The variable context

The variable ‘present temporal reference’ has been defined in this thesis as every instance of a lexical verb used with present temporal reference (per discussion in Chapter 5 §5.4 above). Within this, however, there will be patches of non-variability: instances in which only V, or Ving or Vbat is the possible form. These contexts fall outside of the ‘variable context’. The reasons for determining and removing such

instances from analysis are twofold. First, their inclusion would not give a true model of the variation and would potentially skew the results of other factors investigated.

Second, in comparing the HOME and SCHOOL data sets, shared variable contexts are a

sign of similarity between the L1 and L2 systems (per the methodology employed in Variationist Typology studies, discussed in Chapter §3.2.3 above). Results of this

investigation therefore address Research Question 1b) What is the of variable context in

HOME and SCHOOL contexts? and constitute our second piece of evidence about the

relationship between the L1 and L2. Note that the HOME and SCHOOL repertoires

presented in the previous section reflect the state of data totals once the following pockets of non-variability have been excluded. This section tells the story of that whittling process.

One fairly commonly reported effect in variationist studies is that of individual lexemes (Bybee & Hopper 2001). In an extreme scenario, a small number of words could largely account for the pattern of behaviour of one or more variant. To test for this, each basic context verb with a frequency of over 40 tokens in each context was given an individual code and investigated for its relationship to the inflections in question. In the HOME

context there are 4 verbs that have a frequency equal to or greater than 40 (see Table 6-4). Three of these verbs appear with each of the three verb inflections in question (V, Ving, and Vbat). What this tells us is that the choice of verb form is not specific to any of these lexemes. Conversely, one verb (gat ‘has’1_{) appears only in the form V, and is}

therefore excluded from the variable context of Ving and Vbat (hence, from the data set). In the SCHOOL context (see Table 6-5), there is 1 verb with a frequency equal to or

greater than 40: invariant ‘got’. ‘Got’ is therefore excluded from both HOME and SCHOOL

data sets.

Table 6-4: Overall distribution of V, Ving and Vbat forms per LEXEME, HOME context

V Ving Vbat Total

% N % N % N gat ‘got’ 100 117 - - - - 117 go ‘go’ 52 48 45 41 3 3 92 du ‘do’ 53 28 6 3 42 22 53 meik ‘make’ 40 17 2 1 58 25 43 other (N types = 156) 65 554 12 104 23 200 858 Total 66 764 13 149 21 250 1163

1 _{The verb ‘got’ is the highest frequency verb [N=209] in all present temporal reference contexts. It is not past tense,}

but rather is best translated to the SAE construction ‘has/have got’ or ‘has/have’. In the HOME data there is also a gat

‘with’ preposition (e.g. Am going plei gat themab “I’m going to play with them’), and its arguably possible to analyse the main verb-type use as also prepositional (in which it acts as a matrix predicator which looks like a main verb).

Table 6-5: Overall distribution of V, and Ving forms per LEXEME, SCHOOL context V Ving Total % N % N got 100 44 - - 44 other (N types = 101) 60 249 40 163 412 Total 64 293 37 163 456

In exploring the marginal distributions of verb form according to the sentential aspect

of the clause (see §5.5.2.2 for more detail of this factor group), one unexpected categorical finding has emerged. The form V is almost exclusively used in punctual environments, in both HOME (Table 6-6) and SCHOOL (Table 6-7) contexts2_{. This is an}

important shared categorical constraint on the two data sets. There are some tokens [N=10] of Vbat in punctual HOME contexts, however the rate of incidence (3%) falls

below the categorical threshold3_{. Therefore punctual/temporary contexts have been}

excluded from the data set as they are not part of the variable context for Ving or Vbat.

