This article analyses a case of second-dialect performance as an idealised instance of second-dialect acquisition, without mitigating factors such as access, analytical ability and motivation. It focuses on the Australian English and American English speech of three young Australian actors. An acoustic analysis of their short-vowel systems shows that they can successfully adapt to perform in an American English accent, but that their second-dialect system is less stable and more variable than their native system.

A foreign-accent rating experiment on the actors’ American English with American English judges shows that the actors on average are thought to sound slightly less American than the native American English-speaker controls. The discrepancy between the acoustic accuracy and listener acceptability may be explained by judges attending to different features from those included in the acoustic study.

This study of second-dialect performance shows what is maximally possible in second-dialect acquisition. Given the difference between the two measures of success, studies of second-dialect acquisition would benefit from including subjective measures in addition to acoustic accuracy.

English Language and Linguistics is going from strength to strength. The journal is now in its twenty-third year, and the number of submissions to ELL is steadily increasing. This has led to two developments (both very welcome) which we thought we should let readers know about in this short editorial. We first set out a little background.

The perfect in World Englishes has attracted much attention recently, especially from a semasiological perspective, in which the analytic have + participle is analysed in comparison with the synthetic preterite. This article intends to achieve a more holistic picture of the expression of perfect meaning in World Englishes, which allows us to identify how perfect meaning is expressed in all pragmatic contexts. In this study, all the occurrences of ten high-frequency verbs are examined in order to single out those expressing perfect meaning. The corpus (8.8m words in total) includes ten components of the International Corpus of English: eight Outer Circle varieties from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, and two reference varieties: British and American English. The relevant examples are tabulated across variables such as presence of adverbials, type of perfect meaning, lexical verb, mode, text type and evolutionary stage. The results show that the envelope of variation is much wider than the one traditionally acknowledged in current grammars of English, and that type of meaning, lexical verb or text type are crucial determiners in the choice of particular forms to express perfect meaning. By contrast, mode or evolutionary stage does not seem to have a bearing on the differences between varieties.

Tags are widely acknowledged as being an important feature of colloquial British English. In this article, I examine a type of tag that has to date received little attention in the literature beyond sociolinguistic research into its interpersonal functions: right-dislocated lone pronouns, or ProTags. Biber et al. (1999) acknowledge that the demonstrative pronoun that can be used as a right-dislocated tag in conversational British English, but corpus data reveal that other pronouns can also be used as ProTags.

Based on a range of examples, primarily taken from large-scale corpora, I examine the form of the ProTag construction and its functions, comparing it with other tags used in British English, particularly question tags. In common with other tags, ProTags are a classic case of language conveying more than straightforward propositional content. I consider to what extent proposed analyses of the functions of tag questions carry over to ProTags, and briefly whether this construction has been a feature of British English for longer than might at first be assumed.

In this article, I demonstrate that goose-fronting is taking place in Carlisle, a city in the north-west of England, and I provide detailed information about this change. The results show that similarly strong linguistic constraints are found in this variety and other varieties. A second point of discussion is the dynamics between goose and other back vowels, i.e. goat and foot, in this community. I argue that we also need to study the most adjacent back vowels in order to understand the complexity of this vowel change and the influence on nearby vowels. The data stem from interviews conducted in Carlisle between 2007 and 2010 and show that while goose is fronting across apparent time, for goat and foot no change in progress is observable. These dynamics seem to be geographically restricted to the north-west of England. While a parallel shift of goose and goat is very common in US and southern English varieties, the fronting of goat is not found in this northern variety. This lack of change is due to the monophthongal realisation of the goat vowel which prevents a parallel shift. Similarly, the fronting of foot seems to be blocked due to the lack of the foot–strut split.

This article documents novel uses of the noun heaps in New Zealand English, namely as quantifier and intensifier, by means of quantitative and qualitative analyses of corpus data. Closely following in the footsteps of lots, heaps is the second most frequent size noun in New Zealand English. On the basis of exhaustive coding of four corpora of New Zealand English (spoken and written), the article describes and exemplifies the various uses of heaps in this English variety. Results show heaps is preferred in speech compared to writing, and that its most common use is as a quantifier, followed by an extension to an intensifying use, which has received comparatively less attention in the literature (and never specifically in the context of New Zealand English). An examination of early New Zealand English in the ONZE Corpus testifies to this incoming change, with heaps grammaticalizing into an adverb and bearing the semantic role of intensifier. Multivariate statistical tests show that innovative uses of heaps are largely driven by younger speakers.

