Pronominal systems

Pronominal systems Susanne Wagner Pronominal systems are among those with the highest degree of variability in varieties of English. This may in part be due to the fact that many standard English varieties display some irregularity which is often ‘re-medied’ in speech and/or informal written registers of both native (L1) and non-native (L2) varieties.

A typical example of such irregularities and ‘remedial strategies’ is the reflexive pronouns paradigm of standard English: a first element, a pos-sessive (my, your, our) or object personal pronoun (PP) (him, her, it, them), combines with –self (sg.)/–selves (pl.). Many varieties regularize the para-digm by way of analogical extension with possessive forms occurring in all persons (thus: hisself, theirselves).

A high degree of variability is also found in the realm of relative markers, with lines between markers/particles and pronouns often blurred as with that + human antecedents. Inventories of relative markers also differ based, for example, on regional and/or social factors. Zero relatives, involving gapping or contact clauses, are also less ‘exceptional’ from a typological perspective (cf. Keenan and Comrie 1977). These relatives are only allowed in standard English when the relative marker is the object of the relative clause (RC), e.g. the man Ø I met, but not when it is the subject, e.g. *the man Ø stands at the bus stop is a friend. Vernacular varieties typically allow both types.

Pronominal systems often feature some very ‘exotic’ characteristics which are only found in a single variety and possibly those adjacent to it. Two such examples are pronoun exchange – the use of a subject personal pronoun in object position and vice versa (I don’t know he; us used to call it …) – and ‘gendered’ pronouns (any apple tastes good when he’s ripe), both typical of traditional dialects of Southwest England (South-West Eng-land). Exceptional as they may seem, these features are governed by rules and principles as well.

The current chapter will focus both on possibly universal features of (non-standard) pronominal usage as well as on some of the ‘exotic’ sys-tems, emphasising regional similarities/differences, historical connections, but also competing developments. Some tendencies will only be hinted at

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380 Susanne Wagner

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or illustrated with the help of examples1 but not discussed, for lack of space.

1. Areal features of pronominal systems The features presented here are largely based on the feature catalogue in the Handbook of Varieties of English (Kortmann and Schneider eds, 2004) and its comparative survey of 13 pronominal and 7 relativisation features for 46 varieties.

Figure 1. Feature score and overall frequency for 13 pronominal features (based on Kortmann and Schneider eds, 2004)

1 The following corpora have been consulted for the present study: Freiburg

English Dialect Corpus (FRED), International Corpora of English (ICE), self-compiled newspaper corpora of c 20 million words, each for East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda), India, Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, The Philip-pines), Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA; Davis 2008-), Brigham Young University-British National Corpus (BYU-BNC; Davis 2004-).


Pronominal systems 381

The feature set is currently being extended to include a total of 235 features in 78 varieties (62 pronominal and relativisation features), the catalogue is the basis for the electronic World Atlas of Variation in English (eWAVE) and the accompanying publication (Kortmann and Lunkenheimer eds, 2012). Figure 1, relevant throughout the present chapter, illustrates feature scores (cf. Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi 2004: 1148) for the 13 pronominal features in the Handbook of Varieties of English. 1.1. Personal pronouns 1.1.1. Re-establishment of second person plural vs. plural contrast The loss of the formal distinction between second person plural and plural is one of the more puzzling events in the history of the English language (cf. Hickey 2003). The Romance T-V distinction (signalling an informal-formal contrast) was adopted but was lost for complex linguistic and social reasons with the singular thee/thou only retained in very restricted contexts and in some few northern English varieties. Semantically and pragmatic-ally, however, this contrast is salient, involving the relationship between speaker and hearer in discourse. Without it, ambiguity is inevitable in many situations. Consequently, almost all vernacular varieties of English have maintained this essential contrast, using two basic strategies: 1. Synthetic strategies (e.g. you + plural morpheme > yous(e)). This includes

maintenance of archaic forms, sometimes with re-analysis/re-assignment of forms to different functions (e.g. sg. you pl. ye in Newfoundland English (Newfoundland English), cf. Clarke (2004b: 314).

2. Analytic strategies: you + plural noun phrase > you guys, you lot, you ones > yinz etc.

The following is a summary of patterns in Kortmann and Schneider (eds, 2004). There are special forms for second person plural are “pervasive” in 31 of the 46 varieties with occasional use in three more. Information on a special singular form is not available.

Given the importance of the contrast between singular and plural in the second person it is not unexpected that combined forms also occur (but


382 Susanne Wagner

see Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi 2004: 1198). The following two patterns can be recognised:2

1. The second person plural is an innovation in most varieties, i.e. you is

exclusively singular. There is a continuation of change with you vacating the plural position.

2. The form una/unu (from West African substrate languages) is used consistently in pidgins and creoles and contrasts with the focus on analytic strategies (mostly you + clearly plural-marked noun phrase; you guys, y’all etc.) in L1 varieties.

