http://eng.sagepub.com/ Journal of English Linguistics http://eng.sagepub.com/content/40/4/316 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.1177/0075424211431266 2011 2012 40: 316 originally published online 22 December Journal of English Linguistics David Cockeram, Esther Danks and Louise Tyler Mercedes Durham, Bill Haddican, Eytan Zweig, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Zipporah Baker, Be Like Constant Linguistic Effects in the Diffusion of Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com can be found at: Journal of English Linguistics Additional services and information for http://eng.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://eng.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: http://eng.sagepub.com/content/40/4/316.refs.html Citations: What is This? - Dec 22, 2011 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Dec 28, 2011 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Nov 5, 2012 Version of Record >> by guest on February 16, 2013 eng.sagepub.com Downloaded from Journal of En lish Linguistics httpzlleng. agepub.com/ Constant Linguistic Effects in the Diffusion of Be Like Mercedes Durham, Bill Haddican, Eytan Zweig, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Zipporah Baker, David Cockeram, Esther Danks and Louise Tyler Journal of English Linguistics 2012 40: 316 originally published online 22 December 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0075424211431266 The online version of this article can be found at: http://eng.sagepub.com/content/40/4/316 Published by: ®SAGE http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Journal of English Linguistics can be found at: Email Alerts: http://eng.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://eng.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://eng.sagepub.com/content/40/4/316.refs.html >> Version of Record - Nov 5, 2012 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Dec 28, 2011 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Dec 22, 2011 What is This? Downloaded from eng.sagepub.com by guest on February 16, 2013
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http://eng.sagepub.com/Journal of English Linguistics
http://eng.sagepub.com/content/40/4/316The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0075424211431266
2011 2012 40: 316 originally published online 22 DecemberJournal of English Linguistics
David Cockeram, Esther Danks and Louise TylerMercedes Durham, Bill Haddican, Eytan Zweig, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Zipporah Baker,
Be LikeConstant Linguistic Effects in the Diffusion of
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:Journal of English LinguisticsAdditional services and information for
1Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK2Queens College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA3University of York, York, UK4Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Corresponding Author:Mercedes Durham, Cardiff University, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU, UK Email: [email protected]
Constant Linguistic Effects in the Diffusion of Be Like
Mercedes Durham1, Bill Haddican2, Eytan Zweig3, Daniel Ezra Johnson4, Zipporah Baker3, David Cockeram3, Esther Danks3, and Louise Tyler3
Abstract
This article examines change in social and linguistic effects on be like usage and acceptability. Results from two studies are presented. The first set of data comes from a trend study with samples of U.K. university undergraduates collected in 1996 and 2006. While the effect of subject person, morphological tense, and quote content is constant in the two samples, the effect of speaker sex decreases. The second study is a judgment experiment with 121 native speakers of U.S. English, examining acceptability of be like in environments biasing direct speech and reported thought readings. The analysis reveals no interaction between age and the reported thought/direct speech contrast, suggesting no support for change in this effect on be like acceptability in apparent time. The two studies therefore converge in suggesting no evidence of change in linguistic constraints on be like as it has diffused into U.K. and U.S. Englishes.
Keywords
quotatives, be like, British English, real time, sociolinguistic, language variation and change
The spread of be like as a quote introducer has received much attention over the past fifteen years and has provided an unprecedented scope for linguists to examine extremely rapid change across generations (Buchstaller 2006a, 2006b; Buchstaller &
Articles
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®SAGEMercedes Durham', Bill Haddicanz, Eytan Zweig3,
Daniel Ezra johnson4, Zipporah Baker3,David Cockeram3, Esther Danks3, and Louise Tyler3
Abstract
This article examines change in social and linguistic effects on be like usage andacceptability. Results from two studies are presented. The ■rst set of data comesfrom a trend study with samplesof UK. university undergraduates collected in I996and 2006. While the effect of subject person, morphological tense, and quote contentis constant in the two samples, the effect of speaker sex decreases. The secondstudy is a judgment experiment with |2| native speakers of U.S. English,examiningacceptability of be like in environments biasing direct speech and reported thoughtreadings.The analysisreveals no interaction between ageand the reported thought/direct speech contrast, suggesting no support for change in this effect on be likeacceptability in apparent time. The two studies therefore converge in suggestingnoevidence of change in linguistic constraints on be like as it has diffused into UK. andU.S.Englishes.
Keywords
quotatives, be like, British English, real time, sociolinguistic, language variation and
change
The spreadof be like as a quote introducer has received much attention over the past■fteen years and has provided an unprecedented scope for linguists to examineextremely rapid change across generations (Buchstaller 2006a, 2006b; Buchstaller &
|Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK2Queens College, City University of NewYork, NewYork, NY, USA3University onork,York, UK4Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Corresponding Author:Mercedes Durham, Cardiff University, School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Humanities
D’Arcy 2009; Cukor-Avila 2002; Dailey-O’Cain 2000; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Macaulay 2001; Romaine & Lange 1991; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). As much recent literature has noted, the process of the spread of be like now has sufficient time depth to allow for detailed comparisons across age groups (Buchstaller 2006a; Cukor-Avila 2002; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007). Much of the recent literature on be like has therefore focused on whether some well-known constraints on English quote introducers have changed through the course of diffusion of be like in various dialects. The most careful and detailed studies of this sort have been Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) studies of change in Toronto English, which indicate ongoing change in social and linguistic constraints on be like as the form enters the local grammar. Most notably, among later age cohorts, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy find an increase in the speaker sex effect with women favoring be like and a weakening of the effect of quote content, where inter-nal dialogue (reported thought) contexts favor be like over direct speech contexts. Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999:167-169) and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004:511, 2007:202) suggest that these patterns represent general pathways of grammaticaliza-tion of be like; that is, it’s a change that, ceteris paribus, all dialects into which be like is diffusing will undergo.
The goal of this article is to assess evidence for similar changes in constraints on be like in varieties of English where quotatives have been less studied. In particular, this article considers two sets of data—one with U.K. English speakers and a second with U.S. English speakers—and tests whether the interaction between age group and other well-known social and linguistic effects on be like is more general in nature. The first set comes from a trend study comparing quotative usage in a 2006 corpus of speech from University of York undergraduate students aged eighteen to twenty-two with those from a similarly constructed sample from 1996. This comparison allows us to assess possible cross-generational change in constraints on be like use in York. The second set of data comes from a judgment experiment, conducted in 2009 with speak-ers of American English, comparing acceptability of be like and say in contexts bias-ing direct speech and reported thought readings.
Our results suggest two main findings. First, the corpus study shows a significant interaction between sex and age group with a smaller sex effect in the later data set. These results are in keeping with previous studies suggesting mutability of social fac-tors across age groups and dialects as be like expands (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2007). Second, the corpus data and the experimental results both reveal no interaction between age and the classic linguistic constraints on be like discussed in much previous literature. The contrast between our findings and previous corpus findings from other locales therefore supports skepticism with regard to universal tendencies in constraint shifts in grammaticalization of be like. Instead, our results support findings from the historical syntax literature of a con-stant rate effect on syntactic change—that is, for any single abstract process of gram-matical change, a constancy in the effect of different contexts across generations of speakers advancing the change (Kroch 1989, 1994, 2001).
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D’Arcy 2009; Cukor-Avila 2002; Dailey-O’Cain 2000; Ferrara& Bell 1995;Macaulay2001; Romaine & Lange 1991; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte &Hudson 1999). As much recent literature hasnoted, the processof the spreadof be like
now has suf■cient time depth to allow for detailed comparisons across age groups(Buchstaller 2006a; Cukor-Avila 2002; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy2004, 2007). Much of the recent literature on be like has therefore focused on whether
somewell-known constraints on English quote introducers have changed through the
course of diffusion of be like in various dialects. The most careful and detailed studiesof this sort have been Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) studies of change inToronto English, which indicate ongoing change in social and linguistic constraints
on be like as the form enters the local grammar. Most notably, among later agecohorts, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy ■nd an increase in the speaker sex effect with
women favoring be like and a weakening of the effect of quote content, where inter-nal dialogue (reported thought) contexts favor be like over direct speech contexts.Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999:167-169) and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004:511,2007:202) suggestthat these patterns represent general pathways of grammaticaliza-tion of be like; that is, it’s a changethat, ceteris paribus, all dialects into which be likeis diffusing will undergo.
The goal of this article is to assessevidence for similar changesin constraints on belike in varieties of English where quotatives have been less studied. In particular, thisarticle considers two setsof data—one with U.K. English speakersand a secondwithU.S. English speakers—andtestswhether the interaction between agegroup and otherwell-known social and linguistic effects on be like is more general in nature. The ■rstset comes from a trend study comparing quotative usage in a 2006 corpus of speechfrom University of York undergraduate students aged eighteen to twenty-two withthose from a similarly constructed sample from 1996. This comparison allows us to
assesspossible cross-generational change in constraints on be like use in York. Thesecondsetof data comes from ajudgment experiment, conducted in 2009 with speak-
ers of American English, comparing acceptability of be like and say in contexts bias-ing direct speechand reported thought readings.
Our results suggesttwo main ■ndings. First, the corpus study shows a signi■cantinteraction between sex and age group with a smaller sex effect in the later data set.Theseresults are in keeping with previous studies suggesting mutability of social fac-tors across age groups and dialects as be like expands (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009;Ferrara & Bell 1995; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2007). Second, the corpus data and theexperimental results both reveal no interaction between age and the classic linguisticconstraints on be like discussedin much previous literature. The contrast between our■ndingsand previous corpus ■ndings from other locales therefore supports skepticismwith regard to universal tendencies in constraint shifts in grammaticalization of belike. Instead, our results support ■ndings from the historical syntax literature of a con-stant rate effect on syntactic change—that is, for any single abstract process of gram-matical change, a constancy in the effect of different contexts across generations ofspeakersadvancing the change (Kroch 1989, 1994, 2001).
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Our discussion is organized as follows. We begin by discussing previous literature examining change on constraints on be like usage. We then present our two original studies focused on change in linguistic effects on be like. The final section summarizes some implications of the data presented.
The Expansion of Be LikeIn contemporary English speech there is considerable variation in verbs which can be used to introduce direct speech as in (1)–(3).
(1) I was like “Easy tiger.”(2) She said “Let’s go.”(3) He went “Calm it love.”
