The grammaticization of going to in (African American) English

Abstract

Focusing on the process of grammaticization, whereby items with lexical meaning evolve into grammatical markers, this article examines the future temporal reference sectors of three diaspora varieties of African American English which have evolved in linguistic isolates and compares them with those of British-origin rural and mainstream varieties of English. With one exception, the same constraint hierarchies condition the selection of going to across the board, indicating that their future temporal reference systems are descended from a common source. All other distinctions among the varieties result from their differential positioning on the cline of ongoing grammaticization of going to as a future marker. Operationalization of constraints representing different stages of the development of going to and comparison of their probability values across communities confirm that the enclave and the rural varieties retain conservative traits, visible here in the form of variable conditioning, in contrast to mainstream English, which is innovating. We suggest that the major determinant of variability in the expression of the future is the fact that the speech of isolated speakers, whether of African or British origin, instantiates constraints that were operative at an earlier stage of the English language and that are now receding from mainstream varieties.

In search of grammaticalization in synchronic dialect data: general extenders in northeast England

“…The methodological framework of variationist sociolinguistics enables scholars to operationalize these 442 H E I K E P I C H L E R A N D S T E P H E N L E V E Y hypotheses as independent linguistic variables conditioning synchronic variation (Poplack 2011;Torres Cacoullos 2011), and to systematically compare the distribution and linguistic conditioning of variant choice across different age groups. This combined approach allows scholars to identify and track grammaticalization pathways in apparent time, as illustrated, for example, in Poplack & Tagliamonte (1999).…”

“…Previous attempts to synergize these frameworks in synchronic dialect studies have illuminated the grammaticalization of morphosyntactic features such as clausecombining constructions and tense-aspect markers (see, for example, Sankoff & Brown 1976;Poplack & Tagliamonte 1999, 2001Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos 2008). These studies have improved understanding of grammaticalization processes and given rise to important theoretical and methodological refinements: scholars have recognized the need to situate the analysis of grammaticalizing elements in relation to the broader grammatical subsystems which host them (see, for example, Poplack & Tagliamonte 1996;Tagliamonte & Smith 2006), and have enhanced procedures for identifying and tracking subtle shifts in the linguistic conditioning of variant choice over time (see, for example, Poplack 2011).…”

Ethnolects and the city: Ethnic orientation and linguistic variation in Toronto English

“…(e.g., Fought, 2006;Mendoza-Denton, 2002;Roeder, 2007;Silva-Corvalan, 1994), though this association can become tenuous if the community shifts to the majority language, as many immigrant groups to North America have done. Ethnicity is also commonly equated with race (e.g., Bell, 1997;Bernstein, 1993;Fought, 2002;Hazen, 2002Hazen, , 2008Poplack & Tagliamonte, 1999;Reaser, 2004;Rickford, 1985;but cf. Labov, 2008:317), 1 especially in the U.S., where most studies compare white and black (and sometimes Latino) speakers (Fought, 2002;Rickford, 1999).…”

Le: from pronoun to verbal intensifier

“…(12) A growing body of studies shows how synchronic variation reflects stages in diachronic grammaticization processes (e.g. Schwenter 1994;Poplack and Tagliamonte 1999). In the next two sections I describe two sets of changes in le distribution patterns.…”