(1) a. Aren’t youse awful good. (ICE3-Ireland S1A-004) b. Unu ever go a stage show yet and … (ICE-Jamaica S2A-044) c. I’m lovin’ y’all in Philadelphia. (COCA4 2005 Spok

PBS_Tavis) d. We are pleading with you people (South Africa, http://bit.ly/

e3KPp7) 1.1.2. Pronoun case Personal pronouns exhibit the strongest and most systematic remnants of case in English with all forms (except you and it) distinguishing (at least) between forms for subject (I, he, she, we, they) and object (or ‘oblique’; me, him, her, us, them). Distinctive genitive (or possessive) forms (mine, yours, hers, ours, theirs) based on the possessive adjective + s (except mine) also exist for most persons. Those ending in -s can occur in attributive or predicative positions (possessive adjectives + genitive personal pronouns; it’s his car vs. The car is his).5 Given the general rarity of case-marked forms, it is not surprising that variation in case assignment is frequent, with two general tendencies: 1. The re-assignment of case forms according to non-syntactic prin-

ciples (e.g. pronoun exchange, politeness principles).

2 I compared second person forms and their regional extensions in all 34 varieties;

the result is available here: http://bit.ly/g1itcI. 3 ICE stands for International Corpus of English. 4 COCA stands for the Corpus of Contemporary American English. 5 Note that possessive its is, while not impossible, questionable for semantic

reasons (‘possessor’=+human).



2. The loss of case distinctions (levelling of contrasts, particularly in L2 varieties as well as English-based pidgins and creoles).

Below I describe two possibly competing principles of case assignment, one an example of a regionally very restricted traditional dialect feature (pronoun exchange), the other a possibly universal tendency in World Eng-lishes (non-standard forms in coordinate noun phrases).6 1.1.3. Pronoun exchange ‘Pronoun exchange’ (pronoun exchange) refers to the phenomenon where-by subject personal pronouns occur in non-subject contexts (2). A typical feature of traditional ‘Wessex’ (South-West England) dialects (Elworthy 1965b: 35-38; Kruisinga 1905: 35-36; Wright 1905: 271), subject forms are encountered in emphatic (phonologically prominent) contexts, oblique forms occur elsewhere (3). (2) a. … they always called I ‘Willie’, see. (FRED7 Som_009) b. Well, if I didn’t know they, they knowed I. (FRED Wil_009) (3) a. Evercreech, what did ’em call it? (FRED Som_031) b. Us don’ think naught about things like that. (SED FN

notebooks, 37 D 1, book III) This traditional system is described as absolute. However, based on an analysis of pronoun exchange in the Survey of English Dialects (SED) in Orton and Dieth 1962-71) and in more modern oral history data (FRED), we can identify certain tendencies and patterns (Wagner 2004a: 158-159): 1. Subject-forms occur in object slots (pattern 1) much more frequently

than object forms in subject contexts (pattern 2)

2. Pattern 1 and pattern 2: practically no regional overlap (there is a strong tendency for either subject forms in object position or object forms in subject slots). The notion of a ‘strong’ version of pronoun exchange is thus problematic.

3. ‘True’ pronoun exchange areas. These are only regions with a less frequent pattern 2

6 I will not discuss emphatic forms in left dislocation etc. such me, I wouldn’t say

that. 7 FRED stands for the Freiburg English Dialect Corpus.


384 Susanne Wagner

4. Pattern 1 spreading eastwards in South-West England from West Cornwall, possibly reinforced by a similar tendency in standard English (see below)

5. The systematic nature is difficult to judge: only remnants of the original system is present even in traditional data

6. Increasingly rigid SVO word order may cause “a certain amount of confusion over pronouns which followed verbs” (Rogers 1979: 35), i.e. subject forms restricted to preverbal position.

Pronoun exchange outside South-West England: 1. Northern England (Beal 2004): Here it is restricted to first person

plural; object forms rare (cf. Beal 2004: 117-8)8. There is no true pronoun exchange.

2. East Anglia: There is no evidence of pattern 2 ever having existed (Trudgill 2004a: 147-148). The available examples either a) illustrate general ‘confusion’ about ‘correct’ case form or b) are instances of stylistic variation.

3. Newfoundland: There is a strong link with South-West England (part of the settlement history). Pronoun exchange is surprisingly resilient in traditional communities (Clarke 2004b: 313). However, only pat-tern 1 is common (mostly in prepositional phrases: next to she)9; pattern 2 is “[c]onsiderably more rare today” (ibid.). Pronoun ex-change is non-existent in recent Newfoundland data (here there is a mixed-heritage Irish-South-West English community) and it is rare even in traditional folktales (Wagner 2003: 112-114) with mostly formulaic instances and emphatic subject forms (4)10

8 Neither of Beal’s two examples (2004: 118) are strong cases against the

‘Southwest only’ claim which is also supported by the lack of recent examples: with we is typical of many a native speaker’s confusion over case forms, and us is the colloquial form when premodifying nouns (us kids), which is then possibly overextended to noun-less cases.

9 Note that Clarke (2004a: 250) contrasts Give me the books with Give ‘em to I rather than Give I the books, indicating that a subject form in a prepositional phrase is less marked than an object.

10 A detailed discussion of pronoun exchange in South-West England (SED and FRED data) and Newfoundland can be found in Wagner (2002).



