Intensifiers on Tyneside

Abstract

We report on longitudinal changes in the system of intensification in an innovative corpus that spans five decades of dialectal speech from North-East England. Our analyses allow us -for the first time in a British context -to trace the quantitative development in the variable across four generations. Longitudinal analysis across real and apparent time determines the effect of extralinguistic and intralinguistic variables on intensification in Tyneside and tests to what extent real time data corroborates trends reported from previous apparent time analyses. Long-term competition within the variable manifests itself in distinctive developmental trajectories: expansion -both proportionally within the variable as well as across adjectival categories -tends to follow one of three types of patterns, exemplified, respectively, by really, so and dead. Variant retraction, however, follows only one schema. Importantly, numerical decline in the system does not necessarily go hand in hand with a reduction in breadth of application.

Canny good, orquite canny?

“…As the relative frequency of intensifier canny compared to other intensifiers within DECTE has already been established by Barnfield and Buchstaller (2010), their observations will be valuable to my discussion of intensifier canny as one of four functions of canny in North East English.…”

“…Comparing normalised frequencies for each relevant stratum of the data (over time and/or within social groups) differs from the approach of Barnfield and Buchstaller (2010), for example, who considered one function of canny (intensifier) as a variant of the intensification variable. As the relative frequency of intensifier canny compared to other intensifiers within DECTE has already been established by Barnfield and Buchstaller (2010), their observations will be valuable to my discussion of intensifier canny as one of four functions of canny in North East English.…”

“…The majority of SED informants were men aged 60+, who were consulted in 1950-1961(Orton 1962, which under the apparent-time construct (Cukor-Avila and Bailey 2013) would suggest that the intensifier was in use from at least around 1900. The evidence therefore points to the intensifier as the most recentlydeveloped function of canny and is said to be relatively new to the dialect compared to other intensifiers (Barnfield and Buchstaller 2010;Pearce 2011: 8). This paper therefore addresses two main research questions: (i) How frequent are these four uses of canny over time and are they undergoing change?…”

“…Such analysis is pursued in this paper using data from an online judgement task testing intensifier canny in different linguistic contexts. Barnfield and Buchstaller (2010) discuss intensifier canny in their analysis of the North East English intensifier system. Using a sample of DECTE (16 speakers from each sub-corpus: TLS (1970), PVC (1994, NECTE2 (2007+)), they extracted all intensifiers modifying adjectives and calculated the relative frequency of each intensifier.…”

“…Though commonly cited in its adjectival sense as "a general epithet of approbation or satisfaction" (Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED)), in North East English canny also functions as an adverb (Griffiths 2004: 24-5), intensifier (Barnfield and Buchstaller 2010;Pearce 2011: 8) and a modifier in quantifying expressions (Allen et al 2007: 23), as illustrated in examples (1)-(4) from the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (DECTE) (Corrigan et al 2010-12): (1) Adjective a. they seemed canny enough [PVC,decten1pvc05] b. we usually get a canny month in September [NECTE2,decten2y07i013] 3 (2) Adverb a. I got to know most people, mm get on canny with them [PVC,decten1pvc06] b. everything's going along canny [NECTE2, T_2091_10_3] (3) Intensifier a. that should be canny good [PVC,decten1pvc10] b. I'm canny happy he did do that [NECTE2,decten2y10i012] (4) Modifier in quantifying expressions a. well I was stationed up there a canny while you know [TLS,decten0tls_G054] b. there's a canny few going around [PVC,decten1pvc06] These functions of canny have unique linguistic nuances, discussed later in this section, but share a core meaning of denoting a positive entity. The adjective and adverb express positive evaluation, while the intensifier and modifier in quantifying expressions intensify the property that they modify (a value, quantity or degree), making the property "more positive" in those terms.…”