The question of equivalence of constructions with determiner genitives (the FBI's director, the chair's leg) and noun modifiers (the FBI director, the chair leg) is a crucial one for Rosenbach's (2007a, 2010) approach to the gradience between genitive and noun + noun constructions as well as for any study of grammatical variation treating the two constructions as syntactic variants (Szmrecsanyi et al. 2016). However, the assumption that there is such equivalence has recently been challenged by Breban (2018) for English and Schlücker (2013, 2018) for German. The present article defends the view that determiner genitives and identifying noun modifiers are sufficiently similar to alternate in certain choice contexts from a variationist perspective, which, as will be shown, proceeds from a notion of equivalence different from the one adopted by in-depth semantic–pragmatic studies. Proper noun modifiers take a prominent role among identifying noun modifiers in their ability to alternate with determiner genitives, but the argument and analysis in this article is not restricted to them.

This article reports on the role pragmatic inferencing plays in accounting for the ways in which native speakers perceive and interpret the semantic transparency of idioms. Although previous studies have suggested that semantic transparency intuitions of idioms are partly motivated by the conceptual metaphors that underlie them (Gibbs 1992; Gibbs et al.1997), findings from other studies (Keysar & Bly 1995, 1999) have raised questions concerning the arbitrariness of such intuitions. This study seeks to further address the discussion on the nature of semantic transparency by examining the role of pragmatic inferencing and encyclopedic world knowledge for understanding how native speakers interpret the relationship between the literal parts and figurative meanings of metaphorical idioms. To this end, semantic transparency ratings were elicited among fifteen native speakers of English for 222 metaphorical English idioms. Furthermore, raters provided qualitative support by justifying their ratings for a smaller subset of 30 idioms. These initial results were then triangulated by a follow-up exploratory study surveying etymological notes from a number of idiom dictionaries. The findings suggest that pragmatic inferencing via encyclopedic world knowledge plays an important role for the non-arbitrary way in which native speakers perceive the semantic transparency of idioms.

This article proposes a hierarchy of functional heads encoding the features [±control], [±initiation], [±state], [±change] and [±telic] (see Ramchand 2008). It is argued that this allows for a superior analysis of split intransitivity in English than the traditional notion of ‘unaccusativity’ – the idea that there are two classes of intransitive verbs which differ in relation to the underlying status/positions of their arguments. Rather, it is shown – on the basis of a systematic consideration of a wide range of English verbs – that the proposed diagnostics for unaccusativity in English identify multiple classes, whose behaviour can be captured in terms of the proposed hierarchy. Good correlation is found between the classes identified by the English diagnostics and Sorace's (2000) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (ASH), providing further support for the cross-linguistic applicability of the ASH to split intransitive patterns.

In this article we investigate the role of semantic relations in grammatical alternations. The specific alternation we look at is that between the proper name modifier construction, e.g. the Obama government, and the determiner genitive, e.g. Obama's government. Through the use of an experimental study in which participants were asked to rate the naturalness of the two constructions in 20 attested natural language contexts and provide paraphrases of the semantic relations in question, we tested when the two constructions alternate and whether either construction expresses semantic relations that block alternation. Our initial finding is that none of the relations we studied is categorically associated with only one of the constructions, but that certain relations – notably possession and name – are far more preferentially associated with determiner genitives and proper name modifiers respectively. Despite these ‘default’ associations, participants nevertheless identified a range of possible interpretations for many of the examples, meaning that our study simultaneously supports the opposing theoretical views of default relations and semantic underspecification. Further, our study validates the inclusion of semantic relations in genitive alternation studies as a major factor despite the notorious difficulties in their operationalisation. Animacy distinctions, although more straightforward to codify, appear to be of lesser importance. Methodologically, our study shows the value of an experimental approach as a corrective to researcher intuitions about the identification of semantic relations in context.

