Many sociolinguistic studies validate the importance of the relationship among social variables that satisfactorily explain the correlation between linguistic and social phenomena. The intersection of sex, sociocultural level, and age initiates syntactic change that first appears in the vernacular and progresses to the accepted standard. (52…

Using the case of a vernacular variety spoken on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, this article demonstrates how linguistic-systemic principles such as remorphologization, psycholinguistic principles of perceptual saliency, and sociolinguistic processes of symbolic identity converge to account for the development of leveling in this community.…