The Variable (ING)
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1985 Continuity and Change in English Morphology: The aV riable (ING) Ann Celeste Houston University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Houston, Ann Celeste, "Continuity and Change in English Morphology: The aV riable (ING)" (1985). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1183. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1183 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1183 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Continuity and Change in English Morphology: The aV riable (ING) Abstract Past studies of the variable (ING) have demonstrated regular and stable social and stylistic conditions across English speech communities around the world, factors which shape the patterns of variation between the /n/ and /ŋ/ variants of (ING). This dissertation is an inquiry into the conditions, both linguistic and social, which gave rise to the evolution of modern (ING). The purpose is to demonstrate the existence of an observable continuity between the past morphological history of (ING) and its present-day status as a sociolinguistic variable, following Sturtevant's idea (1917) that the social evaluation of linguistic forms can be viewed as the result of a competition between forms originally not in variation with each other, but which are later brought together in a shared environment, becoming variants of a single form. This study is based on a quantitative analysis of 7950 tokens of -ing, including synchronic data based on 68 speakers (60 British and 8 American) and diachronic data based on textual materials (letters and diaries) from the 15th - 19th centuries, and a supplement of data from an earlier study (Irwin 1967) based on textual materials from the 9th - 15th century. A grammatical effect on modern (ING) is found, seen most clearly in the British data, showing that /ŋ/ is correlated with nominal categories, and /n/ with verbal ones. This alignment does not pattern according to discrete syntactic features, but aligns probabilistically along a linear continuum. This effect is interpreted as the reflex of a ap rtial merger between Old English morphemes ing and ind . There is an observed correspondence between the synchronic British data and the Middle English isogloss c. 1450, which established the replacement of the participial suffix ind with the verbal noun suffix ing in the south of England (Moore, Meech and Whitehall 1935). The modern cities which show probability of /ŋ/ less than .5 fall outside the isogloss, those with probability of /ŋ/ greater than .5 lie within it. The difference in probabilities is consistent with the idea that the replacement of -ind with -ing c. 1450 occurred in southern England sooner than in northern England because of a difference in the pronunciation of the two suffixes in these regions, northern -and versus southern -ind. Evidence supports the view of a syncretism between verbal noun and present participle subsequent to the replacement of -ind with -ing. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.) Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Linguistics First Advisor William Labov This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1183 Subject Categories Linguistics This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1183 PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. 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Other __________ _________________ _______________________ ____________ University Microfiims International Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY: THE VARIABLE (ING) Ann Celeste Houston A DISSERTATION in Linguistics Presented to the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1985 Supervisor of Dissertation Graduate Group Chairperson Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COPYRIGHT Ann Celeste Houston 19S5 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my Mother, Father, Sandra and Johnny iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest appreciation to William Labov, for his patience and inspiring guidance as my advisor. I feel exceptionally priviledged to have had the opportunity of working with him over these past years, and to have received the benefits of his insight, criticism, humor, and astute observations of human nature. Every aspect of this thesis is a reflection of the generosity he has shown me in terms of his time, ideas and resources. When I came to Penn, my views of language were shaped almost entirely by a perspective from the philosophy of language. Through his teaching, I have come to appreciate the need and value of quantifiable data and of pursuing a research program whose empirical basis can be replicated and built upon by others. Beyond this, he opened my ears to the amazing, living language that surrounds us every day, and is the true target of linguistic inquiry. This training is a debt I can never repay. I am deeply grateful to Gillian Sankoff for serving on my committee. Her criticisms and observations were extremely valuable during the writing of this thesis, and her encouragement kept me going through the rough times. Her careful and thorough comments were appreciated very much, and her depth, both as a scholar and a human being will continue to set the standards for me. I want to thank John Fought for his patience and support over the last two years, for serving on my committee, and for some interesting and rewarding discussions on morphology. I want to also thank him for the rigorous course I took with him in phonology my first year, which introduced me to the accomplishments of structural linguistics. Because of his generosity, I have had access to sophisticated computing equipment on which I have written and printed this thesis. I would also like io thank a number of other professors who have contributed in diverse ways to the ideas in this thesis, especially to James Milroy from whom I received extensive comments on my proposal and portions of earlier drafts. I am grateful to Dell Hymes for his comments on my proposal, and also for the opportunity I had to work as a iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. research assistant for him. Thanks also to Dr. Lisker for his comments on the phonetics experiment, and to Dr. Hiz for his encouragement, and for referring me to the work on -ing by Zellig Harris. I'd like to thank Anthony Kroch and Richard Larson for their syntactic insights into (ING). I am very grateful to Peter Trudgill, Ralph Fasold, John Ross, Lawrence Carrington, and Lloyd Anderson for their interest and comments on my work. Thanks also to Professor Robert Gregg for sending me excerpts from his recent work on Canadian -Ing. In conducting the experiments used in this study, a number of people contributed in various ways. Franz Seitz, Colby Madden, Elizabeth Dayton and Elizabeth Campion gave me valuable feedback on experimental design. Chris Cieri, Franz Seitz, Sheila Stein, Francis Stead and Chip Buchholtz ail gave their time in helping me conduct these experiments. The enthusiasm was an extra - thanks, guys. I benefitted from on-going discussions about the syntactic and historical aspects of this dissertation with Fernando Tarallo, Elizabeth Dayton, Deborah Schiffrin, John Myhill, David Graff, Dominique Estival, Chris Cieri, Sara Kimball, Beatrice Santorini and Joe DiChicchis. I would like to extend my appreciation to all the reference staff at Van Pelt for their cooperation and help on so many occassions during the course of my research. I would also like to thank Carol Connelly for her help over the years. On the technical side of things, I couldn’t have made it without the various computers, tape recorders and printers I have had access to in the course of analysis and writing. The original copy of this thesis was formatted on an Apollo Domain 300 computer, using the Interleaf document preparation system. The original copy was printed on an Imagen laser printer. Thanks Bill and John, for the much-appreciated use of your labs, where I spent all my midnight hours. Thanks to David Graff and Sharon Ash for cheerful and patient service in maintaining the equipment at 3732, I hope no one ever takes for granted what it takes to keep a computer lab running. Thanks to Dan Blumenfeld for his maintenance of the lab at 440, and for getting me through some low moments with high v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tech. Also thanks to Dan for creating the digitized maps of England.