Over the past two decades an extensive body of literature has focused on the expan-sion of the be like variant in (1). This literature has documented the spread of be like in several English-speaking societies globally starting in the United States (Cukor-Avila 2002; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Singler 2001), and later in Canada (Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999), the United Kingdom (Buchstaller 2006a; Macaulay 2001; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999), and New Zealand (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009).
Following work by Ferrara and Bell (1995) and Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999), much of this literature has focused on continued grammaticalization of be like during this process of expansion. In an effort to track these changes, several recent studies have examined changes in the way be like use is constrained internally and externally in corpus data. Below we introduce four constraints frequently discussed in this literature.
Speaker SexSeveral studies have reported a speaker sex effect on be like usage. The most typical finding in the literature is that women tend toward innovative be like more than men (Blyth, Recktenwald, & Wang 1990; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Macaulay 2001; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). This pattern is in keep-ing with evidence from perceptual data. In particular, Dailey-O’Cain’s (2000) U.S. study and Buchstaller’s (2006b) U.K. study both suggest that quotative be like use is associated with young women.
Much of the literature, moreover, indicates that sex effects on quotative use are mutable diachronically and across communities. In a three-year trend study in Texas in the early 1990s, Ferrara and Bell (1995) found evidence of neutralization of the sex effect: in 1990 women used be like twice as frequently as men (15 vs. 29 percent); however, in later, similarly constructed samples in 1992 and 1994, men and women used be like at roughly equal rates. During this period, the overall rate of be like use
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3 I8 journal of EnglishLinguistics40(4)
Our discussion is organized as follows. We begin by discussing previous literatureexamining change on constraints on be like usage. We then present our two originalstudies focused on changein linguistic effects on be like. The ■nal section summarizes
some implications of the data presented.
The Expansion of BeLike
In contemporary English speechthere is considerable variation in verbs which can beused to introduce direct speechas in (1)—(3).
(1) I was like “Easy tiger.”(2) She said “Let’s go.”(3) He went “Calm it love.”
Over the past two decadesan extensivebody of literature has focusedon the expan-sion of the be like variant in (1). This literature has documented the spreadof be likein several English-speaking societies globally starting in the United States (Cukor-Avila 2002; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Singler 2001), and later in Canada(Tagliamonte &D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999), the United Kingdom (Buchstaller2006a; Macaulay 2001; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999), and New Zealand (Buchstaller& D’Arcy 2009).
Following work by Ferrara and Bell (1995) and Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999),much of this literature has focused on continued grammaticalization of be like duringthis process of expansion. In an effort to track these changes, several recent studieshave examined changesin the way be like use is constrained internally and externallyin corpus data. Below we introduce four constraints frequently discussed in thisliterature.
SpeakerSex
Several studies have reported a speaker sex effect on be like usage. The most typicalfinding in the literature is that women tend toward innovative be like more than
men (Blyth, Recktenwald, & Wang 1990; Ferrara & Bell 1995; Macaulay 2001;Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). This pattern is in keep-ing with evidence from perceptual data. In particular, Dailey-O’Cain’s (2000) US.study and Buchstaller’s (2006b) U.K. study both suggestthat quotative be like use isassociatedwith young women.
Much of the literature, moreover, indicates that sex effects on quotative use aremutable diachronically and across communities. In a three-year trend study in Texasin the early 1990s,Ferrara and Bell (1995) found evidence of neutralization of the sexeffect: in 1990 women used be like twice as frequently as men (15 vs. 29 percent);however, in later, similarly constructed samples in 1992 and 1994, men and womenused be like at roughly equal rates. During this period, the overall rate of be like use
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increased steadily. These data might be taken to indicate that as be like diffuses, the effect of speaker sex may weaken. However, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004) describe the opposite pattern in Canada: with increasing use of be like, a sex differ-ence emerged between 1995 and 2002–2003. Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009) also find conflicting results for gender across American, British, and New Zealand cor-pora. Based in part on these results, Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999) and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004) hypothesize the opposite relationship between diffusion of be like and sex differentiation: the further be like diffuses, “the more likely it is to differenti-ate male and female speech” (Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999:167).
Quote ContentA second constraint on be like usage discussed in recent literature concerns the inter-pretation of the quoted material. The availability of be like in contexts such as (1) appears to have emerged through a reanalysis of sequences of be + discourse marker like. That is, prior to its emergence as an introducer of direct speech, be like could be used to describe states of individuals in contexts with predicate adjectives (4), with nonlexicalized sounds as in (5), and in “internal dialogue” as in (6).
(4) I was like devastated.(5) She was like “Ugh.”(6) I was like “Never again.”
In studying the increase of quotative be like, several authors have examined its distribution across age cohorts in some of the above contexts. Early studies report that be like is disfavored in contexts introducing direct speech and favored before non-lexicalized sounds and internal dialogue (Ferrara & Bell 1995; Macaulay 2001; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). More recently, however, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004) show that for one of the three age groups in their 2002–2003 sample (seventeen- to nineteen-year-olds), speakers used be like to a greater extent in direct speech than internal dialogue. Similarly, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007) demonstrate that young speakers, aged seventeen to twenty-nine, showed the weakest effect of quote content in their sample. The authors plausibly interpret these results as evidence of continued grammaticalization of be like as an introducer of direct speech.
Subject PersonResults reported in the literature concerning the effect of subject person on the variation have been more consistent. As it emerged as a dialogue introducer, be like appears to have been originally favored with first-person respondents, a fact plausibly related to its role as an introducer of internal dialogue. Ferrara and Bell (1995) report that this effect weakens during the period covered by their study, and they interpret this shift as evidence of expansion of function of be like. Most other studies, however,
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increased steadily. These data might be taken to indicate that as be like diffuses, theeffect of speaker sex may weaken. However, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004)describe the opposite pattern in Canada: with increasing use of be like, a sex differ-
ence emerged between 1995 and 2002—2003.Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009) alsofind con■icting results for gender across American, British, and New Zealand cor-pora. Based in part on theseresults, Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999) and Tagliamonteand D’Arcy (2004) hypothesize the opposite relationship between diffusion of be likeand sex differentiation: the further be like diffuses, “the more likely it is to differenti-ate male and female speech” (Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999:167).
QuoteContent
A secondconstraint on be like usagediscussedin recent literature concerns the inter-pretation of the quoted material. The availability of be like in contexts such as (1)
appearsto have emerged through a reanalysis of sequencesof be + discourse markerlike. That is, prior to its emergenceas an introducer of direct speech,be like could beused to describe states of individuals in contexts with predicate adjectives (4), withnonlexicalized sounds as in (5), and in “internal dialogue” as in (6).
(4) I was like devastated.(5) Shewas like “Ugh. ”(6) l was like “Never again.”
In studying the increase of quotative be like, several authors have examined itsdistribution acrossagecohorts in some of the above contexts. Early studiesreport thatbe like is disfavored in contexts introducing direct speech and favored before non-lexicalized sounds and internal dialogue (Ferrara & Bell 1995; Macaulay 2001;Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). More recently, however, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy(2004) show that for one of the three agegroups in their 2002—2003sample(seventeen-to nineteen-year-olds), speakersused be like to a greater extent in direct speechthaninternal dialogue. Similarly, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007) demonstrate that youngspeakers,aged seventeento twenty-nine, showed the weakest effect of quote contentin their sample. The authors plausibly interpret these results as evidence of continuedgrammaticalization of be like as an introducer of direct speech.
SubjectPerson
Results reported in the literature concerning the effect of subject person on thevariation have been more consistent. As it emerged as a dialogue introducer, be like
appearsto have been originally favored with first-person respondents,a fact plausiblyrelated to its role as an introducer of internal dialogue. Ferrara and Bell (1995) reportthat this effect weakens during the period covered by their study, and they interpretthis shift as evidence of expansion of function of be like. Most other studies,however,
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have reported much greater constancy in the effect of subject person, with first-person respondents favoring be like usage and second- and third-person respondents disfa-voring it (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009; Cukor-Avila 2002; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999).
Tense and AspectFinally, several authors have focused on the effect of tense on be like usage. In particular, Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang (1990), Romaine and Lange (1991), and Singler (2001) all report that be like is favored in present tense contexts and disfavored in the past tense. More recently, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007) use a three-way coding for tense, distin-guishing past, present, and historical present. Their analysis of variation in a corpus of speakers ranging in age from nine to thirty-nine in Toronto indicates that, across several age groups, historical present contexts most consistently favored be like use, followed by present tense contexts and finally past tense contexts. Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009) corroborate this pattern for the corpora of American and New Zealand English as well; for their U.K. corpus past contexts were most favored. Our study uses a two-way distinc-tion focusing solely on the tense of the verb; the token numbers of present are too few in one of our data sets (twelve tokens, or 2.4 percent) to examine it separately.
To our knowledge, none of the literature on grammaticalization of be like has touched on variation and change in the aspectual behavior of be like. In particular, the claim that be like is undergoing a process of reanalysis from stative be + discourse like to a quotative verb akin to accomplishment verbs such as say and go suggests the pos-sibility that be like will come to behave like the latter in progressive environments. That is, stative verbs like have, know, and be are unlike activity and accomplishment predicates in that they are canonically poor in progressives, as illustrated in (7)–(11).
(7) Tina is eating the sandwich.(8) Terry was smoking.(9) *I’m having money.(10) *I’m knowing French.(11) *Terry is being ill.
If be like is indeed coming to behave syntactically like go and say, then we might expect it to begin to appear in progressive contexts, as in (12)–(14) from the 2006 data set.1 We examine this possibility below.
(12) The cat is going “Meow.”(13) She was going “Don’t touch.”(14) He was saying “Uhm oh we’ve got to move her.”
Tables 1 and 2 summarize the evolution of the above four constraints on be like as described in two influential sets of real-time studies of quotatives in North America:
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320 journal of EnglishLinguistics40(4)
have reported much greater constancy in the effect of subject person, with ■rst-personrespondents favoring be like usage and second- and third-person respondents disfa-voring it (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009; Cukor-Avila 2002; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999).
TenseandAspect
Finally, severalauthorshave focusedon the effect of tenseon be like usage.In particular,Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang (1990), Romaine and Lange (1991), and Singler (2001)all report that be like is favored in presenttensecontextsanddisfavored in the pasttense.More recently, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007) usea three-way coding for tense,distin-guishing past, present, and historical present.Their analysis of variation in a corpus ofspeakersranging in agefrom nine to thirty-nine in Toronto indicatesthat, acrossseveral
age groups, historical present contexts most consistently favored be like use, followedby presenttensecontextsand ■nally past tensecontexts.Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009)corroborate this pattern for the corpora of American and New Zealand English aswell;for their U.K. corpuspastcontextswere most favored. Our studyusesatwo-way distinc-tion focusing solely on the tenseof the verb; the token numbers of presentare too fewin one of our data sets(twelve tokens, or 2.4 percent) to examine it separately.
