses a perception experiment with 500 participants to test the effects of speaker prosody and listener attitudes on the evaluation of overlapping speech. The results demonstrate that prosodic prominence does significantly affect evaluations of overlapping speech, but it is mediated by the listener's own interactional style and attitudes toward overlapping speech.
Although number nonagreement is typically stigmatized and relatively uncommon in English, it is the norm in existential there constructions. Specifically, the nonagreeing form there's + NPpl enjoys widespread use and acceptance – most speakers use there's more frequently than even plural forms (e.g. there are) to introduce plural nouns. Moreover, it has been argued that there's + NPpl is becoming more frequent and socially accepted over time. This study uses social perception experiments to analyze whether there's + NPpl is becoming the unmarked form for introducing plural nouns in the present tense. The results of these experiments demonstrate that (1) there's + NPpl is sociolinguistically distinct from other singular, nonagreeing forms (e.g. there is), (2) the use of there's + NPpl appears to lack any social stigma, even among listeners who describe themselves as very bothered by nonstandard language use, and (3) the prescriptively correct present tense plural agreeing form there are is perceived as somewhat hyperstandard.
Background. Adversity can accelerate maturation. Molar eruption is a simple and scalable way to identify early maturation, but its developmental correlates remain unexplored. Thus, we examined whether accelerated maturation, as indexed by molar eruption, is associated with children’s mental health or cognitive skills. Methods. Molar eruption was evaluated from T2-weighted MRIs in 117 children (63 female, 4-7-years old). Parents reported on mental health with the Child Behavior Checklist. Children completed standardized assessments of fluid reasoning, working memory, processing speed, crystallized knowledge, and math performance. Relationships between molar eruption and developmental outcomes were examined using linear models, with age, gender, income, exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences, and race/ethnicity as covariates.Results. Earlier molar eruption was positively associated with children’s externalizing symptoms (PFDR = .021), but not internalizing symptoms, and the relationship did not hold when controlling for demographics or stress exposure. Earlier molar eruption was negatively associated with fluid reasoning (PFDR < .001), working memory (PFDR = .033), and crystallized knowledge (PFDR = .001). The association between molar eruption and reasoning held controlling for family income, ACEs, and the child’s race and ethnicity. Molar eruption also significantly mediated associations between both income and Adverse Childhood Experiences, and reasoning. Conclusions. Accelerated maturation, as reflected in early molar eruption, may have consequences for cognitive development, perhaps because it constrains brain plasticity. Knowing the pace of a child’s maturation may provide insight into the impact of a child’s stress history on their cognitive development.
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