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Article published In:
The locus of linguistic variation
Edited by Constantine Lignos, Laurel MacKenzie and Meredith Tamminga
[Linguistic Variation 16:2] 2016
► pp. 247–266

Constant effects and the independence of variants in controlled judgment data*

This article proposes that Kroch’s (1989) Constant Rate Hypothesis – the generalization that contextual effects tend to be stable in processes of diachronic variation in production data – be extended to synchronic variation in controlled judgment data. Two recent, large-sample judgment experiments are discussed suggesting that shared contextual effects across speakers in acceptability judgments can be used to infer a single abstract source for patterns of variation across superficially different contexts. At the same time, the results suggest that not all sets of variants – or “ways of saying the same thing” (Labov 1972: 271) – are linguistic variables of this formally defined type.
Keywords: change, competing grammar, particle verb, variable, variant, constant rate hypothesis, syntax, ditransitive
Published online: 27 January 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.16.2.04had
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2021. Be likeand the Constant Rate Effect: from the bottom to the top of theS-curve. English Language and Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
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