Chapter 6. Summary and conclusion 6.1 Introduction.
6.2. The first research question.
The first research question is: Two non-standard features of English (the absence of the third person singular
present tense -s ending, and the interchange of the relative pronouns who and which) are under investigation. Are the two non-standard features common to VOICE and ELFA? Are they found in a spoken native speaker corpus? Are they found in a spoken advanced learner corpus? What are the comparative frequencies of these non- standard features, between corpora?
First the 3rd person zero and who and which investigations are briefly summarized below, then the research question is answered.
6.2.1. A summary of the investigation of the 3rd person zero.
194The indented examples are numbered, and the first number in this chapter is 83. The italics are added.
195 The WordSmith word count. See section 3.2.1.
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Once hits for 3rd person zeroes were found in the corpora, they were examined to remove hits which were standard constructions that take the base form of the verb, for example the ‘coordinated noun phrase as subject’ (Hasselgård, Lysvåg, and Johansson 2012: 267):
88 only one quarter of the people who take it get side effects. [BNC Spoken Context- governed, file HV1, excerpt from line 10.]
In VOICE, 4.92% of the third person singular present tense forms197 (of lexical verbs198 and DO) are 3rd person zeroes. VOICE, however, is unique, in that all the 3rd person zeroes within it can be detected because of the tagging. In other corpora examined, this cannot be done. Instead, 3rd person zeroes were obtained by searching for the pronouns he, she, and it, directly followed by the base form of a verb. For comparison, the VOICE data was also restricted to the construction
he/she/it + verb, and 3.88% of these present tense forms (of lexical verbs and DO) are zeroes. In ELFA, 2.28% of the third person singular present tense forms (of lexical verbs and DO), in the construction he/she/it + verb, are 3rd person zeroes.
In the spoken components of the BNC, 5.01% of the third person singular present tense forms199 (of lexical verbs and DO), in the construction he/she/it + verb, are 3rd person zeroes. NS English is expected to have a lower percentage of non-standard forms (NS English is the ‘standard’),200 but the reason for such a comparatively high percentage is two particular event types in the spoken components of the BNC: Conversation and Interview. Conversation has 7.83% 3rd person zeroes and Interview has 9.96%. When these two event types are excluded, the spoken components of the BNC have 0.69% 3rd person zeroes, a lower percentage than the ELF corpora.
In LINDSEI (B turns), 14.42% of the third person singular present tense forms (of lexical verbs and DO), in the construction he/she/it + verb, are 3rd person zeroes. This is the highest percentage of any of the corpora investigated, but the reason for this is two particular sets of speakers in the corpus, who have Chinese or Japanese as their first language (L1). The Chinese L1 group has 62.87% 3rd person zeroes and the Japanese L1 group has 60.33%. Neither of these L1s is well represented in VOICE or ELFA,201 so LINDSEI cannot be directly compared with them. When these two L1 groups are excluded, LINDSEI has 6.17% 3rd person zeroes, a percentage only
197 Only 10% of the -s endings could be checked for correct tagging.
198 LEXICAL VERB: ‘[a]ny verb which is not an auxiliary… run, smile, die, elope…’ (Trask 2000: 77). 199 Only 10% of the -s endings could be checked for correct tagging.
200 The concept of standard/non-standard is discussed in sections 2.11 and 2.13. 201 See section 4.4.2, note 130 (compared with Table 15).
123 slightly higher than those of the ELF corpora. Figure 21 aims to give a full picture of the 3rd person zero investigation.
Figure 21. Percentages of third person singular present tense forms (of lexical verbs & DO) that are zeroes,
in VOICE, ELFA, BNC (Spoken) & LINDSEI (B turns). Constructions he/she/it + zero except ‘All of VOICE’ (all 3rd person zeroes of lexical verbs & DO in VOICE). BNC (Spoken) divided in 3 by event type. LINDSEI (B turns) both with & without Chinese & Japanese L1s. Data: sections 4.2.1 & 4.2.2, & Tables 11 & 16.