Most speakers of Irish English use a dental stop for words containing <th>, a sound that is generally pronounced as [θ] and [ð], in other varieties of English (Wells 1982; Ó hÚrdail 1997). Alveolar stops [t,d] and dental stops [,] are articulatorily and acoustically similar, and thus it is unusual for a language to use them contrastively (e.g. Ladefoged 2001). Despite this, Irish English contrasts them and speakers of this dialect have no trouble distinguishing them. This raises the question as to whether speakers of a dialect which does not use this contrast can distinguish them. To investigate this, speakers of Irish English and American English participated in an identification task involving words produced by an Irish English speaker. American English speakers had a high accuracy but did significantly worse than Irish English speakers, and both groups did significantly worse when the contrast was in final position than when it was in initial position. A small-scale production experiment examined words with this contrast and the vowel /a/, with the finding that for speakers of both dialects, the vowel is longer in words ending in <th> than <t>. The findings are discussed in the context of linguistic experience, and the effect of surrounding consonants on vowel duration.

This study employs corpus semantic techniques to examine the semantics of light verbs and light verb constructions (LVCs) in Singapore English, Hong Kong English and British English via their respective components in the International Corpus of English (ICE; Greenbaum 1996). The study investigates onomasiological variation (see Geeraerts et al.1994) by identifying selection preferences in natural use between light verb constructions and their related verb alternatives. In addition, identity evidence is forwarded as a valuable corpus semantic tool, in which instances of naturally occurring language data resemble classic identity tests for polysemy. Via a close reading and manual semantic analysis of thousands of instances of light make, take, give and their semantic alternatives, this study finds remarkable consistency across the three varieties of World Englishes (WEs) in onomasiological preferences, even in extremely nuanced features of LVCs. Onomasiological evidence and identity evidence also suggest the new finding that the three light verbs and their constructions exhibit degrees of lightness, and that these degrees of lightness are extremely consistent across regional varieties.

L2 speakers of Nigerian English in parts of northeastern Nigeria occasionally insert an alveolar coronal stop [t] or fricative [s] following another alveolar coronal pre-pausally and phrase-internally. The article discusses this typologically unusual phenomenon for the Nigerian English of speakers whose L1 is the Adamawa language Bena (ISO 639-3: yun). I also consider comparable cases of word-final consonant epenthesis in several other varieties of English, both the so-called New Englishes and Inner Circle varieties, and provide an account of the details of epenthesis with respect to which they differ. At first sight, hypercorrection of the tendency for word-final consonant cluster simplification in Bena English may seem an obvious explanation. However, I argue that hypercorrection alone falls short of explaining the observed pattern. In addition, we need to call on phonetic properties of Bena L1 such as pre-pausal glottalisation and lengthening of consonants to be able to account for both the actuation of the hypercorrection and the phonologisation of the epenthesis. Although the availability of a clear phonetic explanation makes this sound pattern conceivable as a natural rule, its typological rarity in non-contact lects highlights the positive bias induced by hypercorrection as a necessary part of the mix in creating the conditions for a reanalysis.

Debate continues over what was spoken in Britain before, during and after it was settled by the Anglo-Saxons in the middle of the first millennium ad. Schrijver (2009) argues that phonological and phonetic developments in Old English provide vital clues. Accordingly, Old English changed in different ways from other Germanic languages due to contact with an early British Celtic variety that resembled Old Irish. Aspects of this proposal have been greeted with a degree of interest and approval by linguists but have escaped detailed review. This article argues instead that the Old English developments are closely aligned to those found in other Germanic languages. It also includes novel research results which explain the variation in late Northumbrian Old English <eo> and <ea> spellings on (morpho)phonological grounds, showing that this alternation too provides no evidence for Celtic influence.

