Studies palatization gestures in the production of /t/ and /d/ in standard Belgium French through the use of electropalatography. The articulatory results are compared with an acoustic study of the affricated realization of these consonants when followed by /i/, /y/, /j/, and /h/ in Quebec French. (Author/VWL)

Discusses dialectal differences in the aggregate. Employs a dialectometric technique that provides an additive measure of pronunciation difference: The (aggregate) pronunciation difference. Sampled Dutch towns and villages, where the variation ranges between 56% and 81%, lending credence to the dialect continuum view. (Author/VWL)

Comparison of Old Spanish and present-day Spanish data provides evidence that reductive change in grammaticizing forms may be manifested not only as a diachronic process but also as a synchronic difference between formal and informal registers. (Author/VWL)

A formal reading of word groups and a same/different listening test revealed that Hungarian Americans in South Bend, Indiana, exhibit a continuum in a short front unrounded low vowel phoneme, showing important differences between the informant's perception and production. The Hungarian-American and metropolitan Hungarian data were compared to…

The marking of past temporal reference in Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Trinidadian English is compared. Similarities in the patterns of variation according to verb type and phonological conditioning suggest that past marking in contemporary BEV preserves traces of an earlier shift from a creole pattern to one approximating the Standard…

Conducts quantitative analysis of negative concord in Buckie, a relic dialect from the northeast of Scotland, and compares findings with varieties of English in North America. Results show Buckie has high rates of use of negative concord, as do all the dialects included in the study. Negative concord in other environments is found in certain…

Examines a case of dialectal variation in a subpart of the tense-modality aspect system of Indian English. Focuses on functions associated with an existing form: the use of the pluperfect "had" + V-"ed" construction. Contrasts this usage with that of British and American English. (Author/VWL)

Three categories of topic referents (nominal, pronominal, and periphrastic) are identified in 27 Belizean texts and 12 American texts, and the effects of referent choice of two variables (topic number and stylistic/lectal context) are investigated. One finding is that Belizean lects are strikingly similar to spontaneous styles of American English.…

Using the variationist comparative method, the status of ambiguous lone Spanish-origin nouns in Catalan discourse is determined by analyzing their distribution and conditioning and by comparing them to their counterparts in unmixed Spanish or in multiple-word code switches. Suggests that the grammar of these nouns is Catalan, and their categorical…

Identifies a variable context in the use of two Galician verb forms and three Spanish verb forms used in Galician with identical modal, temporal, and aspectual values: the simple past indicative. Shows that this variation is constrained by linguistic factors, specifically pragmatic ones. (Author/VWL)

An analysis of letters written by 19th-century African Americans shows constraints on verbal "-s" marking that parallel those found in the writing of Scotch-Irish immigrants in the same time period and region, specifically a subject type constraint and a proximity to subject constraint. (MDM)

In a sociohistorical variation analysis of verb inflection in Early Modern British and American English, corpus-based comparisons focus on several extralinguistic and linguistic factors that have influenced the choice of forms over successive periods of time. Contrary to customary theories of "colonial lag," the rate of change was faster…

Examines the role of phrase-level parallelism on noun phrase number agreement and demonstrates Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese exhibit more similarities than differences with regard to this constraint. Claims the phrase-level parallelism effect on noun phrase number agreement is embedded in a universal principle of linguistic use:…