To our knowledge, none of the literature on grammaticalization of be like hastouched on variation and change in the aspectualbehavior of be like. In particular, theclaim that be like is undergoing aprocessof reanalysis from stative be + discourse liketo a quotative verb akin to accomplishment verbs such assay and g0 suggeststhe pos-sibility that be like will come to behave like the latter in progressive environments.That is, stative verbs like have, know, and be are unlike activity and accomplishmentpredicates in that they are canonically poor in progressives, as illustrated in (7)—(11).
(7) Tina is eating the sandwich.(8) Terry was smoking.(9) *I’m having money.(10) *l’m knowing French.(11) *Terry is being ill.
If be like is indeed coming to behave syntactically like go and say, then we mightexpect it to begin to appearin progressive contexts, as in (12)—(14)from the 2006 dataset.1We examine this possibility below.
(12) The cat is going “Meow.”(13) Shewas going “Don’t touch.”(14) He was saying “Uhm oh we’ve got to move her.”
Tables 1 and 2 summarize the evolution of the above four constraints on be like asdescribed in two in■uential sets of real-time studies of quotatives in North America:
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Ferrara and Bell’s (1995) data from Texas and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) data from Toronto.
Our goals in view of the foregoing literature are twofold. First, we aim to examine to what extent the patterns of change in be like described in these North American varieties are also observed in England. Second, we aim to assess evidence for change in constraints on be like in real time using evidence from a trend study of usage and a controlled judgment study.
A Real-Time Study of Quotative Change in the United KingdomData and Method
To test Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s predictions about grammaticalization of be like, we compare patterns of variation in quotative usage in two data sets, which we describe in turn below.
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Sali Tagliamonte and Rachel Hudson in providing us with data from the York storytelling corpus, first reported on in Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999). This data set is a corpus of one-on-one sociolinguis-tic interviews with forty-four University of York undergraduates collected in the sum-mer of 1996. The interviewers were fellow University of York undergraduates working under the direction of Sali Tagliamonte. Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999) do not spec-ify the ages of the participants in this corpus; however, in view of University of York undergraduate enrollment during this period, it is likely that all or nearly all of the respondents were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. All of the forty-four
Table 1. Ferrara and Bell’s (1995) Constraint Evolutions for Be Like
Constraint Early stages Later stages
Sex Women > men NeutralizationSubject person First > third Expansion into third personContent Internal dialogue > direct speech Expansion into direct speech
Table 2. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2007) Constraint Evolutions for Be Like
Constraint Early stages Later stages
Sex Women > men Increased differentiationSubject person First > third Constancy of effectContent Internal dialogue > direct speech Expansion into direct speechTense Present tense favored Historical present favored
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Durham et al. 32|
Table I. Ferrara and Bell’s (I995) Constraint Evolutions for BeLike
Constraint Early stages Later stages
Sex Women > men NeutralizationSubject person First > third Expansion into third personContent Internal dialogue > direct speech Expansion into direct speech
Table 2. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2007) Constraint Evolutions for BeLike
Constraint Early stages Later stages
Sex Women > men Increased differentiationSubject person First > third Constancy of effectContent Internal dialogue > direct speech Expansion into direct speechTense Present tense favored Historical present favored
Ferrara and Bell’s (1995) data from Texas and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004,2007) data from Toronto.
Our goals in view of the foregoing literature are twofold. First, we aim to examineto what extent the patterns of change in be like described in these North Americanvarieties are also observed in England. Second,we aim to assessevidence for changein constraints on be like in real time using evidence from a trend study of usageand acontrolled judgment study.
A Real-Time Study of QuotativeChange in the United KingdomData and Method
To test Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s predictions about grammaticalization of be like, wecompare patterns of variation in quotative usage in two data sets,which we describein turn below.
We gratefully acknowledge the assistanceof Sali Tagliamonte and Rachel Hudsonin providing us with data from the York storytelling corpus, ■rst reported on inTagliamonte and Hudson (1999). This data set is a corpus of one-on-one sociolinguis-tic interviews with forty-four University of York undergraduatescollected in the sum-mer of 1996.The interviewers were fellow University of York undergraduatesworkingunder the direction of Sali Tagliamonte. Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999) do not spec-ify the agesof the participants in this corpus; however, in view of University of Yorkundergraduate enrollment during this period, it is likely that all or nearly all of therespondentswere between the agesof eighteen and twenty-two. All of the forty-four
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respondents, who were evenly divided by sex, were native speakers of U.K. English. These data produced 397 tokens.2
For the purpose of inferring generational change in quotative use, we compare Tagliamonte and Hudson’s 1996 data with a similarly constructed data set gathered in the spring of 2006. This data set consists of one-on-one interviews of thirty-one University of York undergraduates—fourteen women and seventeen men—collected by the latter four authors. The interviews were conducted using a standard battery of questions intended to elicit maximally unselfconscious narratives, comparable to the data in Tagliamonte and Hudson’s 1996 corpus. All the respondents are native speak-ers of U.K. English. From transcripts of these interviews, all instances of quoted speech were extracted and coded following Tagliamonte and Hudson’s (1999) proce-dure. These data yielded 955 tokens of quotatives.
To be able to fully compare the two data sets and to address the above issues to do with grammaticalization, we defined our token set slightly differently from some pre-vious studies. First, tokens of quotative form it’s like, as in (15), where the subject is impersonal, were excluded from the analysis.
(15) As soon as he came back in the room, it’s like “Oh no!” (2006 data set)
Although these tokens are found in both data sets and at roughly equivalent rates (twenty-six tokens, i.e., 5 percent of the total in 1996; and forty-one, i.e., 4 percent of the total in 2006), following Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004:504) procedure we excluded it’s like tokens as they have “an exceptional status.” The occurrence of the pronoun it, for example, differentiates be like from other quotative verbs, which can appear only with subjects that are in some way animate. The construction is thus not fully variable.
Second, to facilitate comparison with Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) results, we excluded tokens of nonlexicalized sounds. This removed thirty-nine tokens in the 1996 data set and eighty in the 2006 data.
Third, because we are studying the effect of morphological tense on variation in quote introducers, we excluded non-tense-bearing forms including zero quotatives, infinitives, and participles. This culling removed 90 tokens from the 1996 data set and 127 tokens from the 2006 data set. This protocol departs from previous studies but was required for the present data set to fit a coherent model (Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). Removing these tokens allowed us to focus more closely the factors affecting be like.
Finally, our initial analysis of the use of quote introducers with progressives and participial adjuncts, as in (16) and (17), showed that this context was not fully variable.
(16) The cat is going “Meow.” (2006 data set)(17) And he was standing there going “Ooh not again girls.” (2006 data set)
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respondents,who were evenly divided by sex, were native speakersof U.K. English.These data produced 397 tokens.2
For the purpose of inferring generational change in quotative use, we compareTagliamonte and Hudson’s 1996 datawith a similarly constructed data setgathered inthe spring of 2006. This data set consists of one-on-one interviews of thirty-oneUniversity of York undergraduates—fourteen women and seventeenmen—collectedby the latter four authors. The interviews were conducted using a standardbattery ofquestions intended to elicit maximally unselfconscious narratives, comparable to thedata in Tagliamonte and Hudson’s 1996 corpus. All the respondentsare native speak-
ers of U.K. English. From transcripts of these interviews, all instances of quotedspeechwere extracted and coded following Tagliamonte and Hudson’s (1999) proce-dure. These data yielded 955 tokens of quotatives.
To be able to fully compare the two data setsand to addressthe above issuesto dowith grammaticalization, we de■nedour token set slightly differently from some pre-vious studies. First, tokens of quotative form it’s like, as in (15), where the subject isimpersonal, were excluded from the analysis.
(15) As soon ashe came back in the room, it’s like “Oh no!” (2006 data set)
Although these tokens are found in both data sets and at roughly equivalent rates(twenty-six tokens, i.e., 5 percent of the total in 1996; and forty-one, i.e., 4 percent ofthe total in 2006), following Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004:504) procedure weexcluded it’s like tokens as they have “an exceptional status.” The occurrence of the
pronoun it, for example, differentiates be like from other quotative verbs, which canappear only with subjects that are in some way animate. The construction is thus notfully variable.
Second, to facilitate comparison with Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007)results, we excluded tokens of nonlexicalized sounds.This removed thirty-nine tokensin the 1996 data setand eighty in the 2006 data.
Third, becausewe are studying the effect of morphological tense on variation inquote introducers, we excluded non-tense-bearing forms including zero quotatives,in■nitives, and participles. This culling removed 90 tokens from the 1996 data setand127tokens from the 2006 data set.This protocol departs from previous studiesbut wasrequired for the present data set to ■t a coherent model (Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004,2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). Removing thesetokens allowed us to focus moreclosely the factors affecting be like.
Finally, our initial analysis of the use of quote introducers with progressives andparticipial adjuncts, as in (16) and (17), showed that this context was not fullyvariable.
(16) The cat is going “Meow.” (2006 data set)(17) And he was standing there going “Ooh not again girls.” (2006 data set)
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Recall that the use of be like in these contexts could be interpreted as a sign of further grammaticalization of the quotative system. In these environments, in which state predicates are canonically poor, be like was found to be strongly disfavored, although there were some signs of increase of use with be like. The 1996 data set contains 94 such examples (about 23 percent of the overall number of tokens), none of which occur with be like. In the 2006 data set, there are 105 such tokens (account-ing for 12 percent of the overall number), two of which contain be like.3 For these reasons, we treated this variation as categorical and excluded all tokens in these envi-ronments from the analysis.
The near categorical absence of be like in these environments suggests an important limit on the extent to which be like has come to be reanalyzed as a quotative on a par with accomplishment verbs like say and go. The presence in our data of these two tokens of be like progressives demonstrates that for some speakers, at least, be like may indeed behave as a true event (nonstate) predicate.4 Nevertheless, the relative scarcity of such tokens indicates that be like’s conservative competitors remain pre-ferred in usage in unambiguously eventive contexts in this sample.5 We return to these semantic considerations later in this article.
