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Relative Pronouns in "It"-Clefts: The Last Seven Centuries.
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Ball, Catherine N. – Language Variation and Change, 1994
Examined synchronic and diachronic data for clefts and relative clauses in English, arguing that "it"-cleft complements do not differ syntactically from restrictive relative clauses. The diachronic data further show that cleft complements and restrictive relative clauses have changed together over time and at the same rate. (48…
Descriptors: Descriptive Linguistics, Diachronic Linguistics, English, Language Research
Defining the Envelope of Linguistic Variation: The Case of "Don't Count" Forms in the Copula Analysis of African American Vernacular English.
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Blake, Renee – Language Variation and Change, 1997
Proposes a set of copula forms that should be set aside from variable analysis as instances of "don't count" (DC) forms to allow for systematic comparisons among studies of the English language. Reviews the major alternative descriptions of DC copula cases in the literature and analyzes the behavior of the traditional DC categories. (29…
Descriptors: Descriptive Linguistics, Diachronic Linguistics, English, Form Classes (Languages)
Remarks on Grammatical Weight.
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Wasow, Thomas – Language Variation and Change, 1997
Discusses "end-weight," long, complex phrases that tend to come at the end of clauses. Corpus data on heavy noun phrase shift, the dative alternation, and particle movement indicate that there are several structural measures of weight highly correlated with constituent ordering. (38 references) (Author/CK)
Descriptors: Descriptive Linguistics, English, Form Classes (Languages), Language Variation