2. Individual microvariation: Some data

The kind of multilingualism mentioned above is typically the focus of dialect and (other) microvariation research, and has been a pivotal point of research in sociolinguistics. In generative grammar frameworks, until quite recently, it has however often not been heeded to the same extent. This might be due to the tacit assumption that a language user’s choice of register or style or any other ‘minor’ variation is at most relevant at a lexical, not a syntactic level, i.e. that such phenomena are mainly concerned with what words and lexical elements the language user chooses to employ, which is usually considered to be beyond the scope of generative grammar.

However, microvariation also includes syntactic phenomena, as has been made evident by several recent large-scale projects recording dialectal syntactic variation; for the Nordic countries we mention NORMS, ScanDiaSyn and N’Clav.Footnote ¹ Syntactic variation also clearly comes into play as regards different registers. For instance, one set of syntactic rules applies to written standard norms, another set to other contexts. In standard written prose, a Norwegian language user would hardly ever drop the subject in a finite clause (*Fortsetter bombingen ‘continues the bombing’), but the phenomenon is a hallmark of newspaper headlines (Fjeldstad Reference Fjeldstad2000). Moreover, in so-called ‘diary syntax’ (Haegeman & Ihsane Reference Haegeman and Ihsane2002), subject drop is very common even in languages where this would yield ungrammatical results in ordinary written prose (Traff ham igjen i dag ‘met him again today’). In informal speech, both the subject and the auxiliary may easily be left out ([Har du] Sett’ n Ola nå? ‘[Have you] seen Ollie around?’); the same is the case for the object in topic drop ([Den filmen] Så æ i går, lit.: ‘[That film] saw I yesterday’), see e.g. Nygård (Reference Nygård2018).

One of the more peculiar facts is that Norwegian hymns may use ‘German’ word order: in embedded clauses, the finite verb is clause-final (Om du deg skjuler når angsten meg plager, lit.: ‘if you yourself hide when fear me torments’, Barstad Reference Barstad2000), although in standard register the verb would appear before its complements in Norwegian. A similar fact can be observed in what we refer to as ‘festive syntax’, observable in greetings and salutes in newspapers (Hurra for Mia som på Elveng bor! ‘Hooray for Mia who on Elveng lives!’). Clause-final finite verbs, or more generally, non-V2 word order even in main clauses is obviously considered more ‘festive’ than ordinary V2; this type of syntax is accepted in these contexts, but rejected in most others, see e.g. Eide & Åfarli (Reference Eide, Åfarli and Torben2007), Eide & Sollid (Reference Eide, Sollid and Peter2011). In poetry, we find unusual word order in phrases (Tre katter små ‘three cats small’). All these syntactic phenomena are often lumped together under ‘poetic free word order’. A thorough investigation of the data, however, reveals that poetic word order does not open the door to syntactic anarchy. On the contrary, the syntax of these registers is in fact subject to quite strict rules. The relevant syntactic system is simply different. For instance, in the hymn example given above, the verb cannot be clause-initial in the når-clause: *Om du deg skjuler når plager angsten meg, lit.: ‘if you yourself hide when torments fear me’ (Barstad Reference Barstad2000). Likewise, Små katter tre ‘small cats three’ would be ungrammatical however poetic the context (Eide & Sollid Reference Eide, Sollid and Peter2011).

A different syntactic system is also at play in a language user using a non-standard dialect. A number of syntactic features of Norwegian dialects are only acceptable in dialectal contexts. When lexical items from the standard dialect are used, those features become unacceptable and ungrammatical. The dialect spoken in Skedsmokorset not far from Oslo is particularly illuminating in this regard (Reite Reference Reite2011). Speakers of this dialect as a rule master the ‘standard’ Oslo dialect in addition to their local dialect. When they use the standard wh-word, they use obligatory V2 in direct wh-questions, as expected: Va sier’u? ‘what say you?’ vs. *Va ru sier? ‘what you say?’. However, when they use the wh-word of the local dialect, they allow non-V2 in such cases: Å sier’u? ‘what say you?’ and Å ru sier? ‘what you say?’ The use of non-V2 word order in direct wh-questions (which is a special feature of many Norwegian dialects, but not of standard varieties) is licensed only by the local dialect setting, and crucially, by the corresponding local wh-word. This shows that both dialect systems co-exist in the mind of the speaker.Footnote ²

Underlying this flexible use of different (syntactic) varieties are corresponding grammars. This means that the individual language user has internalized several different grammars that he/she is able to put to use in the appropriate contexts. This is the thesis of universal bilingualism (Roeper Reference Roeper1999 et seq.), to which we now turn.

