Discusses the notion of regional standards of a language with regard to modern Danish. Regional and national standards of a language as well as local dialect are defined. The article shows that, for a geographical entity, a statistically determined boundary can be established in the range between the extremes of a regional dialect and national…

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.…

Describes a morphosyntactic feature of the Xining dialect that is unique among all Chinese dialects: that is, the use of a preposition to express ablative nominal relationships. (Author/VWL)

Deals with divergence on the lexical, phonological, and morphological levels in three dialects that were the same until the mid-20th century (Maaseiks in Belgium, Susters in the Netherlands, and Waldfeuchts in Germany) and that have changed under the influence of three different standard languages (Belgian Dutch, Netherlandic Dutch, and Standard…

Using variationist methodology, this study analyzed natural speech data from 31 speakers of standard Canadian English and found an overwhelming preference for singular agreement in existentials. Contrary to predictions, this was not linked to a determiner-based structural distinction but rather to the form of the copula and the speaker's level of…

Analyzes the devoicing of voiced fricatives in Southern Standard Dutch (spoken in Belgium) and Northern Standard Dutch (spoken in the Netherlands) based on archived recordings of radio broadcasts from 1935-93. Findings reveal a divergence between the two language varieties in the pronunciation of voiced fricatives in this period. (54 references)…