In this article, we draw on a socially stratified corpus of dialect data collected in northeast England to test recent proposals that grammaticalization processes are implicated in the synchronic variability of general extenders (GEs), i.e. phrase- or clause-final constructions such asand thatandor something. Combining theoretical insights from the framework of grammaticalization with the empirical methods of variationist sociolinguistics, we operationalize key diagnostics of grammaticalization (syntagmatic length, decategorialization, semantic-pragmatic change) as independent factor groups in the quantitative analysis of GE variability. While multivariate analyses reveal rapid changes in apparent time to the social conditioning of some GE variants in our data, they do not reveal any evidence of systematic changes in the linguistic conditioning of variants in apparent time that would confirm an interpretation of ongoing grammaticalization. These results lead us to question Cheshire's (2007) recent hypothesis that GEs are grammaticalizing in contemporary varieties of British English. They additionally raise caveats with regard to the assumption that the linguistic conditioning of GE variability in contemporary data sets is the product of change.

We chart the incursion of quotative be like into Dublin English, drawing comparisons with similar developments in urban Canadian English as well as with diachronic benchmarks representing vernacular Irish English. Quantitative analysis reveals that be like is the lead variant in the quotative system used by young Dubliners and is advancing along a similar, though not identical, cline of grammaticalization to that found in urban Canadian English. We use the resultant information about the Dublin English quotative system as a baseline to assess the extent to which this system has been acquired by Polish-born L2 speakers of English differentiated in terms of target language proficiency. Comparison of the L2 quotative system with the L1 Dublin English benchmark reveals that not all L1 usage constraints are faithfully replicated by L2 speakers, indicating that the acquisition of the relevant constraints is incomplete, even in the case of advanced learners.

This small-scale study investigates variation in the use of general extenders (e.g. and everything, or something, and all that) in the speech of a group of British children aged 7 to 11 years. The overarching aims of the study are to investigate whether preadolescents’ use of general extenders is socially motivated, and to explore whether competing general extender variants may be situated on a cline of grammaticalization, as determined by a set of grammaticalization indices targeting the structural properties and the semantic-pragmatic functions of these constructions. The results of the investigation reveal gender-differentiated patterns in general extender use, and indicate that productive variants are differentially affected by processes collectively associated with grammaticalization. The findings corroborate children's participation in contemporary patterns of general extender variation, and contribute more generally to empirical characterizations of children's acquisition of discourse-pragmatic variation.

Using a comparative sociolinguistic framework, the present investigation addresses contact between Palestinian and Lebanese Arabic in Beirut. The investigation targets the variable raising of /a:/ to [e:] in word-medial position, claimed to be a stereotypical feature of Lebanese Arabic, which is reportedly infiltrating the Palestinian Arabic spoken by the local refugee population. Incorporating extra-linguistic parameters of contact into the investigation as well as an apparent-time component as a check on linguistic change, the study compares Lebanese and Palestinian speech data to determine the extent to which the linguistic conditioning of the target variable in Lebanese Arabic is replicated by speakers of Palestinian Arabic. Results suggest that the variable use of word-medial raised [e:] in Palestinian Arabic is the product of contact with the majority Lebanese variety and that this development can be characterized as an off-the-shelf change insofar as it is relatively accessible to those speakers who adopt it.

We investigate whether Palestinian Arabic (PA), as spoken by the local Palestinian refugee population in Beirut, is converging with Lebanese Arabic (LA), the majority variety. Using a sociolinguistic framework, we target three variables considered to be susceptible to convergent change. We find evidence of contact-induced change in PA in the variable raising of word-medial /a:/ to [e:], as well as in the attrition of socially marked exponents of verbal negation. By contrast, in the case of the third variable, the future temporal reference system, the evidence for convergence is less compelling on account of key differences between the contact varieties, including the vertiginous rise of the proclitic future marker ħa- in PA. We implicate the respective social salience of the targeted variables in their differential susceptibility to convergence. Our results afford new insights into dialect contact and elucidate under-studied patterns of grammatical variation and change in Levantine Arabic.

We argue that quantitative analysis of community-based speech data furnishes an indispensable adjunct to theoretical and experimental studies targeting the acquisition of relativization. Drawing on a comparative sociolinguistic approach, we make use of three corpora of natural speech to investigate second-language (L2) speakers’ acquisition of restrictive relative clauses in English. These corpora comprise: (i) spontaneous L2 speech; (ii) a local baseline variety of the target language (TL); and (iii) L2 speakers’ first language (L1), French. These complementary datasets enable us to explore the extent to which L2 speakers reproduce the discursive frequency of relative markers, as well as their fine-grained linguistic conditioning, in the local TL baseline variety. Comparisons with French facilitate exploration of possible L1 transfer effects on L2 speakers’ production of English restrictive relative clauses. Results indicate that evidence of L1 transfer effects on L2 speakers’ restrictive relative clauses is tenuous. A pivotal finding is that L2 speakers, in the aggregate, closely approximate TL constraints on relative marker selection, although they use the subject relativizer who significantly less often than their TL counterparts. We implicate affiliation with, and integration into, the local TL community as key factors facilitating the propagation of TL vernacular norms to L2 speakers.