3. A theory of universal bilingualism

According to the theory of universal bilingualism developed by Thomas Roeper, all humans are massively multilingual (Roeper Reference Roeper1999; see also Kroch Reference Kroch1994; Yang Reference Yang2002, Reference Yang2016; Roeper Reference Roeper2007, Reference Roeper2016; Amaral & Roeper Reference Amaral and Roeper2014 for similar and/or related ideas). The notion of multilingualism is thus extended beyond mastering multiple national or otherwise clearly sociologically distinct languages, which has been the traditional understanding of what being multilingual amounts to. The quote from Chomsky (Reference Chomsky1988) given above signals a similar shift from the traditional understanding, see also Chomsky (Reference Chomsky2000:59): ‘Whatever the language faculty is it can assume many different states in parallel’.

Roeper’s extension seems to accommodate microvariation data like those discussed above very well. Thus, parsing (or writing) hymns involves a different I-grammar from the one involved in reading scientific prose. Likewise, speaking one’s local dialect involves a different I-grammar from the one we use when speaking or understanding the national ‘standard’ dialect. It is the extralinguistic context that triggers which I-grammar is activated, ‘somehow we know when to use them’ (Chomsky Reference Chomsky1988:187), and a given variety also typically involves characteristic lexical choices, which supports the idea that different grammars or I-languages are involved.

Roeper also claims that more ‘hidden bilingualism’ is found in many cases where free variation between syntactic structures is encountered. While other theories resort to the notion of optionality or optional rules within one grammar in such cases, Roeper argues for two contradictory subgrammars. He supports his theory with the optional V2 rule in English (among a range of other phenomena). As is well known, English does not employ an obligatory V2 rule; in most cases, putting the finite verb in second position leads to ungrammaticality (*He reads often Nietzsche). However, there is a context-triggered V2 rule in children’s stories and narratives with most verbs of telling or saying (‘I am melting,’ shrieked the witch). Verbs of saying thus trigger a different set of grammatical rules than other verbs, e.g. other clause-embedding verbs, in this context. Such examples, Roeper says (Reference Roeper1999:6), show that

Language development is another area where different grammars co-exist, according to Roeper. Most children acquiring English go through a stage where structures with an accusative subject in main clauses (Me want) co-exist with the ‘adult-like target grammar’ (I want). Roeper (Reference Roeper1999:170–171) argues that there is no optionality with respect to the morphological case of the subject; instead, it would be more correct to describe this situation as a stage where two different, and contradictory, grammars compete. One is specified to always give the subject accusative case (in the relevant clause type), while the other always dictates a nominative subject (in the corresponding clause type). All development of this type should be seen as competition between grammars; diachronic studies should be analysed from the same perspective: ‘I proceed from the assumption that wherever one finds a continuum, or historical gradualism, a more refined level of analysis will reveal discrete phenomena’ (Roeper Reference Roeper1999:4).

We will return to Roeper’s approach to bilingualism in Section 6 below. In particular, there we will discuss one question that Roeper’s approach raises, namely how to distinguish two closely related grammars from one grammar with optionality.Footnote ³ However, at this point we will focus on microvariation pertaining to dialect syntax.

4. Dialect syntax

A dialect is often understood to be a linguistic variety common to a group of people in a geographically (or socially) defined area. According to this understanding, a dialect is a collective phenomenon, i.e. something that is common to a group of people. In generative grammar, however, a language is defined as an individual phenomenon; it is an object generated by an internalized language or grammar, an I-language or I-grammar. The implication is that a dialect is an individual phenomenon since a given dialect is a language. In other words, a dialect is an idiolect, which means that there are as many dialects as there are individuals. Based on this, Kayne (Reference Kayne, Black and Virginia1996:xiv–xv) presents some controversial ideas (our italics):

If we accept the characterization of a dialect as an I-language or idiolect, a dialect understood as a collective phenomenon is a delimited set of I-languages/idiolects that share certain traits (see also Eide & Sollid Reference Eide, Sollid and Peter2011). This is in line with the way a dialect is characterized in Chambers & Trudgill (Reference Chambers and Trudgill1998:5): ‘“Dialect” […] refers to varieties which are grammatically (and perhaps lexically) as well as phonologically different from other varieties’.

