Like many other non-standard varieties of English, Inner-Sydney English (ISE) allows variation in its subject–verb agreement patterns, especially with the auxiliary verb do (+ not), and the verb be (as a copula and an auxiliary).

Such variation has been investigated in British English (Trudgill 1974; Cheshire 1982) and American English both in Black English (Labov et al. 1968; Wolfram 1969) and in various white varieties (Labov et al. 1968; Wolfram and Christian 1976; Feagin 1979). In Australian English, such variation has been noted by Eagleson (1976) in Sydney, Dines et al. (1979), Bradley (1979) in Melbourne, and Shnukal (1978) in Cessnock, but only Bradley and Shnukal provide any quantitative analysis.

This paper will attempt to explore systematically the factors which influence variation in subject–verb agreement patterns in Inner-Sydney English, focusing on the two variables, do and be, in order to determine the linguistic and non-linguistic constraints on the variation apparent.

Methodology of present study

This study is based on the speech of 40 adolescent residents of the Inner-City area of Sydney. All the informants were long-term residents of the area and were Australian-born of Australian-born parents. This was important, given the high migrant population of the Inner-City area of Sydney, in order to eliminate the possibility of language transfer.