For our analysis to be as comparable as possible to previous multivariate results, we follow an approach used first by Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999) and subsequently elsewhere (Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009), whereby all of be like’s main competitors, including go, say, and think, are included in the enve-lope of variation. Think and say, are not, of course, semantically equivalent since the former tends to introduce reported thought quotes and the latter direct speech. We note, however, that the adoption of this approach has no consequence for our main measures of interest, namely, the interaction between age and the internal and external constraints introduced above.
ResultsA comparison of these two data sets suggests a sharp increase in be like usage over the ten years between 1996 and 2006. Among York undergraduates, be like has become the most frequently used quotative, increasing from 19 percent in 1996 to 68 percent in 2006. This increase comes at the expense of be like’s main competitors—say, think, and, to some extent, go—all of which show lower rates of use in the 2006 sample than in the 1996 data. Use of other quotatives—shout, and others—is marginal in both samples. Figure 1 provides an overall distribution of five of the most frequent quotatives in our two data sets.
A similarly vertiginous increase in be like use is also reported in a study of Canadian youth by Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004). This study compares patterns of quotative use in two corpora of sociolinguistic interviews—one consisting of data from University of Ottawa students in 1995 and a second from Toronto youth aged ten to nineteen, collected in 2002 and 2003. Like the present York data, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s Canadian data show that be like has become the most frequent quotative
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Recall that the use of be like in these contexts could be interpreted as a sign offurther grammaticalization of the quotative system. In these environments, in whichstate predicates are canonically poor, be like was found to be strongly disfavored,although there were some signs of increase of use with be like. The 1996 data setcontains 94 such examples (about 23 percent of the overall number of tokens), noneof which occur with be like. In the 2006 data set, there are 105 such tokens (account-ing for 12 percent of the overall number), two of which contain be like.3 For these
reasons,we treated this variation as categorical and excluded all tokens in these envi-ronments from the analysis.
The near categorical absenceof be like in theseenvironments suggestsan importantlimit on the extent to which be like has come to be reanalyzed as a quotative on a parwith accomplishment verbs like say and go. The presence in our data of these twotokens of be like progressives demonstrates that for some speakers,at least, be like
may indeed behave as a true event (nonstate) predicate.4 Nevertheless, the relativescarcity of such tokens indicates that be like’s conservative competitors remain pre-ferred in usagein unambiguously eventive contexts in this sample.5We return to thesesemantic considerations later in this article.
For our analysis to be ascomparable aspossible to previous multivariate results, wefollow an approach used ■rst by Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999) and subsequentlyelsewhere(Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009), wherebyall of be like’s main competitors, including g0, say, and think, are included in the enve-lope of variation. Think and say, are not, of course, semantically equivalent since theformer tends to introduce reported thought quotes and the latter direct speech. Wenote, however, that the adoption of this approach has no consequence for our main
measures of interest, namely, the interaction between age and the internal and external
constraints introduced above.
Results
A comparison of these two data sets suggestsa sharp increase in be like usage overthe ten years between 1996 and 2006. Among York undergraduates, be like hasbecome the most frequently used quotative, increasing from 19 percent in 1996 to 68percent in 2006. This increase comes at the expenseof be like’s main competitors—
say, think, and, to some extent, go—all of which show lower rates of use in the 2006samplethan in the 1996data. Use of other quotatives—shout, and others—is marginalin both samples.Figure 1 provides an overall distribution of five of the most frequentquotatives in our two data sets.
A similarly vertiginous increasein be like use is also reported in a study of Canadianyouth by Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004). This study compares patterns of quotative
use in two corpora of sociolinguistic interviews—one consisting of data fromUniversity of Ottawa students in 1995 and a second from Toronto youth aged ten tonineteen, collected in 2002 and 2003. Like the present York data, Tagliamonte andD’Arcy’s Canadian data show that be like has become the most frequent quotative
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used in narratives among young people, rising from 13 percent in the 1995 Ottawa data to 63 percent in the Toronto data for seventeen- to nineteen-year-olds (the age group closest to the Ottawa University students). We reproduce Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s results in Figure 2. The present data, then, suggest that be like is diffusing into the speech of British youth with a pace similar to that described in the literature on North American Englishes.
A further goal of this article is to test change in real time in the effect of the well-studied social and linguistic constraints on be like use described earlier. To this end, we fit a logistic regression model using both data sets and tested for significant interac-tions between our sample factor (with levels 1996 sample and 2006 sample) and our four social and linguistic factors: speaker sex, subject person, quote content, and mor-phological tense. The model is summarized in Table 3, which shows the contribution
Figure 1. Overall distribution of variants for two data sets
Figure 2. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s real-time results from Canada
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O
c, _‘— + 1996 sample, N=397
g _-4- 2006 sample, N=955
a 8 —3
a? g —
O _N
O _I I I I I
be like go other say think
Verb
Figure I. Overall distribution of variants for two data sets
C)
C, _‘— + Ottawa 1995, N=6128
_"h Toronto 2002, N296?
a) O —4
e ‘° \a\° g _
‘\D
_(\l
\
o —‘ ' ' _
I I I I I I
be like go other say think zero
Figure 2. Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s real-time results from Canada
used in narratives among young people, rising from 13 percent in the 1995 Ottawadata to 63 percent in the Toronto data for seventeen- to nineteen-year-olds (the agegroup closest to the Ottawa University students). We reproduce Tagliamonte andD’Arcy’s results in Figure 2. The present data, then, suggest that be like is diffusinginto the speechof British youth with a pace similar to that described in the literature
on North American Englishes.A further goal of this article is to test change in real time in the effect of the well-
studied social and linguistic constraints on be like use described earlier. To this end,
we ■t a logistic regressionmodel using both datasetsand tested for signi■cant interac-tions between our sample factor (with levels 1996 sample and 2006 sample) and ourfour social and linguistic factors: speakersex, subject person, quote content, and mor-phological tense. The model is summarized in Table 3, which shows the contribution
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of different factors to be like usage. The first column lists the factors in the model. The second column gives log odds ratios for the treatment level given in brackets,6 and the next three columns provide the standard error, z score, and p value for these coefficients.
We illustrate these effects in Figure 3, which shows proportional use of be like versus other quotatives by condition for the two samples.
The analysis summarized in Table 3 reveals a significant main effect for sample. As also illustrated in Figures 1 and 3, be like is much more frequent in the 2006 corpus than the 1996 corpus. In addition, Table 3 shows a significant main effect for sex, with women favoring be like, and a significant interaction between sex and sample. Figure 3 demonstrates that the effect of speaker sex in the 1996 sample is much greater than in the 2006, suggesting an attenuation of the sex effect over time.
These data are surprising from the perspective of Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) studies of quotative use in Toronto, Canada, where the youngest speakers, with the highest rates of be like use, showed the strongest sex effects. Older speakers in the sample, whom Tagliamonte and D’Arcy suggest were among the be like innovators in the community a generation earlier, used be like relatively little and showed a much weaker sex differentiation. Based on these data, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy propose that sex differentiation in be like use has emerged in Toronto as it continues to diffuse into local speech.
The present results, in contrast, suggest a mild form of neutralization of the speaker sex effect (Ferrara & Bell 1995). These findings, alongside Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) results, imply that the diachronic development of the sex effect in be like usage is variable across communities. One possible explanation of this U.K.–Canadian difference in sex effects is that it represents different stages of change for be like. Much of the diachronic literature has suggested that sex effects vary across the
of different factors to be like usage.The ■rst column lists the factors in the model. Thesecond column gives log odds ratios for the treatment level given in brackets,6 andthe next three columns provide the standard error, 2 score, and p value for thesecoef■cients.
We illustrate these effects in Figure 3, which shows proportional use of be like
versus other quotatives by condition for the two samples.The analysis summarized in Table 3 reveals a signi■cant main effect for sample.As
also illustrated in Figures 1 and 3, be like is much more frequent in the 2006 corpusthan the 1996corpus. In addition, Table 3 shows a signi■cant main effect for sex,with
women favoring be like, and a signi■cant interaction between sexand sample.Figure 3demonstratesthat the effect of speakersex in the 1996 sample is much greater than inthe 2006, suggesting an attenuation of the sex effect over time.
Thesedataare surprising from the perspective of Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004,2007) studies of quotative use in Toronto, Canada,where the youngest speakers,withthe highest rates of be like use, showed the strongest sex effects. Older speakersin thesample,whom Tagliamonte and D’Arcy suggestwere among the be like innovators inthe community a generation earlier, used be like relatively little and showed a muchweaker sex differentiation. Basedon thesedata, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy proposethat
sex differentiation in be like usehas emergedin Toronto as it continues to diffuse intolocal speech.
The presentresults, in contrast, suggestamild form of neutralization of the speaker
sex effect (Ferrara & Bell 1995). These■ndings, alongside Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s(2004, 2007) results, imply that the diachronic development of the sex effect in be like
usageis variable acrosscommunities. Onepossible explanation of this U.K.—Canadiandifference in sex effects is that it represents different stages of change for be like.Much of the diachronic literature has suggested that sex effects vary across the
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trajectory of change, with strong sex associations appearing at early stages of change and a weakening effect appearing at later stages (Labov 2001:308; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2009). From this perspective, one possibility is that the diffusion of be like is slowing in the United Kingdom but not Canada, which would explain why the effect of speaker sex is becoming neutralized.7 We are aware of no independent evidence in support of this supposition, however.
The divergent sex effects in the United Kingdom and Canada are nevertheless in keeping with some matched guise evidence suggesting a much stronger gender asso-ciation for be like in North America than in Britain. In particular, in Dailey-O’Cain’s (2000) U.S. study, 80 percent (24/30) of respondents identified be like with women. In a similarly constructed study in the United Kingdom, Buchstaller (2006b) found that only 34 percent (65/191) of respondents associated be like with women. Our data lend further support to Buchstaller’s suggestion of cross-societal differences in the social meaning of using be like. As be like continues to diffuse globally, the social meaning associated with its use does not necessarily diffuse along with the surface form. Rather, individual communities adapt the innovation in the context of local social and eco-nomic conditions and local symbolism (Eckert 2000).