The definition of a dialect as an I-language/idiolect naturally opens the possibility for including second language varieties into the class of dialects; see the following quotation from Berggren & Tenfjord (Reference Berggreen and Tenfjord1999:21) (our translation):

In other words, interlanguages are I-languages that typically exhibit even more drastic idiolectal variation than do ordinary dialects.

Given the discussion above, we can characterize a dialect as an individual I-language/idiolect. A dialect is one of several I-languages in the mind of the individual language user. Thus, linguistic data from the same informant can be generated by several different grammars. Distinguishing between the grammars can be relatively easy when it comes to multilingualism involving languages that are clearly different, such as Norwegian and English, for example. However, it can be difficult when a standard dialect co-exists with a local dialect, the two varieties have largely the same lexical base, and the pronunciation of the local dialect might not differ significantly from that of the standard dialect (i.e. if it is easy to ‘translate’ between the two dialects with respect to pronunciation). In such cases, where the two varieties are closely related, we employ the term ‘subgrammars’ for the two I-languages involved.

Distinguishing between different subgrammars in the same individual also brings up the question of parameters, a topic that has been hotly debated lately.

5. Parameters in dialect syntax?

In classical P&P theory, parametric variation was seen as the effect of grammatical macroparameters being built into the structure of UG and thus linked to general properties of the grammar, for instance word order. It was soon proposed (Borer Reference Borer1984) that the source of parameter variation is restricted to the functional lexicon, i.e. that parametric variation should be explained as the effect of different languages employing different functional categories (or the different make-up of functional categories in different languages). Thus, word order variation was no longer stipulated as an effect of grammatical macroparameters built into UG, but as an effect of functional categories triggering movements that yield certain word orders.

A third stage in the understanding of parametric variation was reached at the beginning of this century when it was proposed that parametric variation may be the effect of so-called third factor properties (Chomsky Reference Chomsky2005) of linguistic interfaces, not part of UG or core grammar. For instance, word order variation may be seen as an effect of linearization being imposed on a hierarchical linguistic representation, not because UG says so, or because the relevant core grammar employs certain functional categories, but simply because the medium of speech or writing demands that the linguistic string is linearized as either AB or BA. Also at the beginning of this century, Newmeyer (Reference Newmeyer, Pierre, Johan and Jeroen2004, Reference Newmeyer2005) argued that parameters should be jettisoned from generative grammar, and that their job should be done by language-particular rules, a move that was criticized in Roberts & Holmberg (Reference Roberts, Holmberg, Hans, Norbert, Riny, Ursula and Jan2005), among others.

How does the microvariation typically encountered in dialect syntax fit into these different conceptions of the nature of parametric variation? Henry (Reference Henry, Black and Virginia1996:79) says the following about the expectations about dialectal differences based on classical parameter theory:

However, one seldom encounters such large-scale differences in dialect studies. Dialects belonging to the same ‘language’ often differ only with regard to one or a few quite minor syntactic properties; see Kayne (Reference Kayne, Black and Virginia1996:xiii):

Kayne (Reference Kayne, Black and Virginia1996:footnote 11) also says: ‘In the extreme case, one may find an isolated property distinguishing two very close dialects’. As Henry (Reference Henry, Black and Virginia1996:79–80) points out, this doesn’t fit with classical parameter theory:

Also, dialectal microvariation doesn’t seem to fit easily with variation explained as the effect of third factor properties either, since such effects are expected to be general and ‘macro’, not small-scale and ‘micro’.Footnote ⁴

On the other hand, variation explained as an effect of differences pertaining to functional categories seems to be more promising, since functional categories are sufficiently detailed, allowing for major or minor variation. The same goes for Newmeyer’s rule-based approach. Thus, there is nothing that precludes two I-languages from differing with regard to only one property, whether that is couched in the terminology of differences regarding functional categories or just rule differences.

