Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:17:19.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The grammaticalisation of never in British English dialects: Quantifying syntactic and functional change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2020

CLAIRE CHILDS*
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, YorkYO10 5DD, [email protected]

Abstract

Never originated as a temporal adverb expressing universal quantification over time (‘Type 1’, e.g. he’s never been to Paris). As Lucas & Willis (2012) report, it has developed non-quantificational meanings equivalent to didn’t, starting with the ‘Type 2’ use which depicts an event that could have occurred in a specific ‘window of opportunity’ (e.g. she waited but he never arrived). Subsequently, a non-standard ‘Type 3’ use developed, where never can be used with other predicates (e.g. I never won that competition yesterday). To what extent does variation in the use of never in present-day English reflect the proposed historical development of the form? This study addresses this question by integrating syntactic theory into a quantitative variationist approach, analysing never vs. didn’t in Type 2 and Type 3 contexts using speech corpora from three Northern British communities. The results show how syntactic–semantic constraints on never in Type 2 contexts persist in its newer, Type 3 uses, e.g. it is used at higher rates in achievement predicates. While Type 2 contexts are associated with the expression of counter-expectation, never has become pragmatically strengthened in its Type 3 use, where it is often used to contradict a previously-expressed proposition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) North East Doctoral Training Centre – the paper is developed from a chapter of my doctoral thesis (Childs 2017a). I would like to thank Karen Corrigan, Anders Holmberg and Heike Pichler for their valuable feedback on the research as my supervisors, as well as David Britain and Geoff Poole as my examiners. Many thanks also go to Jane Stuart-Smith, Heike Pichler and the DECTE team for allowing me to use their corpora for this study. I am also grateful for the comments received from the Journal of Linguistics editor and three anonymous referees.