(4) a. that’s the only one ever I heard he tell (Tale 006) b. he said “he got to hide away from I again today.” (Tale 007) Many forces may have ‘conspired against’ pronoun exchange, but at a fre-quency of less than 1%, it was possibly never more than a tendency. Judging from the present situation, it seems only a matter of time before the traditional system vanishes entirely. General levelling of subject-object contrasts in pidgins and creoles (5) Belizean Creole:

if enitin tu stodi a hav tu ripit dat tu shi ‘if anything to study I have to repeat that to her’ (Escure 2004: 541) (6) Liberian Settler English:

Our people didn’t learn we how to swim. (Singler 2004: 889) Pronoun case: some further tendencies Below (7) illustrates a phenomenon typical of spoken English: sometimes, strict grammatical case assignment is overruled by other – non-syntactic – considerations, leading to subject forms in object slots and vice versa. This phenomenon (in me contexts the most pervasive one in Kortmann and Schneider (eds 2004), cf. Figure 1) is on the surface identical with pronoun exchange. (7) a. … her and I cheered on … (BNC KC4) b. Bolt is this big superstar and me and him are like fighting

together, … (COCA 2008 Spok ABC_GMA) Case in coordinate subjects: assignment principles Me for I in subject slots can be related to politeness (two or more subjects; me and my mother). There is a possible extension to other persons (him and his brother) as well.

An implicational hierarchy may be involved: subject personal pronoun+and+object personal pronoun are rare (there were no hits in the BNC or COCA11 in personal pronoun+and+personal pronoun contexts

11 Only clearly identifiable pronoun forms were searched for (e.g. I and

me/him/her/us/them; he and me/him/her/us/them; but not she and her; these are


386 Susanne Wagner

(Table 1). The symbol ‘++’ indicates syntactically correct case. The status of phonological prominence is unclear (perhaps connected to pronoun exchange).

Table 1. Case assignment in coordinate pronoun + pronoun subjects

2nd pronoun 1st pronoun

subject pronoun

object pronoun

subject pronoun ++ –

object pronoun + + Case in coordinated prepositional phrases ‘Irregular’/unexpected case assignment is more frequent than in subject personal pronouns, see examples (8) to (10). All patterns and sequences are allowed, but possibly there is an implicational tendency: The sequence prep+object+and+subject is rare, see Table 2. However, if the first con-stituent is a proper name then the structure prep+‘name’+and+subject is most likely (11).

With and+subject patterns the type ‘name’+and+I is the most frequent. It is practically the default in spoken language but negligible in writing. There is evidence of and I becoming invariant in speech: a) it is nearly non-existent in newspaper corpora and b) examples like (12) (noun phrase as group genitive) and (12) (premodifying together) show the in-variant structure.

The structure and me is absent from the British National Corpus (BNC). There were also low ratios for domain searches. It is supposedly prone to (hyper)correction, but only in L1s (cf. Redfern 1994, in Grano 2006: 47). A possible connection with peculiar rules of case assignment concerning the first person pronoun may exist: I is almost taboo in coordinate noun phrases preverbally, but acceptable postverbally.

(8) he was getting a lot of speaking requests for he and I to

debate. (COCA 2007 Spok CNN_King) (9) I don’t believe there was the same blood between he and her

as it was between me and she. (COCA 1995 News Atlanta)

are possessive rather than personal pronouns). You was not included (no case or number distinctions).



(10) But what’s that got to do with he or she? (ICE-EastAfrica ldhum-k)

(11) he played against Bob and I … (BNC KE0) (12) a. Three days after Matt and I’s encounter, … (COCA 1998

Spok CBS_48Hours) b. … the last photo I have of Michael and I together. (COCA

1996 Spok CBS_48Hours)

Table 2. Case assignment in prepositional phrases with coordinated pronouns

2nd pronoun 1st pronoun

object pronoun

subject pronoun

object pronoun ++ (–)

subject pronoun + + Case in simple prepositional phrases Instances of preposition+personal pronoun with subject pronoun, which are not preceded/followed by another noun phrase, are rare. Example (13) is from a conversation in Bristol, close to an area where traditionally ‘pronoun exchange’ was found.

There are a number of possible interpretations: a) ‘sloppy case assignment’; b) pronoun exchange (emphatic personal pronoun); c) exten-sion of coordination pattern; d) hypercorrection. (13) a. What’s wrong with he? (BNC KBE) b. Don’t want to be bloody stuck up there with he do you? (BNC

KBE) (14) a. What happen to she when the man come in the shop? (ICE-JA

S1B-070) b. ... I am very sympathetic to he .... (COCA 1992 Spok

PBS_Newshour) There is a tendency to use subject forms in non-finite constructions: pre-position+personal pronoun+Ving type, see (15) below. If a preposition is followed by a coordinate noun phrase then and I is frequent, see (16). (15) a. ... a thirty five minute version of ‘Macbeth’ with she playing

all the women’s roles and he all the men’s (ICE-NZ S2B030)


388 Susanne Wagner

b. what’s the point of we taking part in a unity government … (COCA 2007 Spok NPR_TalkNation)

(16) a. I’ve seen the video tape of Tom and I coming down the eighteenth. (BNC ASA)

b. Instead of dad and I going out and having a catch in the side yard … (COCA 1998 News USAToday)

Re-organisation of case and/or form assignment in first person pronoun Here there is a shift towards a stricter SVO word order. The postverbal forms have object case, including subject complements: it is I it is me (Erdmann 1978). Parallel re-assignment/re-interpretation of the first person pronoun on pragmatic grounds (politeness) can occur: I and my mother > me and ...; my mother and I > ... and me. This may be due to analogical extension. A spread to other persons can be registered with a mix of case assignment in coordinate noun phrases.

First person pronouns are currently continuing a politeness-based re-organisation: me > myself in non-reflexive contexts, see (17). This does not refer to an isolated event, but to the re-organisation which constitutes a change in progress. The spread to further contexts/ persons can be expected, see Table 3.