In contemporary P&P theory (where authors gradually tend to adhere to the term ‘biolinguistics’ instead) there seems to be a general consensus that the classical grand-scale macro-parameters have little to offer when it comes to questions of multilingualism, bidialectalism, and language mixing, areas that the field is now willing and eager to address. Instead, proposals have been made that parameters come in different sizes; consider the microparameter approach of Kayne (Reference Kayne2000, Reference Kayne, Guglielmo and Richard2005) versus Baker’s macro parameters (Reference Baker2001, Reference Baker and Teresa2008a). More recently, Roberts & Holmberg (Reference Roberts, Holmberg, Teresa, Anders, Ian and Michelle2010) and Roberts (Reference Roberts2019), for example, advocate the idea that parameters are organized in hierarchies, where the size and the effect of a parameter is determined on its position in this hierarchy. Moreover, the effect of parameters is also determined by other factors, such as feature economy.Footnote ⁵

It is not important for us in this study to take a stand in the general parameter debate; we will just note that Newmeyer’s rule-based approach or an approach that assumes that parameters are restricted to functional categories seem to best accommodate dialectal microvariation. Moreover, with approaches such as Roberts (Reference Roberts2019) mentioned above, the opposition between parameter-based and feature-based approaches to variation is in a sense dissolved.

Now we turn to a perhaps still harder problem, namely how do we know when we are faced with one grammar with optionality as opposed to two closely related subgrammars? We will approach this problem via a notion we will refer to as contamination.

6. Dialect syntax and cross-linguistic influence

Cook & Newson (Reference Cook and Newson2007) refer to an earlier study by Balcom (Reference Balcom2003) in Cook (Reference Cook2003) of a phenomenon that we might call contamination, a special subtype of cross-linguistic influence. This concept describes a situation where the grammaticality judgements of a language user are influenced by the acquisition of a second language:

Un tricot de laine se lave à l’eau froide.

*A wool sweater washes in cold water.

(Cook & Newson Reference Cook and Newson2007:239)

Sunde (Reference Sunde2019) likewise demonstrates how young Norwegian speakers are clearly influenced by their massive English input when giving grammaticality judgments on Norwegian constructions, judgments clearly deviating from those of their elder peers. One may very well posit a comparable contamination between different varieties, dialects, and standards of a national language. This fits well with the findings of Leonie Cornips (see especially Cornips Reference Cornips, Gisbert, Caroline, Ralf and Matthias2006) who has studied Dutch dialects for a number of years. In some cases, informants identify a construction as being part of their local dialect, while other aspects of the study reveal that the construction does not belong to the dialect, but to the standard norm. Similarly, Henry (Reference Henry2005:1599) mentions (in relation to her work on Belfast English) that

Below, we will give two examples of such potential contamination in the I-grammars of Norwegian dialect speakers, and then we will speculate how we might deal with such phenomena theoretically.

The first example is illustrated in (1)–(3), where (1) exemplifies the word order pattern in wh-questions in Standard Norwegian (obligatory V2). The example is written using Nynorsk spelling.

Now consider (2).

The dialects in south-eastern Norway typically show the pattern in (2a), which has the same word order as standard written Norwegian (obligatory V2). The sentence in (2a) is written using Bokmål spelling. However, many other Norwegian dialects (especially along the western and northern coast) allow the word order in (2b), i.e. no V2, see also Lundquist, Westendorp & Strand (Reference Lundquist, Westendorp and Strand2020 – this volume). This is the case for the dialect in Halsa, Nordmøre (Åfarli Reference Åfarli1986:98). The spelling used is adapted to the pronunciation of the local dialect.

Many of the dialects that allow (2b), i.e. non-V2 wh-questions, also permit the word order in (2a), i.e. V2. This is the case for the dialect in Halsa, Nordmøre, as shown in (3).

The two possibilities in (3) raise the issue of how to interpret such optionality: Is this genuine optionality within one grammar, or should we interpret this interchange as stemming from two different grammars, where (3a) is really an effect of an interfering standard dialect grammar?