The quote content data in Table 3 are also unexpected from the perspective of much previous literature in that the analysis returned no significant main effect or interactions for quote content. Figure 3 shows that, in both of the above samples, be like is used more frequently in reported thought contexts than with direct speech, but this differ-ence does not contribute significantly to the model. This result, again, contrasts with Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) Canadian findings, which propose an expan-sion of be like into direct speech contexts over time. In particular, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy report that the youngest and most advanced set of be like users—the seventeen- to nineteen-year-olds—favor be like in direct speech contexts and disfavor it in internal dialogue. The present data provide no evidence of a change in the effect of the reported thought/direct speech contrast. The fact that the analysis summarized in Table 3 and Figure 3 returned no main effect for quote content suggests the possibility that the effect of quote content weakened in England at an earlier stage relative to overall usage of be like than in Canada. That is, in Canada, this effect weakens substantially only among cohorts for which be like is the majority variant in spoken interview-style data. In the U.K. sample, this effect is fairly weak even among the earlier users for whom be like is a minority variant (see Figures 1 and 2). We return to these issues later.
The effect of subject person in Table 3 and Figure 3 is negligible. The analysis returned a significant main effect for subject person, with first-person respondents favoring be like. No significant interaction with sample was returned, indicating no evidence of inconstancy in the effect of subject person between the two samples, as illustrated in Figure 3. This result is expected from the perspective of most previous stud-ies, which suggest a remarkable consistency of the subject person effect across con-texts (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999).
The tense results in Table 3 are also in keeping with results in previous literature. Table 3 and Figure 3 show that morphological present tense favors be like while past
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trajectory of change, with strong sex associations appearing at early stagesof changeand a weakening effect appearing at later stages (Labov 2001:308; Tagliamonte &D’Arcy 2009). From this perspective, one possibility is that the diffusion of be like isslowing in the United Kingdom but not Canada,which would explain why the effectof speakersex is becoming neutralized.7 We are aware of no independent evidence insupport of this supposition, however.
The divergent sex effects in the United Kingdom and Canada are nevertheless inkeeping with some matched guise evidence suggesting a much stronger gender asso-ciation for be like in North America than in Britain. In particular, in Dailey-O’Cain’s(2000) US. study, 80 percent (24/30) of respondentsidentified be like with women. In
a similarly constructed study in the United Kingdom, Buchstaller (2006b) found thatonly 34 percent (65/191) of respondentsassociatedbe like with women. Our data lendfurther support to Buchstaller’s suggestion of cross-societal differences in the socialmeaning of using be like. As be like continues to diffuse globally, the social meaningassociatedwith its usedoesnot necessarily diffuse along with the surface form. Rather,individual communities adapt the innovation in the context of local social and eco-nomic conditions and local symbolism (Eckert 2000).
The quote content data in Table 3 are also unexpected from the perspective of muchprevious literature in that the analysis returned no significant main effect or interactionsfor quote content. Figure 3 shows that, in both of the above samples,be like is used
more frequently in reported thought contexts than with direct speech,but this differ-
ence does not contribute signi■cantly to the model. This result, again, contrasts withTagliamonte and D’Arcy’s (2004, 2007) Canadian findings, which propose an expan-sion of be like into direct speechcontexts over time. In particular, Tagliamonte andD’Arcy report that the youngest andmost advancedsetof be like users—the seventeen-to nineteen-year-olds—favor be like in direct speechcontexts and disfavor it in internaldialogue. The presentdataprovide no evidenceof a changein the effect of the reportedthought/direct speechcontrast. The fact that the analysis summarized in Table 3 andFigure 3 returned no main effect for quote content suggeststhe possibility that the effectof quote content weakened in England at an earlier stagerelative to overall usageof belike than in Canada. That is, in Canada,this effect weakens substantially only amongcohorts for which be like is the majority variant in spoken interview-style data. In theUK. sample,this effect is fairly weak evenamong the earlier users for whom be like is
a minority variant (seeFigures 1 and 2). We return to these issueslater.The effect of subject person in Table 3 and Figure 3 is negligible. The analysis
returned a signi■cant main effect for subject person, with ■rst-person respondentsfavoring be like. No significant interaction with sample was returned, indicating noevidence of inconstancy in the effect of subject person between the two samples, asillustrated in Figure 3. This result is expectedfrom the perspectiveof most previous stud-ies, which suggest a remarkable consistency of the subject person effect across con-texts (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007; Tagliamonte& Hudson 1999).
The tense results in Table 3 are also in keeping with results in previous literature.Table 3 and Figure 3 show that morphological present tense favors be like while past
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tense favors other quotatives (Singler 2001; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2007). No signifi-cant interaction with sample year was returned, suggesting no inconstancy in the effect of tense over time.
From the perspective of the literature reviewed above, the most important out-come in these data is the difference between speaker sex and the three linguistic factors—tense, subject person, and quote content—in terms of their interaction with sample group. Again, the data show a weakening of the sex effect from 1996 to 2006, but a constancy of the three linguistic factors. The mutability of the speaker sex effect in itself is unremarkable in light of much previous literature on be like and other phenomena showing that the way linguistic variation indexes social meaning often changes over time in a community as the variable undergoes social reanalysis and constant symbolic reappropriation (Dyer 2002; Eckert 2000, 2008; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004). The fact that the sex effect in our trend study has changed in the direction opposite to that indicated in Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s studies is in keep-ing with results from Buchstaller and D’Arcy’s (2009) multicommunity compari-son. This suggests that, as be like has diffused geographically, social constraints on quotative variation often change from community to community, as patterns of lin-guistic variation map onto local social and stylistic differences in community-specific ways.
The constancy of the linguistic factors contrasts with findings from much of the literature implying that there is a change in the effect of some of these constraints (Ferrara & Bell 1995; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007). The gap between these findings and previous corpus results from other locales therefore supports skepticism with regard to universals of grammaticalization of be like that dictate change in lin-guistic effects in be like, particularly quote content. We consider these issues further in light of judgment data presented in the following discussion.
Direct Speech and Nonspeech Interpretations of Be Like Quotatives in Judgment DataThe second set of data for this study comes from a judgment experiment focusing on age effects on direct speech and reported thought interpretations of be like and say quotatives. As discussed above, early work on be like described it not as an introducer of direct speech but rather exclusively as an introducer of reported thought. This vari-ant of be like may have emerged as a reanalysis of descriptions of states of individuals in sequences of be + focuser/discourse marker like + predicate adjectives or nonlexi-calized sounds (Butters 1982; Tannen 1986) (see examples in (4) and (5)).
Much subsequent corpus-based work on be like however has reported that quotes introduced by be like could be used to describe not just states of individuals as in (18a), but also saying eventualities as in (18b).
(18) Aaron was like “Ok, fine.” a. Aaron thought/felt like saying “Ok, fine.” b. Aaron said “Ok, fine.”
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tense favors other quotatives (Singler 2001; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2007). No signi■-cant interaction with sampleyear was returned, suggestingno inconstancy in the effectof tense over time.
From the perspective of the literature reviewed above, the most important out-
come in these data is the difference between speaker sex and the three linguisticfactors—tense, subject person, and quote content—in terms of their interaction withsample group. Again, the data show a weakening of the sex effect from 1996 to2006, but a constancy of the three linguistic factors. The mutability of the speaker
sex effect in itself is unremarkable in light of much previous literature on be like andother phenomena showing that the way linguistic variation indexes social meaningoften changes over time in a community as the variable undergoes social reanalysisand constant symbolic reappropriation (Dyer 2002; Eckert 2000, 2008; Tagliamonte& D’Arcy 2004). The fact that the sex effect in our trend study has changed in thedirection opposite to that indicated in Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s studies is in keep-ing with results from Buchstaller and D’Arcy’s (2009) multicommunity compari-
son. This suggeststhat, as be like has diffused geographically, social constraints onquotative variation often change from community to community, as patterns of lin-guistic variation map onto local social and stylistic differences in community-speci■c ways.
The constancy of the linguistic factors contrasts with ■ndings from much of theliterature implying that there is a change in the effect of some of these constraints(Ferrara & Bell 1995; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007). The gap between these■ndings and previous corpus results from other locales therefore supports skepticismwith regard to universals of grammaticalization of be like that dictate change in lin-guistic effects in be like, particularly quote content. We consider these issues furtherin light of judgment datapresented in the following discussion.
Direct Speech and Nonspeech Interpretationsof Be Like Quotatives in judgment DataThe second set of data for this study comes from a judgment experiment focusing onage effects on direct speechand reported thought interpretations of be like and sayquotatives. As discussedabove, early work on be like described it not as an introducerof direct speechbut rather exclusively as an introducer of reported thought. This vari-ant of be like may have emergedasa reanalysis of descriptions of statesof individualsin sequencesof be + focuser/discourse marker like + predicate adjectives or nonlexi-calized sounds (Butters 1982; Tannen 1986) (seeexamples in (4) and (5)).
Much subsequentcorpus-basedwork on be like however has reported that quotesintroduced by be like could be usedto describe not just statesof individuals asin (18a),but also saying eventualities as in (18b).
(18) Aaron was like “Ok, ■ne.”
a. Aaron thought/ felt like saying “Ok, ■ne.”b. Aaron said “Ok, ■ne.”
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A disadvantage of usage corpora for analyzing semantic variation of this kind is that the intended reading can be difficult to discern from the context. To complement the corpus-based findings discussed above, we report on a controlled judgment experiment intended to examine cross-speaker differences in the availability of be like quotatives in contexts biasing these different readings. If younger speakers are coming to reanalyze be like quotative predicates as descriptions of speech events rather than reported thought, then we expect age to interact with the reported thought/direct speech difference in judgments of quotative sentences. The following discussion describes an experiment designed to test this claim. Acceptability judgments are a different kind of linguistic performance from speech in a sociolinguistic interview context, which raises the question of the comparability of judgment data and speech corpus data for the present purposes. Some recent research in fact has suggested that judgments of acceptability are sensitive to and in fact closely mirror the relative prob-abilities of semantically equivalent competing forms in production (Bresnan 2007; Bader & Häussler 2010a, 2010b; Melnick, Jaeger, & Wasow 2011). We assume, based on these studies, that acceptability judgments are indeed a suitable kind of data for the purpose of inferring cross-speaker differences in linguistic effects on quotative variation.
Data and MethodThe participants were 121 self-described native speakers of American English aged eighteen to seventy-three (M = 31.3, SD = 11.6)—71 women and 50 men.8 All had at least some university education, and in this respect our sample is similar to those reported on in several previous studies on be like change (Ferrara & Bell 1995; Dailey-O’Cain 2000; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). Previous literature on be like has indicated no strong regional effects on be like usage within the United States, and no effort was made to stratify the sample by region. No regional effects were observed in the analysis. Participants were recruited online through the contacts of the research-ers and were not paid for their participation.