Table 3. Changing first person pronoun forms in different syntactic contexts

‘old’ form > current form > incoming(?) form

syntactic function subject case ‘I’ object case ‘me’ reflexive ‘myself’

subject complement

it is I it is me it is myself

coordinate subject – non-initial slot

my mother and I my mother and me my mother and myself

coordinate subject – first slot

I and my mother me and my mother myself and my mother

(17) a. ... a number of us, Senator Obama, myself and others have

been saying ... (COCA 2008 Spok ABC_ThisWeek) b. So to start it off, myself and Gap would like to present ...

(COCA 2003 Spok Ind_Oprah)



c. “It was a fantastic moment for myself and the whole team …” (Singapore, Straits Times, 05/02/2010)

d. Where Dave Cook and myself fit into this scheme ... (BNC CG1)

Case in New Englishes A number of queries were run with untagged newspaper corpora for pat-terns frequent in other corpora. Hits were practically non-existent (18) and were mostly found in relative clauses or in discussion forums which may depend on the more formal nature of New Englishes in this sphere. (18) a. The outing was between him and I … (Uganda, The Observer,

29/10/2009) b. a clear difference between you and I (Uganda, New Vision,

DF, 05/05/2009) c. For you and I, the cost of John Guma’s actions are …

(Uganda, New Vision, DF, 28/11/2006) Pronoun case – summary Two possibly competing and/or mutually interfering tendencies in case assignment can be recognised. Firstly, there is a tendency towards the levelling, i.e. elimination, of case distinctions in personal pronouns (strong-er in pidgin and creoles, but also present in spoken forms of first language varieties). Secondly, there are case distinctions in personal pronouns which can be possibly re-interpreted semantically, see the contrast between with he and I and with him and me, for instance.

When speculating on the nature of this ‘new’ contrast, the notion of emphasis (from pronoun exchange) might re-enter at this point. Despite levelling tendencies in some varieties and some confusion about case, there is at present no indication that case marking will be lost entirely in personal pronouns. 2.1.1. Pronoun gender In English, grammatical gender has given way to natural gender. With examples of natural gender assignment even in Old English, formal gender assignment seems to never have been strong, with a declension-class-based


390 Susanne Wagner

system likely taken over from Latin by early grammarians, regardless of the structure of English.

Today, only pronouns (personal, possessive) display formal gender distinctions that reflect not grammar, but distinctions in sex: male humans (and some domestic animals, especially pets) are assigned masculine pro-nouns (he, him, his) and females feminine forms (she, her, hers) while gender-marked forms only exist for third person singular.

Using he or she for inanimates, however, is exceptional and will be considered now. World Englishes appear to display two partly overlapping/ interacting tendencies: 1. Distinctions are levelled, i.e. there are no gender contrasts at all, not

even for humans (a common situation in many pidgins and creoles). 2. Existing (formal) contrasts are re-interpreted on new grounds (neither

biological nor natural), e.g. the gendered pronouns of traditional South-West England dialect. There are similar tendencies in colloquial L1s.

Levelling of gender contrasts: regional patterns/tendencies In Englishes of Australasia and the Pacific “forms are not generally distinguished for case or for gender” (Burridge 2004: 1125). This holds for practically all pidgins and creoles surveyed (see relevant sections in Kort-mann and Schneider eds, 2004). It is typical of pidgin and creole systems (with basilects and acrolects) that (h)e is the unmarked third person singular form, regardless of gender (Gullah; Mufwene 2004: 363). In Jamaican Creole: [i]m ‘he, she, him, her, it’ is the default gender or caseless form (Patrick 2004: 428). The levelling of gender contrasts tends to be based on transfer from background African languages. Gendered pronouns – he and she with inanimate antecedents Apart from the occasional maintenance of ‘old’ (grammatical) gender assignment (Orkney/Shetland; Melchers 2004: 43), we encounter another, different type of gender assignment. Here, the distribution of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ forms is not governed by ‘regular’ principles. (19) to (21) offer just a glimpse of the different choices available.



(19) And you apply your lotion to the roller and it reaches – there she goes – hard to reach places like the back. (COCA 1998 Spok CBS_Morning)

(20) a. He didn’t get cleaned out but once a year, see. (chimney; 32 W 6, book V)

b. … but the black withy is crips (=crisp, SW). Brittle. Well he’s crips, he ain’t no good, break him up like that. (FRED Som_022)

(21) a. … when I saw the plough nobody valued it, if he had been kept dry he would have been good now. (FRED Som_015)

b. dey call da light, Jack O’Lantern dey use to call it, yeah, Jack o’ da lantern, I’ve seen he out in da reach. A big light, just go down and he blaze up like a man’s hand and den he’d go down again (MUNFLA 70-003: C0629)

Two different patterns emerge, with ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ forms occurring variably. I would like to stress that these are two separate sys-tems. One, associated with the use of masculine forms, is a feature of traditional dialects and – like pronoun exchange – is highly systematic. The other, involving feminine forms, is a much less rule-governed feature of colloquial English and possibly L1s world-wide. The fact that the two phenomena overlap in some geographic areas, particularly in Newfound-land and possibly in Tasmania, sometimes makes it difficult to tease the systems apart. South-West England and related Newfoundland varieties Here gender is not assigned on biological, but semantic grounds, cf. the mass-count distinction (cf. Clarke 2004b: 312-313; Elworthy 1877, 1886; Wagner 2003: 16-33). For count nouns he is used while for mass nouns it is more common: pass the loaf – he’s over there but pass the bread – it’s over there. Feminine forms are exclusively used for humans; even cow demands he. The traditional system is still largely intact in SED / traditional oral history data (Wagner 2003: 243-247).