The other example of potential contamination where we find two patterns that may potentially belong to two different subgrammars is presented by Norwegian verb particles, as discussed in Aa (Reference Aa2015). It is traditionally taken for granted in generative research that whereas Swedish has obligatory left-hand particles (Han kastade ut hunden ‘He threw out the dog’) and Danish has obligatory right-hand particles (Han kastede hunden ud ‘He threw the dog out’), Norwegian grammar has more or less free variation between the two patterns, as seen in (4).

However, based on an investigation of the traditional dialectological literature on verb particles coupled with his own thorough empirical investigation of contemporary Norwegian dialects, Aa found that the spoken dialects strongly prefer the pattern with left-hand particles in (4a), and that the right-hand pattern in (4b) is more common in standard written and spoken Norwegian. He then hypothesizes (Aa Reference Aa2015:237–243) that what seems to be free variation is really the result of a mix-up and alternation between two separate grammars, where the right-hand pattern is the result of historical Danish influence during the centuries when Norwegian was a part of the Danish kingdom. It is particularly significant that during the time when Norwegian introduced compulsory schooling for all children in the 19th century, Danish was the language of instruction. Also, Danish was used during that time when Norwegian established a literary language. Thus, Aa (Reference Aa2015:243) hypothesizes that

The similarity with the wh-question data shown earlier is obvious. In both cases, there is potential contamination in the sense that – pre-theoretically speaking – the dialect/language lets in alien constructions. This fits well with the findings of Cornips mentioned earlier. In her studies, informants sometimes identify a construction as being part of their local dialect, while other aspects of the study reveal that the construction does not originally belong to the dialect, but to the standard norm.

This of course raises the question of how we can know that a given construction or property really belongs to a dialect or a ‘norm’ (i.e. a standard), and moreover, how we should interpret such phenomena theoretically. For instance, are we faced with genuine optionality within one grammar, or should we interpret the data as stemming from two different deterministic grammars, where one pattern is an effect of an interfering standard dialect grammar?

In cases where the use of the construction or property (or more generally the register, variety) in question is correlated with a specific contextual setting, it seems reasonable to count the two varieties as stemming from different subgrammars.Footnote ⁶ For instance, hymn syntax is used in hymn contexts, or festive syntax in festive contexts. Also, the dialect syntax switch in Skedsmokorset reported in Reite (Reference Reite2011), mentioned in Section 2, seems to be conditioned by contextual factors, and moreover, it is correlated with lexical accommodation (different for the two varieties), as well. In that case too it seems reasonable to assume that two different subgrammars are used. Such cases are not in principle different from two national languages being used by a speaker in different contexts.

The examples given in this section are different, since there seems to be free variation between constructions or properties without any obvious accompanying contextual factors being discernible. Assuming that such factors are absent, we could still be faced with ‘hidden multilingualism’ (Roeper Reference Roeper1999) with two different subgrammars involved, or, alternatively, we could be faced with genuine optionality within one grammar, even though the historical impetus for this optionality is, say, the influence that a dominating standard dialect or written standard have on a local dialect.

If we assume hidden multilingualism and different subgrammars in such cases, the most economical approach would be to assume that grammars are deterministic and do not permit optionality. Instead of assuming that we have potentially three different grammars (a deterministic one with V2 or right-hand particles, a deterministic one with non-V2 and left-hand particles, and a non-deterministic one that allows both), it is preferable to adopt the more restrictive hypothesis that only the two deterministic alternatives are available. Thus, considerations of theory economy favour the deterministic solution. If this is correct, we must conclude that the two options in free variation patterns really belong to different subgrammars. Still, such an analysis is driven by conceptual considerations of theoretical economy, but it might not be empirically and factually right. There is still the possibility that in fact only one grammar that allows optionality is involved.Footnote ⁷

To solve this issue would require a much larger study (to determine the empirical facts on a larger scale) and a much more thorough debate on our current linguistic models. In short, this is a question that cannot be settled in the format of this short paper.