The experiment compares scores for be like and say sentences in six environments. A first, baseline context was created with no stativity/eventivity bias, as in (18). Four additional contexts—progressives, imperatives, force . . . to complements, and pseu-doclefts with do—were used as ways of biasing eventive readings; all of these are contexts in which eventive predicates are fine, but true states are poor (Dowty 1979). We illustrate this contrast in (19)–(22), which compare stative have $100 with even-tive spend $100 in each environment.
(19) She was *having $100/spending $100. (progressives)(20) Just *have $100/spend $100. (imperatives)(21) Tim forced him to *have $100/spend $100. (force . . . to)(22) What she needs to do is *have $100/spend $100. (do pseudoclefts)
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A disadvantage of usage corpora for analyzing semantic variation of this kind isthat the intended reading can be difficult to discern from the context. To complementthe corpus-based ■ndings discussed above, we report on a controlled judgmentexperiment intended to examine cross-speakerdifferences in the availability of be likequotatives in contexts biasing thesedifferent readings. If younger speakersare comingto reanalyze be like quotative predicates as descriptions of speechevents rather thanreported thought, then we expect age to interact with the reported thought/directspeech difference in judgments of quotative sentences. The following discussiondescribes an experiment designed to test this claim. Acceptability judgments are adifferent kind of linguistic performance from speech in a sociolinguistic interviewcontext, which raises the question of the comparability of judgment data and speech
corpus data for the present purposes. Somerecent research in fact has suggestedthatjudgments of acceptability are sensitive to and in fact closely mirror the relative prob-abilities of semantically equivalent competing forms in production (Bresnan 2007;Bader & Haussler 2010a, 2010b; Melnick, Jaeger, & Wasow 2011). We assume,basedon these studies, that acceptability judgments are indeed a suitable kind of datafor the purpose of inferring cross-speakerdifferences in linguistic effects on quotativevariation.
Data and Method
The participants were 121 self-described native speakersof American English agedeighteen to seventy-three (M = 31.3, SD = 11.6)—71 women and 50 men.8All had atleast some university education, and in this respect our sample is similar to thosereported on in several previous studies on be like change (Ferrara & Bell 1995;Dailey-O’Cain 2000; Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999). Previous literature on be like hasindicated no strong regional effects on be like usagewithin the United States,and noeffort was made to stratify the sample by region. No regional effects were observedin the analysis. Participants were recruited online through the contacts of the research-
ers and were not paid for their participation.The experiment compares scoresfor be like and say sentencesin six environments.
A first, baseline context was createdwith no stativity/eventivity bias, as in (18). Fouradditional contexts—progressives, imperatives, force
. . . t0 complements, and pseu-doclefts with do—were used as ways of biasing eventive readings; all of these arecontexts in which eventive predicates are ■ne,but true statesare poor (Dowty 1979).We illustrate this contrast in (19)—(22),which compare stative have $100 with even-tive spend $100 in each environment.
(19) Shewas*having$100/spending$100.(progressives)(20)Just*have$100/spend$100.(imperatives)(21)Tim forcedhim to *have$100/spend$100.(force
. . . to)(22) What sheneedsto do is *have $100/spend $100. (do pseudoclefts)
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In the following experiment, we use these environments to compare acceptability of eventive, direct-speech readings of be like and say, as illustrated in (23)–(26).
(23) She was being like/saying, “They’re coming tomorrow at 11:00” (progressives)(24) Just be like/say, “They won’t ever do it.” (imperatives)(25) Tim forced him to say/be like, “Fine, I’ll do it next week.” (force . . . to)(26) What she needs to do is say/be like, “John already quit.” (do pseudoclefts)
The final environment biased nonspeech be like readings using for adverbials. As illustrated in (27), temporal for phrases are fine with atelic predicates in simple tenses but poor with eventives (Dowty 1979).
(27) For an hour, Mark had $100/*spent $100. (for adverbials)
We use such contexts to diagnose the availability of stative, nonspeech interpretations of be like and say quotative predicates, as in (28).
(28) For an hour, Mark was like/said, “Let’s go to McDonald’s.” (for adverbials)
Two lexicalizations were created for each environment, each assigned either to a be like or say condition yielding two test sets. Each participant therefore saw each condition once. Respondents were randomly assigned to test sets, and a unique ran-dom order of the twelve test sentences and eighteen fillers was created for each respondent. A list of the experimental sentences is provided in the appendix.
The data were gathered through a self-paced online magnitude estimation proce-dure using WebExp2 software (Mayo, Corley, & Keller 2008) in the summer of 2009. In syntactic magnitude estimation experiments, respondents judge stimulus sentences not on an abstract n-point scale but rather in relation to a positive numerical score arbitrarily assigned to a benchmark (“modulus”) sentence (Bard, Robertson, & Sorace 1996; Keller & Sorace 2003). If the stimulus sentence is judged to be twice as accept-able as the benchmark sentence, the participant gives it twice the benchmark score; if it is half as acceptable, half the benchmark score; and so on. In the present experiment, the benchmark sentence used was that in (29), which native speakers of English typi-cally find to be of intermediate well-formedness.
(29) I wouldn’t give to the boy the difficult puzzle.
After they had given consent to participate, respondents were asked to provide some background information, including age, sex, highest level of education com-pleted, and hometown. Respondents were then introduced to the magnitude estimation procedure and then given two sets of slides providing practice in applying this tech-nique. In the first set, respondents used magnitude estimation to measure lengths of
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330 journal of EnglishLinguistics40(4)
In the following experiment, we use these environments to compare acceptability ofeventive, direct-speech readings of be like and say, as illustrated in (23)—(26).
(23) Shewasbeing like/saying, “They’re coming tomorrow at 11:00” (progressives)(24) Just be like/ say, “They won’t ever do it.” (imperatives)(25) Tim forced him to say/be like, “Fine, I’ll do it next week.” (force
. . .to)
(26) What sheneedsto do is say/be like, “John already quit.” (do pseudoclefts)
The ■nal environment biased nonspeech be like readings using for adverbials. Asillustrated in (27), temporal for phrasesare ■newith atelic predicates in simple tensesbut poor with eventives (Dowty 1979).
We use such contexts to diagnosethe availability of stative, nonspeechinterpretationsof be like and say quotative predicates, as in (28).
(28) For an hour, Mark was like/ said, “Let’s go to McDonald’s.” (for adverbials)
Two lexicalizations were created for each environment, each assigned either to abe like or say condition yielding two test sets. Each participant therefore saw eachcondition once. Respondentswere randomly assigned to test sets, and a unique ran-dom order of the twelve test sentences and eighteen ■llers was created for eachrespondent. A list of the experimental sentencesis provided in the appendix.
The data were gathered through a self-paced online magnitude estimation proce-dure using WebExp2 software (Mayo, Corley, & Keller 2008) in the summer of 2009.In syntactic magnitude estimation experiments, respondentsjudge stimulus sentencesnot on an abstract n-point scale but rather in relation to a positive numerical scorearbitrarily assignedto a benchmark (“modulus”) sentence(Bard, Robertson, & Sorace1996; Keller & Sorace2003). If the stimulus sentenceis judged to be twice as accept-able as the benchmark sentence,the participant gives it twice the benchmark score; ifit is half asacceptable,half the benchmark score;and so on. In the present experiment,the benchmark sentenceused was that in (29), which native speakersof English typi-cally ■nd to be of intermediate well-formedness.
(29) I wouldn’t give to the boy the dif■cult puzzle.
After they had given consent to participate, respondents were asked to provide
some background information, including age, sex, highest level of education com-pleted, and hometown. Respondentswere then introduced to the magnitude estimationprocedure and then given two sets of slides providing practice in applying this tech-nique. In the ■rst set, respondents used magnitude estimation to measure lengths of
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lines; the second set provided sample sentences to judge. The experimental phase followed, which respondents typically completed in five to ten minutes.
Following Bard, Robertson, and Sorace’s (1996) procedure, raw scores were nor-malized by dividing them by the benchmark score. The base-ten logarithms of these scores were then taken to make data normally distributed and suitable for parametric tests. In the following discussion, we report these normalized, log-transformed values.
ResultsTo examine the effect of speaker age on acceptability scores, we fit mixed-effect linear models for each condition using the lme4 package for R (Bates & Maechler 2010; R Development Core Team 2008). The dependent variable was the log-transformed values for each condition, with age and verb as fixed effects and subject and item as random effects. Following Baayen’s (2008) procedure, p values were simulated by Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling (ten thousand samples) using the LanguageR package for R (Baayen 2008, 2010). To examine cross-generational difference in acceptance of be like in each of these environments, we focus not on the effect of age but rather on the age–verb (be like vs. say) interaction. We chose this measure to account for a possible age effect in preferences toward direct speech versus reported speech. The results are summarized in Figure 4, which plots say and be like scores by
Figure 4. Say and be like scores by age for six conditions
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Durham et al. 33|
Baseline For adverbials Force...toU) «n U)
2 ca_ 2 o. _ 2 c: _.3 F 3 " .g 2E E Eg g — Say g 3 — Say 3 g — Say
i o-—\ 2;o._ a o._2 c . 2 o . 2 D .3 Be Ilke ‘; Be Ilke ; Be Ilkex. IQ
7\— IQ
2x. In.
75 C.’ I I I I I I § 9 I I I I I I § O. I I I I I I20 30 40 50 60 70 20 30 40 50 60 70 20 30 40 50 60 70
age age agep=.032 p=.296 p=.052
Imperatives Progressives PseudocleftsU) u: In
2 ca _2 0, _
2 Q _3 _ 3 F 3 _‘D '5 '5
E E Eg, '3 - Say g 3 - Say g 3 - Say767;
o, _Q Ca_‘\ E O. _2 o . 2 o . 2 O .V Be lIke V Be IIke v Be We9.’ LO 3 l0 9.’ no
:3 C.’7 I I I I I I g C.’T I I I I I I § c.’ 7 I I I I I I20 30 40 50 60 70 20 30 40 50 60 70 20 30 40 50 60 70
age age agep=.035 p=.256 p=.009
Figure 4. Sayand be like scores by age for six conditions
lines; the second set provided sample sentencesto judge. The experimental phasefollowed, which respondents typically completed in ■ve to ten minutes.