Changes mostly concern standard forms encroaching upon the domains of traditional he (21). Pathways follow the noun phrase accessib-ility hierarchy: slots further down the hierarchy are ‘standardised’ first. The subject position is the most robust (cf. Ihalainen 1985: 69-70; Wagner 2003: 236-237, 2004).

She is rare to non-existent in South-West England but typical of North American varieties (Wagner 2003: 129-154).


392 Susanne Wagner

Colloquial English (possibly world-wide) She is the choice for inanimate referents when wishing to add extra information, such as a positive/negative emotional involvement. Speaker sex may influence pronoun choice (females are indicated by masculine forms, males by feminine forms), particularly in gender-marked domains (cars, tools, etc.)

There are no restrictions, semantic or otherwise, on a noun serving as antecedent for ‘she’ (but concrete nouns are more frequent). She occupies the same slot as he in traditional system(s).

In Newfoundland English there is competition between it and she (not he and it): traditional he is not substituted by it (written standard), but she (spoken standard) is also she and is (a) more frequent in Newfoundland English and (b) refers to a wider range of referents (semantic types; cf. Wagner 2003: 267-279).12

Schneider (2004: 1113), summarising morphosyntactic variation in the Americas, emphasises the special status of she, noting that

[i]nterestingly enough, loosened conditions for uses of gendered pronouns are more widely reported for the North American dialects than for the Caribbean creoles. In particular, she for inanimate referents is fairly common (general in CollAmE [colloquial American English], SEAmE [South-East American English], OzE [Ozark English], and NfldE [New-foundland English]; conditioned in AppE [Appalachian English], ChcE [Chicano English], AAVE [African American Vernacular English], and BahE [Bahamian English]), while generic he seems somewhat more re-stricted.

Thus, the “primary function of pronoun gender” is “to represent and express the manner in which a speaker has formed his mental image of the denotatum” (Morris 1991: 175). With pronoun choice largely based on discourse-pragmatic factors, generalizations or predictions are difficult or indeed impossible since formal choices are based on a speaker’s world-view. 12 Mobility, which is claimed to lead to feminine forms in Newfoundland English

(e.g. Clarke 2004: 312-313; Paddock 1991), is unnecessary to account for the system: all ‘feminine’ references can easily be explained with the help of pragmatic principles such as ‘emotional involvement’. The Australian vernacular system described for Tasmania by Pawley (2004: 616-628) sounds like a mix of some weak traces of a traditional dialect system (responsible for the hes) and the ‘normal’ colloquial standard (i.e. she); attachment/detachment, emotional involvement = she (cf. Wagner 2003: 149-151).



2.1.1. Pronoun number

The original feature catalogue in Kortmann and Schneider (eds, 2004) did not contain any pronoun number questions, although dual and trial are well-described categories (particularly of L2s). The new questionnaire includes a dual/trial question and also tries to elicit possible inclusive/exclusive contrasts (not relevant here). Dual and/or trial contrasts are only found in varieties of the Australasia/Pacific region where they were ‘inherited’ from L1s (mostly Polynesian languages, see the relevant sections of Kortmann and Schneider eds, 2004). 2.1.2. Null subjects (and objects)

English is generally not classified as a pro-drop language, i.e. the use of overt pronouns is considered obligatory. Other languages (Spanish, Italian) allow null (pronoun) subjects, as illustrated in (22). (22) a. I love you. *Ø Love you. b. Yo te quiero. Ø Te quiero. Null subjects are, however, frequently encountered in varieties of English. Two tendencies are observable: null subjects occur (a) in contact varieties, usually due to L1 transfer when this has pro-drop, see (23) or (b) in colloquial L1s, with a possible functional motivation, see (24). (23) a. A: You got tickets? B: No, Ø sold Ø already. (Indian

English; Bhatt 2004: 1026)13 b. Ø Must buy Ø for him, otherwise he not happy. ‘we must buy a present for him’ (Singapore English; Wee

2004: 1062) (24) a. My geography book, it wasn’t there. Oops. Ø Must have left it

at school. (COCA 1992 Spok NPR_ATC) b. I can’t get it in. Ø Never heard such rubbish. Ø Should have

seen me and mum ... (BNC KCL)

13 Bhatt notes that null subjects seem only possible if the antecedent has topic

status (2004: 1027). Similar observations have been made for Chinese and Ger-man (cf. Huang 1984, for example).