However, we will briefly offer some related thoughts on how to cope with grammaticality judgements and working with informants in dialect syntax. We suggest that it is a reasonable research approach to assume that two varieties that are correlated with specific contextual factors indeed reflect different (sub)grammars in the mind of the speaker. Thus, a speaker who switches to Swedish in a Swedish setting, and to English in an English setting, clearly invokes two different grammars. Likewise, a speaker using hymn syntax in a hymn setting, or a poetic syntax in poetry, invokes a different grammar from her or his typical everyday grammar, and a speaker of the two varieties in Skedsmokorset invokes two different grammars as well, since there are specific contextual factors (and lexical choices) that go along with the use of each variety. In such cases, we are faced with instances of universal bilingualism involving different subgrammars (Roeper Reference Roeper1999).

As for cases like the two sets of data discussed in this section where no contextual factors can be found, the researcher must nevertheless be open to the possibility that there are such factors after all. Thus, a reasonable strategy when working with informants will be to always be looking for such factors, in order to determine whether one grammar (with optionality) or two subgrammars are involved.Footnote ⁸ This implies that a set of data from the same informant (recordings, written texts, grammaticality judgements) might in principle display features of contradicting subgrammars (see Eide & Åfarli Reference Eide, Åfarli and Torben2007, Eide & Sollid Reference Eide, Sollid and Peter2011). This should make linguists proceed with caution in their work with informants and data (see also Henry Reference Henry2005).

If a data set consists of data from different, and potentially contradictory, subgrammars, constructing a single coherent underlying grammar would be akin to constructing a single picture from a box of puzzle pieces, where each piece may in principle belong to a different puzzle. This would be a challenging and ultimately a futile task. On the other hand, if a grammar in fact allows optionality, constructing different puzzles where there is in fact only one would also be wrong and futile.

How to deal with informants and judgements from non-standard dialects is discussed in an illuminating and interesting way in Jamieson (Reference Jamieson2020). Jamieson discovered that younger speakers of Shetland Scots exhibit a kind of perceptual hyperdialectalism (see also Cornips & Poletto Reference Cornips and Poletto2005), i.e. that the younger speakers of the dialect tend to extend acceptability of the variable in question to contexts where older speakers did not accept it. Jamieson further argues that this can be explained as an effect of the younger speakers being linguistically insecure and therefore unreliable in their judgements, which again highlights the importance of proceeding with caution when dealing with informants who are speakers of non-standard dialects.

7. Conclusion

We took as our point of departure the contrast between the ‘ideal speaker–listener’ of traditional generative grammar and the apparent chaos of linguistic variation that the researcher is faced with in the real world.

We very soon zoomed in on intraindividual microvariation and explored phenomena where the language user knows, masters and actively uses different closely related varieties, like different registers and dialects, which they are able to use in the appropriate contexts without effort. We argued that in many cases where we encounter such microvariation, the speaker has internalized a different (sub)grammar for each given variety, in line with the hypothesis of universal bilingualism and parallel grammars argued for by Thomas Roeper. In particular, we explored the question of how we can distinguish parallel grammars from optionality in one grammar, suggesting that the identification of correlating contextual factors might be a possible criterion.

However, we also explored a more subtle type of variation which is particularly relevant in dialect syntax, namely cases of what we call ‘contamination’ where a standard variety influences on a more vulnerable non-standard variety so as to impress some of its own I-language properties on the I-grammar of speakers of the non-standard variety in a way that makes it exceedingly difficult to discern what is what. In particular, should properties that can be traced back to such contamination be seen as properties of another subgrammar (the standard grammar), or have they become an integrated part of the influenced non-standard dialect, and should therefore be analysed as effects of the grammar of that dialect? This question is explored, but not really answered; although we recommend that the researcher exercise the utmost care when working with non-standard dialect data.

The relevance of the vexed notion of parameter for the analysis of dialectal variation and other types of microvariation has also been discussed. Although the degree of commitment to the old parameter notion was toned down, the concept of parameters is in the process of migrating towards feature-based explanations, and we believe feature theory has an important role to play in the understanding of I-grammars of dialects, syntactic registers and intraspeaker variation.

This article has only scratched the surface of the many problems concerning research in microvariation and dialect syntax. Hopefully, it has contributed to illuminating some of the pressing problems and placing them on the agenda for future research.