This article concerns English proper noun modifiers denoting organizations, people and places and their German and Swedish correspondences. It supplements previous studies touching upon contrastive comparisons by providing large-scale systematic findings on the translation correspondences of the three aforementioned semantic types. The data are drawn from the Linnaeus University English–German–Swedish Corpus (LEGS), which contains popular non-fiction, a genre previously not studied in connection with proper noun modifiers. The results show that organization-based modifiers are the most common and person-based ones the rarest in English originals. Compounds are the most frequent correspondences in German and Swedish translations and originals with genitives and prepositional phrases as other common options. The preference for compounds is stronger in German, while it is stronger for prepositional phrases in Swedish translations, reflecting earlier findings on language-specific tendencies. Organization-based modifiers tend to be translated into compounds, and place-based modifiers into prepositional phrases. German and Swedish translators relatively often opt for similar target-language structures. Two important target-language differences emerge: (i) compounds with complex heads are dispreferred in Swedish (US news show > *USA-nyhetsprogram) but unproblematic in German (US-Nachrichtensendung), and (ii) compounds with acronyms (WTO ruling > WTO-Entscheidung) are more frequent in German.

This study presents a corpus-based analysis of adjective phrases consisting of a grading element (‘grader’), a deadjectival adverb and an adjectival head. The interest of this pattern derives from the fact that these three constituents can occur in three different orders, as exemplified by more cognitively complex, cognitively more complex and more complex cognitively. The analysis builds primarily on the distinction between domain and non-domain adverbs. ADJPs with domain adverbs have different patterns from ADJPs with other adverbs. Whereas the adverb–grader–adjective order predominates in ADJPs with domain adverbs, the grader–adverb–adjective order is the most frequent type in ADJPs with non-domain adverbs. Within the set of non-domain adverbs, a secondary distinction is made between lexical and more grammatical types. Lexical adverbs are found to preferentially associate with the grader–adverb–adjective order while the more grammatical adverbs gravitate towards the adverb–grader–adjective order. The following five factors account for the empirical results: branching direction, the frequent-unit-first hypothesis, proximity, analogy/uniformity and modifier–head order. Structural representations are argued to draw on lexical information which is not coded by terminal nodes.

The English variety spoken in York provides a unique opportunity to study the evolution of the English determiner system as proposed in the Definiteness Cycle (Lyons 1999). York English has three vernacular determiners that appear to represent different stages in the cycle: the zero article, reduced determiners and complex demonstratives of the type this here NP (Rupp 2007; Tagliamonte & Roeder 2009). Here, we probe the emergence and function of demonstratives in the cycle from the joint perspective of language variation and change, historical linguistics and discourse-pragmatics. We will argue that initially, the demonstrative reduced in meaning (Millar 2000) and also in form, resulting in Demonstrative Reduction (DR) (previously known as Definite Article Reduction (DAR)). This caused it to become reinforced. Data from the York English Corpus (Tagliamonte 1996–8) and historical corpora suggest that the use of complex demonstratives was subsequently extended from conveying ‘regular’ deictic meanings to a new meaning of ‘psychological deixis’ (Johannessen 2006). We conclude that survival of transitory stages in the cycle by several historical demonstrative forms, each in a range of functions, has given rise to a particular sense of ‘layering’ (Hopper 1991). Our analysis corroborates the idea that grammaticalization trajectories can be influenced by discourse-pragmatic factors (Epstein 1995; Traugott's 1995subjectification).

This article presents an analysis of the distribution and syntactic behavior of the English expression slash, as in John is a linguist slash musician. The interpretation of this ‘effable slash’ is largely equivalent to intersective and, but it differs from other connective devices like Latin cum, N–N compounding and the orthographic slash </>. A corpus study of American English finds that slash is productive in this use. Its syntactic properties confirm its status as coordinator, but it is distinguished from standard coordinators and and or, in that it imposes category restrictions on the conjuncts: it cannot coordinate full clauses or noun phrases with determiners. I propose that words like slash, period and quote form a class of ‘effable punctuation’ that entered the spoken language from writing. In sum, by incorporating slash into the grammar of English, I argue that slash is a rare example of innovation in a ‘very closed’ functional category.

The article discusses compound formation involving proper names from a comparative perspective. While proper names can appear within compounds in English, this is not possible in Greek. The article argues that this follows from a basic difference between English and Greek: English, but not Greek, allows phrases as non-heads of right-headed compounds. As proper names in English are referential in the absence of a determiner, due to the process of D-N merger, they can still be recognized as such within compounds. This is not possible in Greek, where proper names require the presence of a determiner to establish reference.