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Article In: English World-Wide: Online-First Articles

“Only fools don’t change their mind(s)”

Plural non-verbal concord and free variation across selected World Englishes

ORCiD logo with link | University of Gdańsk
 | University of Regensburg
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The present study investigates plural non-verbal concord — the variation between the distributive plural (e.g., change their minds) and the distributive singular (e.g., change their mind) forms following a plural subject — in two inner circle varieties, British and American English, and two newer Englishes, Nigerian and Singapore English. We focus on usage patterns for six high-frequency, potentially variable constructions (change one’s life, change one’s mind, find one’s way, learn one’s lesson, lose one’s life, shake one’s head). Using both corpus data and results from a single-choice three-option preference test, we shed light on differences between the four varieties. British and American English show high consistency between corpus norms and speaker intuition, whereas Singapore and Nigerian English display broader divergences between corpus and preference data across the constructions. The results suggest that, for certain constructions, the distributive singular and plural forms may be in free variation among speakers of the newer Englishes, indicating a wider range of acceptable linguistic choices than the more established norms of the inner circle varieties.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The concept of free variation
    • 2.1Plural non-verbal number agreement as a potential example of free variation
  • 3.Corpus-based analysis
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Results
    • 3.3Discussion
  • 4.Online-based preference testing
    • 4.1Methodology: Questionnaire design, participants, dissemination
    • 4.2Statistical comparison between sentence variants
    • 4.3Statistical comparison between varieties of English
    • 4.4Statistical comparison between varieties of English: Discussion
    • 4.5Individual response profiles
  • 5.Corpus results vs. preference testing
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • Sources
  • References
References (62)
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