6.2.2. A summary of the investigation of the relative pronouns who and which.
For the relative pronouns who and which, the corpus investigation was restricted to who with antecedents202 that are directly-preceding nouns, and which with antecedents that are directly- preceding nouns or directly-preceding clauses that end with nouns. (Who cannot have a clause as an antecedent.) To avoid excessive repetition, this should be taken as read for the rest of this chapter.
The hits were examined to remove any which were instances of who and which as interrogative pronouns, and so on.
202ANTECEDENT:‘The antecedent of a relative pronoun or a relative clause is the noun phrase that the pronoun or the clause refers back to’ (Hasselgård 2012).
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In VOICE, 1.45% of the uses of who are non-standard, and 2.16% of the uses of which are non- standard. The total percentage of non-standard uses is 1.88%.
In ELFA, 1.09% of the uses of who are non-standard, and 0.91% of the uses of which are non- standard. The total percentage of non-standard uses is 0.95%.
In the BNC Spoken components, 0.16% of the uses of who are non-standard, and 0.29% of the uses of which are non-standard. The total percentage of non-standard uses is 0.24%. NS English is expected to have a lower percentage of non-standard usage.
In LINDSEI (B turns), 0.75% of the uses of who are non-standard, and 10.53% of the uses of
which are non-standard. The total percentage of non-standard uses is 4.08%. This is the highest
percentage of the corpora investigated. It is noteworthy that the non-standard usage is primarily the non-standard usage of which. The speakers may be using which as a default relative pronoun, i.e. unless they become aware of a reason to choose differently, in which case who is the ‘marked’ relative pronoun, chosen with certainty, and hence receives less non-standard use. This does not seem to be the case with the ELF corpora, especially not ELFA.
Figure 22 provides a picture of the who and which investigation.
Figure 22 (same as Figure 17 in chapter 5). Percentages of usage of the relative pronouns who and which (with antecedents that are directly-preceding nouns or directly-preceding clauses that end with nouns) that is non-standard, in VOICE, ELFA, the BNC Spoken components, and LINDSEI (B turns). Data from Tables 17, 18, 24, and 27.
125 6.2.3. Answer to the first research question.
Two non-standard features of English (the absence of the third person singular present tense -s ending, and the interchange of the relative pronouns who and which) are under investigation. Are the two non-standard features common to VOICE and ELFA?
Both VOICE and ELFA contain the two non-standard features under investigation, albeit in low percentages. A comparison between the four corpora suggests that VOICE and ELFA have more non-standard features than the NS corpus, and fewer than the learner corpus. The two ELF corpora are near each other in terms of percentages of these two non-standard features. This suggests that the ELF corpora have something in common.
Are they found in a spoken native speaker corpus?
The two non-standard features are found in the spoken NS corpus, which is the BNC (Spoken components). In two event types, the 3rd person zero is found in relatively high percentages, although both under 10%. Otherwise, the non-standard features are low in frequency in this corpus.
Are they found in a spoken advanced learner corpus?
The corpus used, LINDSEI (B turns), is a spoken corpus, but consists of a mix of higher intermediate and advanced learners (LINDSEI handbook 2010: 10). The two non-standard features are found in it. The percentages for the non-standard features are highest in this corpus of the four, although still low. The percentage for the 3rd person zero can be mitigated by the removal of two particular groups of speakers, Chinese and Japanese L1s; without these speakers the percentage is just a little higher than that of VOICE.
What are the comparative frequencies of these non-standard features, between corpora?
The comparative frequencies, expressed as percentages of third person singular present tense forms (of lexical verbs and DO) that are 3rd person zeroes, and percentages of usage of the relative pronouns who and which that is non-standard, are given in Figures 21 and 22. Although the dataset for this study is large, few non-standard features were found. The baseline for the percentages is thus too low to make a conclusion that there are meaningful differences between the corpora in the occurrence of these non-standard features. That in itself is a noteworthy finding, however, as neither of the non-standard features can be claimed as an ‘emergent trend’ or a ‘default option’ for ELF.
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