Following Bard, Robertson, and Sorace’s (1996) procedure, raw scoreswere nor-malized by dividing them by the benchmark score. The base-ten logarithms of these
scoreswere then taken to make data normally distributed and suitable for parametrictests. In the following discussion, we report thesenormalized, log-transformed values.
Results
To examine the effect of speaker age on acceptability scores, we ■t mixed-effectlinear models for each condition using the lme4 package for R (Bates & Maechler2010;R DevelopmentCoreTeam2008). The dependentvariablewasthe log-transformedvalues for each condition, with age and verb as ■xed effects and subject and item asrandom effects. Following Baayen’s (2008) procedure, p values were simulated byMarkov chain Monte Carlo sampling (ten thousand samples) using the LanguageRpackage for R (Baayen 2008, 2010). To examine cross-generational difference inacceptanceof be like in eachof these environments, we focus not on the effect of agebut rather on the age—verb(be like vs. say) interaction. We chose this measure toaccount for a possible age effect in preferences toward direct speechversus reportedspeech.The results are summarized in Figure 4, which plots say and be like scoresby
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respondent age for each condition and reports a p value for the verb:age interaction variable. Zero on the y-axis corresponds to the respondent’s value for the bench-mark sentence in (28). Values above zero, therefore, reflect a judgment for the stimu-lus sentence better than that for (29), and scores below zero reflect a judgment below that for (29).
The plots in Figure 4 show, unsurprisingly, that the say-be like acceptability gap is inversely correlated with age. Respondents under thirty years of age in the sample accept be like in each of these six conditions, roughly on a par with say, indicating that be like is natural for many young speakers in contexts biasing both eventive and stative interpretations of be like.
Nevertheless, the interaction between age and verb reaches significance at α = .05 only for three of these environments: the baseline context, pseudoclefts, and impera-tives. The interaction for force . . . to complements is suggestive at p = .052. For for-adverbials there is no interaction between age and verb, and in fact no main effect for verb. These judgment data therefore align only partially with corpus data suggesting diffusion of be like in direct speech and nonspeech contexts. The absence of more consistent age effects in these data may be partially attributable to the fact that our sample is relatively youthful, with a mean age of 31.1.
More directly relevant to the issues considered here is the fact that the regression lines for the be like conditions in Figure 4 are all roughly parallel. To examine possible interaction between age and the speech/nonspeech contrast, we fit four separate mixed effect linear models with scores for for-adverbials and each of the four speech event-biased conditions as levels in a fixed factor; age was an additional fixed effect with random effects speaker and item. The analyses returned no significant interaction at α = .05 for any of the four comparisons, suggesting no evidence of an age difference in the effect of the direct speech/reported thought contrast (for for adverbials vs. force . . . to as the eventive/stative comparison, p = .542; for adverbials vs. pseudo-clefts p = .316; for adverbials vs. progressives p = .930; and for adverbials vs. impera-tives, p = .317). These judgment results from U.S. English speakers align with the corpus results presented earlier in that they suggest no change in the effect of the reported thought/direct speech contrast over time, which diverges from the findings reported in Ferrara and Bell (1995) and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004, 2007). The contrast between our findings and previous corpus findings from other locales again sup-ports skepticism toward strong universal pathways of grammaticalization of be like.
ConclusionResults from two studies—one a usage study and the other a controlled judgment study—suggest no interaction between age and the typical linguistic effects described in foundational work by Ferrara and Bell (1995) and Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999). Most importantly, results from our studies fail to support an age difference in the effect of the direct speech/reported thought contrast as reported in Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004, 2007). From the perspective of Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s proposals and like-minded work suggesting rigid grammaticalization pathways in syntactic
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332 journal of EnglishLinguistics40(4)
respondent age for each condition and reports ap value for the verb:age interactionvariable. Zero on the y-axis corresponds to the respondent’s value for the bench-mark sentencein (28). Values above zero, therefore, re■ect a judgment for the stimu-lus sentencebetter than that for (29), and scoresbelow zero re■ect a judgment belowthat for (29).
The plots in Figure 4 show, unsurprisingly, that the say—belike acceptability gap isinversely correlated with age. Respondents under thirty years of age in the sampleaccept be like in eachof these six conditions, roughly on apar with say, indicating thatbe like is natural for many young speakersin contexts biasing both eventive and stativeinterpretations of be like.
Nevertheless, the interaction between age and verb reachessigni■cance at at= .05only for three of these environments: the baseline context, pseudoclefts, and impera-tives. The interaction for force
. . . t0 complements is suggestive atp = .052. For for-adverbials there is no interaction between age and verb, and in fact no main effect forverb. Thesejudgment data therefore align only partially with corpus data suggestingdiffusion of be like in direct speech and nonspeech contexts. The absence of moreconsistent age effects in these data may be partially attributable to the fact that oursample is relatively youthful, with a mean age of 31.1.
More directly relevant to the issues considered here is the fact that the regressionlines for the be like conditions in Figure 4 are all roughly parallel. To examine possibleinteraction between ageand the speech/nonspeechcontrast, we ■t four separatemixedeffect linear models with scores for for-adverbials and eachof the four speechevent-biased conditions as levels in a ■xed factor; age was an additional ■xed effect withrandom effects speaker and item. The analyses returned no significant interaction at
at= .05 for any of the four comparisons, suggesting no evidence of an age differencein the effect of the direct speech/reported thought contrast (for for adverbials vs.force
. . . to as the eventive/stative comparison, p = .542;for adverbials vs. pseudo-clefts p = .316;for adverbials vs. progressivesp = .930; andfor adverbials vs. impera-tives, p = .317). These judgment results from U.S. English speakersalign with the
corpus results presented earlier in that they suggest no change in the effect of thereported thought/direct speechcontrast over time, which diverges from the ■ndingsreported in Ferrara and Bell (1995) and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2004, 2007). Thecontrastbetweenour ■ndingsandprevious corpus ■ndingsfrom other localesagain sup-ports skepticism toward strong universal pathways of grammaticalization of be like.
Conclusion
Results from two studies—one a usage study and the other a controlled judgmentstudy—suggest no interaction between age and the typical linguistic effects describedin foundational work by Ferrara and Bell (1995) and Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999).Most importantly, results from our studies fail to support an age difference in theeffect of the direct speech/reportedthought contrast as reported in Tagliamonte andD’Arcy (2004, 2007). From the perspective of Tagliamonte and D’Arcy’s proposalsand like-minded work suggesting rigid grammaticalization pathways in syntactic
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change (Jespersen 1917; Roberts and Roussou 1999; Saxena 1995), one possible interpretation of the above results, alluded to earlier, is that the Toronto dialect sits at a different point in the trajectory of grammaticalization from the varieties represented by our U.S. and U.K. samples. Again, the multivariate analysis summarized in the section examining the longitudinal data turned no significant main effect or interac-tions for quote content. This result suggests the possibility that the leveling of the quote content effect hypothesized by Tagliamonte and D’Arcy came about at an ear-lier stage than in Canada relative to overall usage of be like. This would mean that the reanalysis responsible for the change in contextual effects on be like is independent of overall frequency of usage of be like, a plausible assumption.
While the constancy in linguistic effects in the two data sets reported on here is surprising from the perspective of some previous corpus findings, it is expected from the perspective of findings in the quantitative diachronic syntax literature. Much pre-vious quantitative work on historical corpora has shown that for any single abstract process of syntactic change, contextual effects are typically constant over time—a phenomenon known as the constant rate effect (Fruehwald, Gress-Wright, & Wallenberg, in press; Kroch 1989, 1994, 2001; Pintzuk 1991; Santorini 1992).
In particular, Kroch (1989, 2001) attributes this constancy to individuals’ language-independent faculty for tracking frequencies of experienced events. As learners acquire and increment new forms, they learn from input sources the relative propensi-ties of use of variants in different contexts, with the consequence that contextual effects are propagated across generations of speakers, all other things being equal. Occasionally, linguistic factors can come to interact with social factors in new ways, which may have the effect of changing the effects across time, but this is the exception rather than the rule, to judge from the published literature (Kroch 1989, 2001). Kroch and colleagues’ model and the present results lead us to anticipate that the typical pat-tern of evolution for be like will not involve changing linguistic constraints as in Tagliamonte and Darcy’s (2004, 2007) findings but rather will be characterized by consistency in linguistic effects on be like. Future work might usefully address this possibility.
AppendixExperimental Sentences
BaselineJenny was like/said, “They’re coming at 11:00.Sam was like/said, “It’s tomorrow, Mom.”
Pseudoclefts with doWhat she needs to do is be like/say, “John already quit.”What he should do is be like/say, “Come by on Tuesday.”
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Durham et al. 333
change (Jespersen 1917; Roberts and Roussou 1999; Saxena 1995), one possibleinterpretation of the above results, alluded to earlier, is that the Toronto dialect sits at
a different point in the trajectory of grammaticalization from the varieties representedby our U.S. and U.K. samples. Again, the multivariate analysis summarized in thesection examining the longitudinal data turned no signi■cant main effect or interac-tions for quote content. This result suggests the possibility that the leveling of thequote content effect hypothesized by Tagliamonte and D’Arcy came about at an ear-lier stagethan in Canadarelative to overall usageof be like. This would mean that thereanalysis responsible for the change in contextual effects on be like is independent ofoverall frequency of usage of be like, a plausible assumption.
While the constancy in linguistic effects in the two data sets reported on here issurprising from the perspective of some previous corpus ■ndings, it is expected fromthe perspective of ■ndings in the quantitative diachronic syntax literature. Much pre-vious quantitative work on historical corpora has shown that for any single abstract
process of syntactic change, contextual effects are typically constant over time—aphenomenon known as the constant rate e■ect (Fruehwald, Gress-Wright, &Wallenberg, in press; Kroch 1989, 1994, 2001; Pintzuk 1991; Santorini 1992).
In particular, Kroch (1989, 2001) attributes this constancy to individuals’ language-independent faculty for tracking frequencies of experienced events. As learnersacquire and increment new forms, they learn from input sourcesthe relative propensi-ties of use of variants in different contexts, with the consequence that contextualeffects are propagated across generations of speakers, all other things being equal.Occasionally, linguistic factors can come to interact with social factors in new ways,which may have the effect of changing the effects acrosstime, but this is the exceptionrather than the rule, to judge from the published literature (Kroch 1989, 2001). Krochand colleagues’ model and the present results lead us to anticipate that the typical pat-tern of evolution for be like will not involve changing linguistic constraints as inTagliamonte and Darcy’s (2004, 2007) ■ndings but rather will be characterized byconsistency in linguistic effects on be like. Future work might usefully address thispossibility.
