What is the explanation for vigorous variation between was and were in plural existential constructions, and what is the optimal tool for analyzing it? Previous studies of this phenomenon have used the variable rule program, a generalized linear model; however, recent developments in statistics have introduced new tools, including mixed-effects models, random forests, and conditional inference trees that may open additional possibilities for data exploration, analysis, and interpretation. In a step-by-step demonstration, we show how this well-known variable benefits from these complementary techniques. Mixed-effects models provide a principled way of assessing the importance of random-effect factors such as the individuals in the sample. Random forests provide information about the importance of predictors, whether factorial or continuous, and do so also for unbalanced designs with high multicollinearity, cases for which the family of linear models is less appropriate. Conditional inference trees straightforwardly visualize how multiple predictors operate in tandem. Taken together, the results confirm that polarity, distance from verb to plural element, and the nature of the DP are significant predictors. Ongoing linguistic change and social reallocation via morphologization are operational. Furthermore, the results make predictions that can be tested in future research. We conclude that variationist research can be substantially enriched by an expanded tool kit.

In this paper we study the quotative system of contemporary British and Canadian youth. Multivariate analysis of nearly 1300 quotative verbs demonstrates that the innovative form be like is productive in both Canada and Britain. Traditional quotatives such as say, go, think, are used according to somewhat different patterns in the two corpora. We suggest that this is the result of differing narrative styles across varieties. However, the linguistic trajectory of the innovative form be like is remarkably parallel, not only across the British and Canadian corpora, but is also comparable with previous reports of this form in the United States. This finding provides evidence for a systematic global diffusion of be like across geographically separated speech communities and calls for further research into the social and linguistic mechanisms underlying such internationally circumscribed linguistic change.

This article examines variable usage of intensifiers in a corpus from a socially and generationally stratified community. Using multivariate analyses, the authors assess the direction of effect, significance, and relative importance of conditioning factors in apparent time. Of 4,019 adjectival heads, 24% were intensified, and there is an increase in intensification across generations. Earlier forms (e.g. right and well) do not fade away but coexist with newer items. The most frequent intensifiers, however, are shifting rapidly. Very is most common, but only among the older speakers. In contrast, really increases dramatically among the youngest generation; however, the effects of education and sex must be disentangled. The results confirm that variation in intensifier use is a strong indicator of shifting norms and practices in a speech community. Studying such actively changing features can make an important contribution to understanding linguistic change as well as to discovering current trends in contemporary English.

A l e x a n d r a D ' A r c y University of Canterbury A B S T R A C TIn this article we perform a quantitative analysis of verbs of quotation in a cohesive speech community. The incoming form be like overshadows all other quotative verbs among speakers under 30. This telescoped rate of change provides an opportunity to investigate the actuation problem as well as to probe the underlying mechanism of change in the contrasting variable grammars across generations. Multivariate analyses of factors conditioning be like (content of the quote, grammatical person, sex) reveal stability in the significance of constraints, however the rankings and relative strengths reveal subtle ongoing changes in the system. Interpreting these in sociocultural context, we suggest that be like is an innovation that arose out of a preexisting niche in the grammar. It accelerated during the 1980s due to its preppy associations, later specializing as a marker of narrative present. In accounting for these findings, we are led to contrast generational and communal change and to question what it means to 'participate' in linguistic change.

This article presents an analysis of Instant Messaging (IM), a one-to-one synchronous medium of computer-mediated communication. Innumerable articles in the popular press suggest that increasing use of IM by teens is leading to a breakdown in the English language. The analyses presented here are based on a unique corpus involving 72 teenagers and over a million words of natural, unmonitored IM. In addition, a corpus of speech from the same teenagers is examined for comparison. Targeting well-known IM features and four areas of grammar, we show that IM is firmly rooted in the model of the extant language. It reflects the same structured heterogeneity (variation) and the same dynamic, ongoing processes of linguistic change that are currently under way in contemporary varieties of English. At the same time, IM is a unique new hybrid register, exhibiting a fusion of the full range of variants from the speech community-formal, informal, and highly vernacular. Teenagers in the early twenty-first century are using home computers for communication at unprecedented rates in ever-expanding virtual communities. A particularly favorite medium, at least when we conducted this research, was Instant Messaging (IM). IM is "a one-to-one synchronous form of computer-mediated communication" (Baron 2004, 13). It is "direct, immediate, casual online contact" (Schiano et al. 2002). In essence, IM is real-time "interactive written discourse" (Ferrara, Brunner, and Whittemore 1991, 8). Examples of IM in (1) show snippets of conversations in the IM environment. The numbers in square brackets indicate the individual (i.e., in 1a [025] converses with [3], and in 1b [2] converses with [006]). 1