This article argues against Manner–Place–Time and other proposed grammatical principles of ordering for prepositional phrases (PPs) in postverbal position in English. Instead, greater empirical adequacy can be achieved by a theory of processing efficiency that defines a preference for minimal domains in the recognition of syntactic phrase structure and in the processing of lexical–semantic dependencies between verbs and prepositions. Some new entailment tests are proposed on the basis of which these dependencies can be defined. The data come from 500 pages of written English. For 300 pages, an additional analysis is given in terms of structural ambiguity avoidance and pragmatic information status. Syntactic complexity is the biggest single predictor of PP sequences, whereas lexical–semantic factors predominate when syntactic preferences are weak. Manner–Place–Time is not the correct semantic generalization, however. Ambiguity avoidance had no clear impact on these orderings. Pragmatic effects were not visible when syntactic weight made no predictions and were correlated with weight when it did but were less strongly supported.

This article investigates the Southern Vowel Shift—a possibly interrelated series of rotations in vowel space currently affecting the dialects of southern speakers—in terms of examining its classification as a chain-shift process and, more generally, providing a descriptive account of the phonetic character of the changes in each individual vowel class. Based on the work of Labov (1991, 1994) and Feagin (1986), it has been suggested that the Southern Shift involves changes in both the front vowels and the back vowels, with the tense and lax front vowel nuclei essentially switching places and the back vowels moving forward. The relationship of these changes in the front vowels and those in the back vowels has not been firmly established, but they appear to be driven by different social and linguistic forces. What is happening to the low front, the mid, and the low back vowel classes in the Southern Shift has only been superficially explored. A detailed instrumental analysis of the vowel systems of 25 native Memphians of selected ages, socioeconomic classes, and genders is presented, revealing the movement of vowel classes which seem to be playing an important role in the instigation or perpetuation of the Southern Shift. This analysis points out discrepancies about how previously cited vocalic changes are embedded in mid-southern speech and provides a picture of how these changes are affecting other changes in the system. The results suggest that, while many of the changes cited in the literature are indeed present in the sample, the interrelatedness of these changes and their prognosis to move to completion are not so clear.

The role of gender in language change, as discussed in Eckert (1989a) and Labov (1990), forms the context for an exploration of the role of gender in the development of Cajun English. Neither Principle I, Ia, or II predicts the role of gender in Cajun English, which leads us to question the generalizability of the principles to the specific sociolinguistic setting of this study—a closed cultural enclave. The study of four sociolinguistic variables and three generations of speakers reveals two patterns of language change: a curvilinear or v-shaped age pattern and a linear age pattern. These patterns relate in a complex way to changes from above and below the level of consciousness. We support Eckert's call for a finer specification of the social categories but suggest alternatives to the ethnographic method. Using a variety of sources of information on the social life and sociohistory of three generations, we find an intimate association between the sociohistory of this Cajun community and the linguistic behavior of each generation.

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.