Abstract This paper investigates the use of preterit verb forms in lieu of normative past participles (in present- and past-tense contexts as well as following non-tensed have ) by African American speakers drawing on data from the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL). This type of morphosyntactic variation, labeled as Participle Leveling, has been documented in many varieties of English worldwide. However, variationist research on participle leveling remains limited and has thus far centered exclusively on mainstream varieties. By focusing on African American English (AAE), the present study addresses this research gap and contributes to a systematic understanding of the variable in AAE. Statistical analyses indicate that participle leveling in AAE is largely conditioned by similar intra-linguistic factors identified in mainstream English varieties. Moreover, the variable is socially stratified among AAE speakers and exhibits regional patterning with higher rates of non-standard forms found in the Southern United States. No evidence of change over time has been found.
Abstract This paper investigates the acoustic properties of diphthongs in Central Australian Aboriginal English (CAAE), an Aboriginal English variety spoken in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Northern Territory. We analysed vowel duration, formant trajectory, and acoustic distance measure in tokens from conversational speech from six female CAAE speakers. The analysis included six diphthongs /æɪ əʉ oɪ ɑe æɔ ɪə/ and two long monophthongs /iː eː/, which potentially also had some dynamic features. The results suggest that CAAE has the same phonological diphthong inventory as Mainstream Australian English (MAusE), but differs from MAusE phonetically in a number of ways. When individual speakers were analysed separately, we observed potential effects of multilingualism on diphthong production, as multilingual speakers at times had different realisations from monolingual speakers. The present study contributes to the documentation of an under-studied English variety used by Aboriginal Australians as their primary language, reflecting the current language ecology in the local area.
This study examines non-canonical uses of the Present Perfect (PrPf) with definite past time adverbials such as yesterday, last + NP, and ago in British English (BrE) and American English (AmE), drawing on data from the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). While quantitatively marginal, these uses reveal a distinctive pattern: in pragmatically marked contexts, especially in spontaneous speech and media, the PrPf encodes both past anchoring and current relevance, violating canonical constraints. I argue that these instances reflect a strategy of relevance compression, where the PrPf functions as a discourse shortcut, simultaneously maintaining topic continuity and signaling temporal relevance. Ambiguous contexts, where current relevance and past perfective readings co-exist, are prevalent in AmE, where a past perfective interpretation may be salient. Ultimately, the study confirms that genre and register shape the distribution and interpretation of tense forms, with innovation concentrated in spoken, spontaneous contexts.
This paper examines the variation in rhoticity in both casual and careful speech of Singaporeans, who are representative of the general population of educated Singapore English (SgE) speakers. This study expands the scope of previous research on rhoticity in SgE, e.g. Tan and Gupta (1992) and Tan (2012), by analysing both language-external and language-internal factors. While earlier studies primarily explored social correlates such as age, gender, ethnicity, and educational level, this research addresses a critical gap by examining phonological environments that condition /r/ realisation. Speech data were drawn from two distinct registers - read-aloud speeches and informal conversations - produced by SgE speakers of varying first language (L1) backgrounds. Statistical modelling identified three significant predictors of /r/ realisation: phonological context, preceding vowel, and dominant language. The findings underscore the unique status of the realised /r/ in SgE and the importance of both stylistic and phonological considerations in its distribution.