References

Andersen, Henning. 2001. Markedness and the theory of linguistic change. In Andersen, Henning (ed.),Actualization, 2157. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Anderwald, Lieselotte. 2002. Negation in non-standard British English: Gaps, regularizations and asymmetries. London:Routledge.Google Scholar
Anthony, Lawrence. 2011. AntConc (Version 3.2.4w). Tokyo:Waseda University.Google Scholar
Bailey, Guy, Wikle, Tom, Tillery, Jan & Sand, Lori. 1991.The apparent time construct. Language Variation and Change 3, 241264.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Mächler, Martin, Bolker, Benjamin M. & Walker, Steve. 2015.Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4 . Journal of Statistical Software 67, 148.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1993. The grammar of Tyneside and Northumbrian English. In Milroy & Milroy (eds.), 187–213.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1997. Syntax and morphology. In Jones, Charles (ed.),The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, 335377. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2004. English dialects in the North of England: Morphology and syntax. In Kortmann et al. (eds.), 114–141.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C., Burbano-Elizondo, Lourdes & Llamas, Carmen. 2012. Urban North-Eastern English: Tyneside to Teesside. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. & Corrigan, Karen P.. 2005. No, nay, never: Negation in Tyneside English. In Iyeiri, Yoko (ed.),Aspects of English negation, 139157. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. & Traugott, Elizabeth C.. 2005. Lexicalization and language change. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Britain, David. 2002.Diffusion, levelling, simplification and reallocation in past tense BE in the English Fens. Journal of Sociolinguistics 6, 1643.Google Scholar
Britain, David. 2010. Grammatical variation in the contemporary spoken English of England. In Kirkpatrick, Andy (ed.),The Routledge handbook of World Englishes, 3758. London:Routledge.Google Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle & Corrigan, Karen P.. 2015. Morphosyntactic features of Northern English. In Hickey, Raymond (ed.),Researching Northern English, 7198. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. 1982. Variation in an English dialect: A sociolinguistic study. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. 1985. Neverand the problem of where grammars stop. Polyglot 6, 118.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. 1997. Involvement in “standard” and “nonstandard” English. In Cheshire, Jenny & Stein, Dieter (eds.),Taming the vernacular: From dialect to written standard language, 6882. Harlow:Addison Wesley Longman.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. 1998. English negation from an interactional perspective. In Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid, Tottie, Gunnel & van der Wurff, William (eds.),Negation in the history of English, 2954. Berlin:de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, Edwards, Viv K. & Whittle, Pamela. 1989.Urban British dialect grammar: The question of dialect levelling. English World-Wide 10, 185225.Google Scholar
Childs, Claire. 2017a. Variation and change in English negation: A cross-dialectal perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, Newcastle University.Google Scholar
Childs, Claire. 2017b. Integrating syntactic theory and variationist analysis: The structure of negative indefinites in regional dialects of British English. Glossa2.1, Article 106, 1–31.Google Scholar
Childs, Claire. 2019.Interviewer effects on the phonetic reduction of negative tags, innit? Journal of Pragmatics 142, 3146.Google Scholar
Clarke, Sandra. 2010. Newfoundland and Labrador English. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Corrigan, Karen P., Buchstaller, Isabelle, Mearns, Adam J. & Moisl, Hermann L.. 2010–2012. A linguistic ‘time-capsule’ for the Google generation: The Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English. http://research.ncl.ac.uk/decte (accessed 12 June 2016).Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 1988. Dialect in use: Sociolinguistic variation in Cardiff English. Cardiff:University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2012. Verbs: Aspect and clausal structure. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2011. Corpora: Capturing language in use. In Maguire, Warren & McMahon, April (eds.),Analysing variation in English, 4971. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Detges, Ulrich & Waltereit, Richard. 2002.Grammaticalization vs. reanalysis: A semantic–pragmatic account of functional change in grammar. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 21, 151195.Google Scholar
Eckardt, Regine. 2006. Meaning change in grammaticalization: An enquiry into semantic analysis. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Viv K.1993. The grammar of southern British English. In Milroy & Milroy (eds.), 214–238.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. 2013. Variation and syntactic theory. In Chambers, J. K. & Schilling, Natalie (eds.),The handbook of language variation and change, 185202. Malden, MA:Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Frawley, William. 1992. Linguistic semantics. London:Routledge.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. R. 1988. Advanced Varbrul analysis. In Ferrara, Kathleen, Brown, Becky, Walters, Keith & Baugh, John (eds.),Linguistic change and contact, 124136. Austin, TX:Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory R. 1993. The quantitative analysis of linguistic variation. In Preston, Dennis R. (ed.),American dialect research, 223279. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond. 2004. Englishes in Asia and Africa: Origin and structure. In Hickey, Raymond (ed.),Legacies of colonial English: Studies in transported dialects, 503535. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond. 2005. Dublin English: Evolution and change. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond. 2012. English in Ireland. In Hickey, Raymond (ed.),Areal features of the Anglophone world, 79107. Berlin:de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticization. In Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Heine, Bernd (eds.),Approaches to grammaticalization, vol. 1: Focus on the theoretical and methodological issues, 1735. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth C.. 2003. Grammaticalization, 2nd edn. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur, Trudgill, Peter & Watt, Dominic. 2013. English accents and dialects: An introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles, 5th edn. London:Routledge.Google Scholar