394 Susanne Wagner

Not to be confused with pronoun ellipsis (I came, saw and conquered), null subjects often involve a switch in reference, see (24) with it > I and (24) with I > you), which normally prevents deletion. Null subjects of this type are mentioned explicitly for only two L1s in Kortmann and Schneider (eds, 2004): Newfoundland English (Clarke 2004b: 312) and Australian Ver-nacular English (Pawley 2004: 637-639). In a study of some 8,000 first person pronoun+plural null subject tokens (overt and null), one factor is particularly significant in subject ‘deletion’: the more complex the verb phrase, the more likely a null subject becomes (cf. Wagner forthc.). Verbal phrase complexity (cf. L. Bloom 1970, P. Bloom 1990) plays a role in all of the examples in (24). Complex verbal phrases involving modal verbs and/or auxiliaries are typical, while null subjects in simple(r) verbal phrases (25) are rare(r): (25) a. Oh yeah Ø vaguely remember that. (PCP 004)14 b. A: Eh, cabins, you ever go off to a cabin on the weekend or? B: Ø Still do. A: Ø Still goes to the cabin? (PCP 005)

c. Ø Wonder what was goin’ on up there. (PCP 017) d. A: So you were born in ‘88. B: Hmm. Ø Was. (PCP 025)

Table 4. Illustration of verbal phrase complexity

null overt 2 sense units

Getting too old for that now. Might go Alberta for a few years.

Well I went to school when I ... I don’t know.

3 sense units

No, can’t remember. Didn’t notice it till now.

I was born in 1943. I could see them.

4 sense units

Couldn’t figure out this morning ... Never would’ve thought about that.

I wasn’t teaching. I never had to try that.

Table 4 illustrates verbal phrase complexity: put simply, every addition to the basic lexical meaning of the verb counts as ‘+1’: simple present = one sense unit; past tense = 1+1, negation = 1+1 (same for progressive, modal, etc.).

14 ‘PCP’ examples are taken from the Newfoundland data collected by the author.



Thus, wasn’t walking – a negated (+1) past (+1) progressive (+1) verb (+1) – counts as ‘4’.15

Regression analysis (involving the sense units of null and overt subjects) shows that simple verb phrases strongly disfavour null subjects, while highly complex verb phrases strongly favour them (cf. Table 5, Figure 2).

Table 5. Verb phrase complexity – factor weights and overall distribution (first

person only)

verb phrase complexity FW % total N 1 sense units .33 1.6 1,461 2 sense units .52 4.8 2,846 3 sense units .67 9.2 1,006 4 sense units .76 14.8 108 range 43

Figure 2. Distribution of null (0) and overt (1) subjects in terms of verb phrase

complexity 15 Neither morphemes nor formal changes are counted – went is ‘2’ just as walked

is ‘2’, based on their semantics (simple past).


396 Susanne Wagner

Null subjects are common in many contact varieties of Southeast Asia (Indian English, Singapore English; Bhatt 2004, Wee 2004) and are also found in Bislama (Meyerhoff 2000) and Spanish-influenced varieties in the US (Chicano English, Bayley and Santa Ana 2004: 382), among others. To what extent language contact or interference is responsible for null subjects has yet to be investigated in detail. So far, studies of L2 Englishes by L1 Spanish speakers (different varieties) are contradictory (Bayley and Pease-Alvarez 1997; Flores-Ferrán 2004, 2007; Otheguy, Zentella and Livert 2007; Travis 2007). 2.1.5. Pronominal copying Situated at the interface of pronominal systems, relativisation and discourse strategies (extraposition, dislocation, clefting), three patterns can be distin-guished, each involving the insertion of a personal pronoun, usually to facilitate processing. 1. Resumptive (‘shadow’) pronouns, these are commonly employed in

L1s and L2s to ease the processing of complex clauses and lead to the repetition of an already introduced referent in a different syntactic function (26). In relative clauses one has the repetition of relativised constituents in its ‘main clause’ position (e.g. the man I know him is a friend).

2. Pronominal copying ‘proper’, this is connected to focus placement. It generally occurs in left-dislocated structures (27).

3. Anti-deletions (Mesthrie 2006), these introduce an unnecessary (or even syntactically inappropriate) dummy-it (28).

Patterns one and two are common in the same range of varieties and represent “almost a universal strategy in spontaneous spoken language” (Schneider 2004: 1111). Pattern 3 has not been investigated systematically yet. It is expected to figure prominently in the same range of varieties although definitely not restricted to contact varieties. Additional pro-nominal forms of any type are more frequently mentioned in L2s and in pidgins and creoles than in L1s. (26) a. … there’s these things which you call it isifanekisazwi

[‘ideophones’] in Xhosa. (Black South African English Mes-thrie 2006: 124)



b. The old woman who I gave her the money. (Ghana, Huber and Dako 2004: 858)

(27) a. As for a Chan buddhist, he would think that … (ICE-Singapore: W1A-013)

b. ‘That man he is tall’ (Zambia, Tripathi 1990: 37) c. ‘The house where you are in it now. (Irish English, Hickey

2007: 245) (28) a. Take it for example a person ... (Mesthrie 2006: 127) b. as I made it clear before ... (Indian English, http://bit.ly/

g7CVXV) c. ... as it was mentioned … (COCA 2003 Spok CNN_Q&A) 2.2. Possessive pronouns and adjectives Possessives display only limited variation in World Englishes, partly because many non-L1s lack distinct forms and personal pronouns serve as possessives (see the relevant chapters in Kortmann and Schneider eds, 2004). The following are noteworthy features in this context. 1. [mi] as the weak form of my. This is very likely due to phonological

weakening along with the preservation of an older pronunciation. It is not the functional re-interpretation or substitution of me (first person pronoun object form). It may result in spelling pronunciations: Me bike has a flat.

2. The tendency to avoid possessive adjectives (particularly its) altogether. Analytic constructions, such as a postposed of-phrase, are used instead, for instance in South-West England (Wagner 2004a: 164) and in Black South African English (Mesthrie 2004a: 971).