Appendix
ExperimentalSentences
BaselineJenny was like/ said, “They’re coming at 11:00.Sam was like/ said, “It’s tomorrow, Mom.”
Pseudocleftswith doWhat sheneedsto do is be like/say, “John already quit.”What he should do is be like/say, “Come by on Tuesday.”
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ImperativesJust be like/say, “They won’t ever do it.”Just be like/say, “You can come if you want.”
Force . . . toTim forced him to be like/say, “Fine, I’ll do it next week.”Maria forced her to be like/say, “Yes, I own a guitar.”
ProgressivesJanet was being like/saying, “That’s never going to work.”Emma was being like/saying, “He didn’t believe it.”
For adverbialsFor an hour, Mark was like/said, “Let’s go to McDonald’s.”For almost 45 minutes, Tammy was like/said, “I’m tired of your criticism.”
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the respondents of this study and to Sali Tagliamonte and Rachel Hudson for sharing their 1996 data set with us. Thanks also to Helen Lawrence and colleagues at the University of York for help in contacting potential informants. Thanks to Alex D’Arcy, Tony Kroch, Sali Tagliamonte, and audiences at NWAV, DiGS, LingEvid 2010, and University of Glasgow for comments on some of the material presented here. We are responsible for all errors.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: This research was supported by ESRC Grant 061-25-0033.
Notes
1. Other well-known properties distinguishing state and activity, including the fact that the former but not the latter is typically poor in imperatives and pseudoclefts with do, are not useful for our purposes since these contexts arise very rarely in corpus data.
2. This is a slightly smaller N from that reported in Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999)—665. We have excluded some of Tagliamonte and Hudson’s tokens for reasons detailed in the method section.
3. These tokens are given in (i) and (ii). (i) Driving through there being like “Argh.” (ii) And just being like “Suzie can you please get my flip flops for me.”
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334 journal of EnglishLinguistics40(4)
ImperativesJust be like/say, “They won’t ever do it.”Just be like/say, “You can come if you want.”
Force. . . to
Tim forced him to be like/say, “Fine, I’ll do it next week.”Maria forced her to be like/say, “Yes, I own a guitar.”
ProgressivesJanetwas being like/saying, “That’s never going to wor .”Emma was being like/saying, “He didn’t believe it.”
For adverbialsFor an hour, Mark was like/said, “Let’s go to McDonald’s.”For almost 45 minutes, Tammy was like/said, “I’m tired of your criticism.”
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the respondents of this study and to Sali Tagliamonte and Rachel Hudson
for sharing their 1996 data set with us. Thanks also to Helen Lawrence and colleagues at the
University of York for help in contacting potential informants. Thanks to Alex D’Arcy, Tony
Kroch, Sali Tagliamonte, and audiences at NWAV, DiGS, LingEvid 2010, and University of
Glasgow for comments on some of the material presented here. We are responsible for all
errors.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential con■icts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article: This research was supported by ESRC Grant 061-25-0033.
Notes
1. Other well-known properties distinguishing state and activity, including the fact that the
former but not the latter is typically poor in imperatives and pseudoclefts with do, are notuseful for our purposes since thesecontexts arise very rarely in corpus data.
2. This is a slightly smaller N from that reported in Tagliamonte and Hudson (l999)—665. We
have excluded some of Tagliamonte and Hudson’s tokens for reasonsdetailed in the method
section.
3. These tokens are given in (i) and (ii).
(i) Driving through there being like “Argh.”
(ii) And just being like “Suzie can you please get my ■ip ■ops for me.”
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4. In an appendix Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007:217) also report a handful of be like tokens in progressive contexts and with present participles.
5. A similar issue concerns the behavior of quotatives with recipient arguments. Conservative quotative variants in English all allow for argument structures with a recipient argument, either in a prepositional dative construction (with rightward shift of the quoted material) (iii) or double object construction (iv).
(iii) He’d go to her “Just listen for goodness sake” (iv) I asked her “Are you crazy?” We have no instances of be like in our relatively small set of tokens in prepositional dative
and double object constructions (≈20); all of these are with go or say. Indeed, sentences such as (v) sound fairly unnatural to native speakers we have consulted.
(v) ?She’d be like to them “You’ve got to shut up.” The hypothesis of grammaticalization of be like suggests the possibility of the eventual
emergence of such sentences. Indeed, quotative go appears to have undergone a similar pro-cess of change. That is, quotative go—which derives from verb of motion go—now happily takes a to + recipient PP as in (iii).
6. This measure, akin to a factor weight in Varbrul analyses, represents the effect of the con-trast with the competing baseline condition (not shown) with a value of zero. In Table 3, for example, third-person contexts have a negative effect relative to first-person contexts (–0.8101) on the probability of be like usage.
7. We owe this suggestion to Alex D’Arcy.8. We chose American English speakers for convenience. We note that the goal of this experi-
ment is not to inquire into the relationship between judgment data and variation in usage cor-pora per se but rather to assess via a different kind of data the possible interaction between speaker age and the direct speech-reported thought contrast. The use of a different popula-tion for this experiment is therefore innocuous for the purposes of the claims addressed here.
References
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of Linguistics 46. 273-330.Bard, Ellen, Dan Robertson & Antonella Sorace. 1996. Magnitude estimation of linguistic
acceptability. Language 72(1). 32-68.Bates, Doug & Martin Maechler. 2010. Lme4 package for R. http://cran.r-project.org/
(10 September 2011).Blyth, Carl, Sigrid Recktenwald & Jenny Wang. 1990. I’m like, “say what?!”: A new quotative
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Durham et al. 335
4. In an appendix Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007:217) also report a hand■Jlof be like tokens
in progressive contexts and with present participles.
5. A similar issue concerns the behavior of quotatives with recipient arguments. Conservative
quotative variants in English all allow for argument structures with a recipient argument,either in a prepositional dative construction (with rightward shift of the quoted material) (iii)
or double object construction (iv).
(iii) He’d go to her “Just listen for goodness sake”
(iv) I asked her “Are you crazy?”
We have no instances of be like in our relatively small set of tokens in prepositional dative
and double object constructions (:20); all of theseare with go or say. Indeed, sentencessuch
as (v) sound fairly unnatural to native speakerswe have consulted.
(v) ?She’d be like to them “You’ve got to shut up.”
The hypothesis of grammaticalization of be like suggests the possibility of the eventual
emergenceof such sentences.Indeed, quotative go appearsto have undergone a similar pro-
cessof change. That is, quotative go—which derives from verb of motion go—now happily
takes a to + recipient PP as in (iii).
6. This measure, akin to a factor weight in Varbrul analyses, represents the effect of the con-trast with the competing baseline condition (not shown) with a value of zero. In Table 3,
for example, third-person contexts have a negative effect relative to ■rst-person contexts(—0.8101)on the probability of be like usage.
7. We owe this suggestion to Alex D’Arcy.
8. We chose American English speakersfor convenience. We note that the goal of this experi-
ment is not to inquire into the relationship between judgment data and variation in usagecor-
pora per se but rather to assessvia a different kind of data the possible interaction between
speaker age and the direct speech-reported thought contrast. The use of a different popula-
tion for this experiment is therefore innocuous for the purposes of the claims addressedhere.
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Bios
Mercedes Durham is a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. Her work focuses on language variation and change in English, particularly in terms of the acquisition of variation by children and nonnative speakers.
Bill Haddican is an assistant professor at CUNY Queens College. His work focuses on lan-guage variation and change and syntax in dialects of Basque and English.
Eytan Zweig is a lecturer at the University of York. His work focuses on the semantics and pragmatics interface, from both theoretical and psycholinguistic perspectives.
Daniel Ezra Johnson received his PhD in sociolinguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on dialectology and language change as well as quantitative modeling of language data.
Zipporah Baker, David Cockeram, Esther Danks, and Louise Tyler are former undergraduates in linguistics in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York.
by guest on February 16, 2013eng.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Durham et al. 337
Pintzuk, Susan. 1991. Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English
word order. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.
R Development Core Team. 2008. R: A language and environment for statistical computing.Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Roberts, Ian & Anna Roussou. 1999. A formal approach to “grammaticalization.” Linguistics
37. 1011-1041.Romaine, Suzanne& Deborah Lange. 1991. The use of like as a marker of reported speechand
thought: A caseof grammaticalization in progress. American Speech66. 227-279.
Santorini, Beatrice. 1992. Variation and change in Yiddish subordinate clause word order. Nat—
ural Language & Linguistic Theory 10. 595-640.
Saxena, Anju. 1995. Unidirectional grammaticalization: diachronic and cross-linguistic evi-
dence. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 48. 350-372.
Singler, John. 2001. Why you can’t do a Varbrul study of quotatives and what such a study canshow us. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 7. 257-278.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Alex D’Arcy. 2004. “He’s like, she’s like”: The quotative system in
Canadian youth. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8. 493-514.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Alex D’Arcy. 2007. Frequency and variation in the community gram-
mar: Tracking a new change through the generations. Language Variation and Change
19(2).199-217.Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Alex D’Arcy. 2009. Peaksbeyond phonology: Adolescence, incremen-
tation, and language change.Language 85(1). 58-108.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Rachel Hudson. 1999. Be like et al. beyond America: The quotative
system in British and Canadian youth. Journal of Sociol inguistics 3. 147-172.
Tannen, Deborah. 1986. Introducing constructed dialogue in Greek and American conversa-tional and literary narrative. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), Direct and indirect speech, 311-332.
Amsterdam: de Gruyter.
Bios
Mercedes Durham is a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. Her work focuses on language
variation and change in English, particularly in terms of the acquisition of variation by children
and nonnative speakers.
Bill Haddican is an assistant professor at CUNY Queens College. His work focuses on lan-
guage variation and change and syntax in dialects of Basque and English.
Eytan Zweig is a lecturer at the University of York. His work focuses on the semantics and
pragmatics interface, from both theoretical and psycholinguistic perspectives.
Daniel Ezra Johnson received his PhD in sociolinguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.
His work focuses on dialectology and language change as well as quantitative modeling of
language data.
Zipporah Baker, David Cockeram, Esther Danks, and Louise Tyler are former undergraduates
in linguistics in the Department of Language and Linguistic Scienceat the University of York.
Downloaded irom eng.sagepub.com by guest on February 16, 2013