Ingham, Richard P.2013. Negation in the history of English. In Willis et al. (eds.), 119–150.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1917. Negation in English and other languages. Copenhagen:A. F. Høst.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd, Schneider, Edgar W., Burridge, Kate, Mesthrie, Rajend & Upton, Clive (eds.).2004. A handbook of varieties of English, vol. 2: Morphology and syntax. Berlin:de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2004. Global synopsis: Morphological and syntactic variation in English. In Kortmann et al. (eds.), 1142–1202.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972a. Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular. Philadelphia, PA:University of Philadelphia Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972b. Where do grammars stop?In Shuy, Roger W. (ed.),Report of the 23rd Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies, 4388. Georgetown, D.C.:Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 2: Social factors. Oxford:Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lauerbach, Gerda E. 2011. Emphasis. In Östman, Jan-Ola & Verschueren, Jef (eds.),Pragmatics in practice, 130148. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Lucas, Christopher & Willis, David. 2012.Never again: The multiple grammaticalization of never as a marker of negation in English. English Language and Linguistics 16, 459485.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2008. The syntactic nature of inner aspect: A Minimalist perspective. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. & White, Peter R. R.. 2005. The Language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Melchers, Gunnel & Shaw, Philip. 2011. World Englishes, 2nd edn. London:Routledge.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam, Schleef, Erik & MacKenzie, Laurel. 2015. Doing sociolinguistics: A practical guide to data collection and analysis. London:Routledge.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim. 1993. The grammar of Scottish English. In Milroy & Milroy (eds.), 99–138.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim. 2002. An introduction to English syntax. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim. 2008. Scottish English: Morphology and syntax. In Kortmann, Bernd & Upton, Clive (eds.),Varieties of English I: The British Isles, 299327. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim & Brown, Keith. 1982.Aspects of Scottish English syntax. English World-Wide 3, 317.Google Scholar
Milroy, James & Milroy, Lesley (eds.).1993. Real English: The grammar of English dialects in the British Isles. London:Longman.Google Scholar
Ocampo, Francisco. 1995. The word order of two-constituent constructions in spoken Spanish. In Downing, Pamela A. & Noonan, Michael (eds.),Word order in discourse, 425448. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M. 2011.The expression of negation in British teenagers’ language: A preliminary study. Journal of English Linguistics 39, 435.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara H. 1973.Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English. The Journal of Philosophy 70, 601609.Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew. 2008. Australian Vernacular English: Some grammatical characteristics. In Burridge, Kate & Kortmann, Bernd (eds.),Varieties of English III: The Pacific and Australasia, 362397. Berlin:de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pichler, Heike. 2011–2012. Research on Salford English (RoSE) project. Ms., University of Salford.Google Scholar
Potsdam, Eric. 1997.NegP and subjunctive complements in English. Linguistic Inquiry 28, 533541.Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2014. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Roberts, Craige. 1996.Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. OSU Working Papers in Linguistics 49, 91136.Google Scholar
Römer, Ute. 2005. Progressives, patterns, pedagogy: A corpus-driven approach to English progressive forms, functions, contexts and didactics. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David. 1988. Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation. In Newmeyer, Frederick J. (ed.),Linguistics: The Cambridge survey, 140161. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W. 2000.Feature diffusion vs. contact effects in the evolution of new Englishes: A typological case study of negation patterns. English World-Wide 21, 201230.Google Scholar
Schulz, Petra. 2003. Factivity: Its nature and acquisition. Tübingen:Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Smith, Jennifer. 2001.Negative concord in the Old and New World: Evidence from Scotland. Language Variation and Change 13, 109134.Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita. 1997. Tags in teenage talk. In Fries, Udo, Müller, Viviane & Schneider, Peter (eds.),From Ælfric to the New York Times: Studies in English corpus linguistics, 139147. Amsterdam:Rodopi.Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane & Timmins, Claire. 2011–2014. Sounds of the City Corpus. http://soundsofthecity.arts.gla.ac.uk/index.html (accessed 12 June 2016).Google Scholar
Stuart-Smith, Jane, Timmins, Claire & Tweedie, F.. 2007.‘Talkin’ Jockney’? Variation and change in Glaswegian accent. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11, 221260.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. 2013. Grammatical variation in British English dialects: A study in corpus-based dialectometry. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2006. Analysing sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2013. Roots of English: Exploring the history of dialects. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tottie, Gunnel. 1991. Negation in English speech and writing: A study in variation. London:Academic Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth. C. 1992. Syntax. In Hogg, Richard M. (ed.),The Cambridge history of the English language, 168289. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Trousdale, Graeme. 2010a. Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization: How do they intersect? In Traugott & Trousdale (eds.), 19–44.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Trousdale, Graeme (eds.).2010b. Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1957.Verbs and times. The Philosophical Review 66, 143160.Google Scholar
Vincent, Nigel & Börjars, Kersti. 2010. Grammaticalization and models of language. In Traugott & Trousdale (eds.), 279–299.Google Scholar
Wagner, Suzanne E., Hesson, Ashley, Bybel, Kali & Little, Heidi. 2015.Quantifying the referential function of general extenders in North American English. Language in Society 44, 705731.Google Scholar
Wallage, Phillip. 2012.Functional differentiation and grammatical competition in the English Jespersen Cycle. Journal of Historical Syntax 2, 125.Google Scholar
Warner, Rebecca M. 2008. Applied statistics: From bivariate through multivariate techniques. London:Sage.Google Scholar
Willis, David, Lucas, Christopher & Breitbarth, Anne. 2013a. Comparing diachronies of negation. In Willis et al. (eds.), 1–50.Google Scholar
Willis, David, Lucas, Christopher & Breitbarth, Anne (eds.).2013b. The history of negation in the languages of Europe and The Mediterranean, vol. 1: Case studies. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, John & Henry, Alison. 1998.Parameter setting within a socially realistic linguistics. Language in Society 27, 121.Google Scholar