(29) a. … the owner of her ... (FRED Som_028) b. I had an idea of the price of it. (FRED Con_009) c. Sherford was the name of it ... (FRED Dev_001) Some features are regionally restricted, e.g. the occurrence of possessive mines (Miller 2004: 49) in Scottish English or the use of possessive pronouns in -n (30). (30) a. … we shall have to get on with ourn. (FRED Wil_011) b. I’ve done my performance, now it’s yourn. (FRED Wales Den_002)


398 Susanne Wagner

2.3. Reflexive pronouns 2.3.1 Regularised reflexives The following patterns and tendencies can be observed. There is a regular-isation of the standard English mixed paradigm (in 29 of the 46 varieties in Kortmann and Schneider eds, 2004). A reduction of ‘double plural’ in second element can be observed: ourself, them-/theirself; but: yourself (sg.), yourselves (pl.), see (31) below. There may be an incipient change or an emerging pattern with them-/theirself, see (32) below. Speakers predominantly use ‘mixed’ themself (plural and singular) with ‘generic’ antecedents, perhaps to avoid the use of a gender-marked first element (him-/herself)? (31) a. he used to pay hisself … (FRED Ken_003) b. … they used to look after theirselves. (FRED Ntt_004) c. they’ll all roll theirself up in ‘em. (FRED Sfk_023) d. No no, we ourself enquired why ... (ICE-India S1A-045) (32) a. And each guest gets to – gets to help themself. (COCA 2007

Spok CBS_Early) b. … he enabled everybody to feel good about themself. (COCA

Spok 1994 Ind_Geraldo) c. what does someone do who is going to one of these places to

protect themself? (COCA 2004 Spok ABC_GMA) 2.5.2. Dialectal ‘unbound’/‘absolute’ reflexives These occur in Irish English as a ‘unbound’/‘absolute’ reflexives and are generally associated with the ‘topic’ nature of referent (cf. Filppula 2004: 93; Hickey 2007: 243-244). They also predominate in topicalisation con-structions, e.g. clefts, with possible substrate influence (going back to a similar structure in Irish).16 There are remarkable parallels between Irish English and the colloquial use of myself discussed above: himself often used as a “polite form of reference to the ‘man of the house’” (Filppula 2004: 93).

16 See also Filppula (1999: 80-89); Filppula, Klemola and Paulasto (2009: 175-

176).



(33) a. Good for yourself! (FRED Heb_018) b. there’s herself sitting at the bench (FRED Heb_032) c. My brother wasn’t coming up and himself wasn’t coming up

(FRED Heb_018) 2.4 Demonstratives 2.4.1. Demonstrative them In Kortmann and Schneider (eds, 2004) 29 of the 46 varieties examined use demonstrative them which ranked third in terms of its feature score (see Figure 1). It is possibly a collostructional or collocational feature: in them days, them things is very frequent in corpora while other types are rare. This is very much an L1 feature and is pervasive only in L1 regions of the world (British Isles, [North] America, Australia/New Zealand; Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi 2004: 1163-1181). Where it is attested in contact or L2 varieties it is usually attributed to a superstrate, i.e. possibly to an English dialect influence (e.g. Patrick 2004: 430). It is rare or not present in Africa17 and Asia, although them days is possibly making inroads, see (35).

Them-demonstratives are the only pattern analysed here that may have spread from regional dialects to New World/New Englishes and even to possibly become a world-wide phenomenon. It is remarkable since the feature is generally dismissed as ‘non-areal’ / ‘universal’; this view is clearly not supported by data. (34) a. … all them people in all the heat ... (FRED Ntt_016) b. Did you eat them things after? (PCP 033) c. Them wickets don’t push Trinidad and Tobago (ICE-Jamaica

S2A-003) (35) a. we took them forms, the European forms (ICE-India S2a-046) b. I remember the squat building on kenyatta avenue them days.

(Kenya, http://bit.ly/gtpersonal pronounRw) c. Them days when we were students. (Kenya;

http://bit.ly/ijmw3v) 17 Note the possible competition with singular this/that in South African English

(cf. Bowerman 2004: 956; Mesthrie 2004b: 984; McCormick 2004: 997).


400 Susanne Wagner

2.4.2. Demonstratives – regionally restricted features ‘Reinforced’ demonstrative pronouns, e.g. this here/that there, are only mentioned for a few L1s (United Kingdom and North America). The data from the FRED corpus indicates that the pattern is more widespread in England (36). Similar forms occur in some pidgins and creoles which may demonstrate a possible historical settlement connection.

A threefold demonstrative paradigm is found in Scotland and Ulster Scots: proximity (speaker) – proximity (hearer) – remote (both) as in this–that–yon/yonder (e.g. Shetland/Orkney, Melchers 2004: 44; Northern England, Beal 2004: 120-121; Appalachian English, Montgomery 2004).