Table 6-6: Distribution of V, Ving and Vbat forms per SENTENTIAL ASPECT, HOME context

V Ving Vbat Total

% N % N % N

Durative/Continuous 46 195 32 136 23 97 428

Habitual/Iterative 20 21 2 2 78 83 106

Punctual 97 369 0 0 3 10 379

Total 64 585 15 138 21 190 913

Note: Ambiguous or otherwise un-codeable tokens excluded [N=133]

Table 6-7: Distribution of V and Ving forms per SENTENTIAL ASPECT, SCHOOL context

V Ving Total % N % N Durative/Continuous 47 120 53 137 257 Habitual/Iterative 58 30 42 22 52 Punctual 100 91 0 0 91 Total 60 241 40 159 400

Note: Ambiguous or otherwise un-codeable tokens excluded [N=12]

This finding is interesting in the context of descriptive work on English, outlined in §5.2.1 above, that the default reading of dynamic verbs in simple present form (V/Vs) in present temporal reference contexts is that of habitual occurrence (Olsen, 1997:167).

2 _{Note: tokens of gat ‘got’ have already been removed in these counts}

3 _{As noted above (§4.5.3), in this thesis categorality is defined as a feature occurring with an incidence of fewer than}

Example (1) illustrates this. The usual caveat to this is that in special contexts, such as the live calling of sports events, verbs in simple present are understood to denote momentary, temporarily bounded events, lasting only until the next utterance by the sports caster (e.g. see Huddleston & Pullum 2012:128). Example (2) illustrates this. Such cases fit the definition of punctual sentential aspect in this thesis4_.

(1) Fitzsimons runs.

(2) Fitzsimons runs…He shoots…He scores!

While this is typically seen as a restricted or specialised genre within the landscape of adult speech, the prevalence of simple present-punctual utterances in the present corpus suggests that for children the punctual interpretation of V is as or potentially more prominent in their everyday usage (particularly given punctual contexts outweigh habitual contexts in both data sets). In other words, children don’t narrate their play so much as provide a running commentary5_{. An example of this follows in (3).}

(3) Am teikim wan natha lidel men. Ai pokim. [SJD-042: 133-5 Shamus HOME]

am teik-im wan natha lidel men. Ai pok-im 1SG.SBJ take-TR one another little man 1SG.SBJ poke-TR

‘I take another little man. I poke him.’

The HOME and SCHOOL distributions prior to the removal of these invariant contexts is

presented in Figure 6-3 (the distributions post-removal are presented in Figure 6-1 in the previous section §6.2). Note the preponderance of V forms that exist in the data if these invariant contexts are not isolated. The removal of tokens of ‘got’ and punctuals has largely neutralised this, with proportions of V decreasing from 66% to 42% in the

HOME context and 64% to 49% in the SCHOOL context. This suggests that the

preponderance of V forms in the data set (prior to the present exclusions) is not due to speaker preference, but rather that the contexts in which only V can appear (i.e.

punctual aspect; ‘got’) occur more often in the children’s speech varieties.

4 _{Similarly, the use of simple present tense forms in past narrative contexts - the ‘historical or narrative present’ -}

brings immediacy to re-tellings of past events.

5 _{This assertion is perhaps advancing a bit of a false comparison, since most work on variation in adult speech relies}

on sociolinguistic interview data, which is itself qualitatively different from the everyday talk of adults in home and work contexts. However, since young children don’t readily do the sociolinguistic interview format, which itself mirrors the types of chats adults frequently engage in about their lives, this does touch on a fundamental difference in the language practices of children and adults - a story that is much larger than this thesis.

Figure 6-3: Distribution of present temporal reference variants V, Ving and Vbat, HOME

[N=1163] and SCHOOL contexts [N=456]; excluded contexts ‘got’ and ‘punctual’ highlighted

The fact that the variable context for both HOME and SCHOOL data sets is circumscribed

by the same two invariant sites is an important piece of evidence regarding the

relationship between the L1 and L2. The fact that V is non-variant in punctual and ‘got’ contexts is a point of similarity between the HOME and SCHOOL data sets6.