LINGUIST List 17.1581
Wed May 24 2006
Diss: Historical Ling: Dollinger: 'New-Dialect Formation in Early C...'
Editor for this issue: Meredith Valant
<meredithlinguistlist.org>
Directory
1. Stefan
Dollinger,
New-Dialect Formation in Early Canada: The modal auxiliaries in Ontario English, 1776-1850
Message 1: New-Dialect Formation in Early Canada: The modal auxiliaries in Ontario English, 1776-1850
Date: 23-May-2006
From: Stefan Dollinger <stefan.dollingerunivie.ac.at>
Subject: New-Dialect Formation in Early Canada: The modal auxiliaries in Ontario English, 1776-1850
Institution: Vienna University
Program: Department of English
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2006
Author: Stefan Dollinger
Dissertation Title: New-Dialect Formation in Early Canada: The modal auxiliaries in Ontario English, 1776-1850
Dissertation URL: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/stefan.dollinger/comp.htm
Linguistic Field(s):
Historical Linguistics
Subject Language(s): English (eng)
Dissertation Director:
J. K. Chambers
Nikolaus Ritt
Herbert Schendl
Dissertation Abstract:
This study investigates eleven modals and semi-modals in the earliestperiods of Ontario English from a variationist point of view. Making use ofthe first electronic corpus of early Canadian English, the Corpus of EarlyOntario English, pre-Confederation section (CONTE-pC), the study linkslanguage-internal data to recent sociohistorical findings. Based on ananalysis of more than 4,350 modal tokens, most of them analyzed alongsemantic notions (Coates 1983, Palmer 1990), the processes of dialectmixing in early Ontario are outlined.
Trudgill's (2004, 1986) theory of new-dialect formation in colonialsettings serves as the theoretical backdrop. While the study shows that thetheory provides an adequate developmental scenario for colonial settings,it proposes three modifications and extensions in the early Ontariancontext. The cumulative data of CAN/MAY, COULD/MIGHT, SHALL/WILL,SHOULD/WOULD, MUST, OUGHT TO and HAVE TO in a total of 19 contexts allow anassessment of the modal auxiliary complex in early Ontario English inrelation to notions of colonial lag and the founder principle (Mufwene1996). The results show, while varying greatly between the variables, thatearly Canadian English tends to be slightly progressive in its overallmodal use when compared to BrE, and is almost as progressive as AmE.
For the first time, this study empirically assesses American and Britishinfluences for a pre-1900 variety of Canadian English, which complementsapparent-time scenarios that reach back to the 1920s. The findings put theclassic contributions by M. Bloomfield (1948) and Scargill (1957) on theorigin of Canadian English into perspective and support a more balancedview (cf. Chambers 1998, 1991). Four major forces on early Ontario Englishare identified and ranked according to their influences: drift (paralleldevelopment) is the most prevalent factor operating on the modalauxiliaries in early OntE, followed by early AmE input, with Canadianindependent developments in third place, and BrE import as the fourth mostdominant factor.
|