Syntactic variation and change

The variationist framework and language contact

Miriam Meyerhoff | University of Auckland, New Zealand

This chapter introduces linguistic variation, specifically contact-induced language variation, from a variationist point of view. It shows that a focus on social and linguistic constraints on variation using statistical tools provides clues for distinguishing different processes of transfer. Taking examples of subject and object expression in Bislama, an English-lexified Creole, and Tamambo, a conservative Eastern Oceanic language, it illustrates weak and strong transfers and calque/calquing.

Keywords: Bislama, calque, contact-induced variation, Tamambo, transfer, variationist perspective

Published online: 12 March 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.12.02mey

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Mansfield, John

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Ravindranath, Maya

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