A plural they, which occurs in South-West England (Wagner 2004a: 163) and which is probably unrelated to Northeast < Scots thae; Beal 2004), is restricted to (in) they days in the FRED corpus (South-West England). In Newfoundland English they is also found (Clarke 2004b: 311). The form thick(y) is attested for South-West England. There is a possible count-mass contrast in demonstratives mirroring same distinction in personal pronouns. The form seems to be dying out (Rogers 1979: 32,; Wagner 2004a: 163). (36) a. this here suit that the husband used to wear (FRED Kent_005) b. Y’all can’t afford that there piece. (movie dialogue, AAVE;

COCA 2003 Spok NPR_Saturday) c. That there bathroom cabinet! (FRED Dev_010) d. when I was in that there wooden boat (FRD Sfk_028) 3. Relativisation strategies As David Britain notes “[v]ariation is endemic in the relativisation system in English” (Britain 2007: 98). However, pronouns only play a minor part in relativisation, at least nowadays, which is why this section is very brief. In many varieties two tendencies work together to further the demise of relative pronouns proper, i.e. forms that can be marked for case (who-whose-whom). 1. Relative pronouns compete with invariant forms (particles): that in

particular with extended usage (inanimate, non-human > human antecedents; e.g. the man who vs. the man that. Other particles are: (i) dialectal what, as, at (ii) zero as ‘most unmarked form’ (e.g. this is the man Ø I meant but also that book Ø lies on the table is really good).



2. A distinctive characteristic of relative pronouns – their case forms – is being lost (particularly in focus constructions: who did you talk to?), with whose and whom practically non-existent in speech.18

(37) a. Now the first berries Ø come out were raspberries (PCP 009) b. Was there anyone in your family Ø could play anything?

(PCP 001) c. You’ve got margins set at looks like 1.3 inches (BNC G4K) d. ... bring in the wood what he cut off … (PCP 010) e. the man as had worked for them … (FRED Sal_019) Britain (2007) provides a detailed overview of preferences in the choice of relative pronoun/particle based on over a dozen different studies conducted over time on different English English dialects (Britain 2007: 98-102). Relativisation patterns in varieties considered by Kortmann and Schneider (eds, 2004) are inconclusive and sometimes contradict corpus evidence, e.g. the presence/absence of gapping in subject position, suggesting that the selected features may not sufficiently represent relativisation strategies world-wide (cf. Schneider 2004: 1110, Britain 2007: 101, Herrmann 2003: 70-91), a shortcoming which may be remedied in the new version of the feature catalogue. 4. Summary 4.1. Binary nature of investigated phenomena Perhaps the most unexpected finding of this chapter is the binary nature of practically all investigated phenomena: tendencies come in pairs, either concerning regional distribution (by variety type, for instance L1 vs. L2) or formal characteristics (for example, levelling vs. maintenance/re-intro-duction of contrasts). In the majority of cases, this binary pattern is even repeated within the first-level contrast.

18 Cf. e.g. frequencies in BNC or COCA.


402 Susanne Wagner

Table 6. Features, their variants and regional patterning Feature variants regional patterning

a) new (or hist.) form for singular few traditional L1s

b1) synthetic strategies traditional and colloquial coll. L1s; L2s via borrowing (unu)

second person plural vs. plural contrast

b) new form for plural

b2) analytic strategies L1s and L2s

a) loss of case distinctions / levelling of contrasts

Mainly L2s > generalised object case

b1) pronoun exchange South-West England and related varieties

pronoun case b) re-assignment of case forms acc. to non-syntactic principles b2) case in coordinate

noun phrases all colloquial L1s; less strongly also L2s

a) levelling of gender contrasts L2s only (< L1)

b1) ‘gendered’ pronouns (mainly he)

South-West England and related varieties pronoun gender

b) re-assignment of gender-marked forms according to non-biological principles

b2) emotive use of pronouns (mainly she)

all colloquial L1s; maybe more frequent in North American varieties

a) binary system (one vs. > one) > singular vs. plural

all L1s; most L2s

pronoun number b) > two distinctions (one, two, three, more

than two/three) > singular vs. dual (vs. trial) vs. plural

most L2s (< L1) in Australasia and the Pacific

a) L1 is [+ pro drop] (> interference) many Southeast Asian Englishes

null subjects b) L1 is [– pro drop] all colloquial L1s; maybe more frequent in some varieties

a) regularisation of first element majority of varieties (L1s and L2s)

b1) first element sufficiently indicates number

many L1s and L2s reflexives – form

b) regularisation of second element

b2) first element plural., but singular generic antecedent

incoming L1 feature?

‘unbound’ reflexives

a) antecedentless subject reflexives, all persons but mainly third singular

Irish English and varieties influenced by it (< L1)



b) first person pronoun reflexives (mainly in coordinate noun phrases)

L1s, change in progress from ‘polite me’ to ‘polite myself’

a) gapping in subject position restricted to or at least more frequent in L1s?

relativisation b) relative particle what

very frequent in North America; absent from Asia

4.2. Truly areal features Table 6 already indicates that truly areal features are relatively rare in any pronominal system. The safest candidates are traditional dialect features such as pronoun exchange and gendered pronouns, maybe together with special forms such as (originally Irish) yous(e) (Hickey 2003). Only in one world region do we encounter pervasive and consistent effects of strong L2 influence on a whole linguistic category: in Australasia/Pacific, number systems are modelled on the singular–dual(–trial)–plural contrasts of the local L1s.

Otherwise, we seem to be facing possibly universal patterns or results of universal tendencies such as inherited ‘drifts’ in a specific direction (cf. parallel developments in Southern Hemisphere Englishes; Trudgill 2004b: 129-147). Such changes can be and very likely were reinforced by contact, leading to regularisation or levelling, for instance, but only in terms of speed, not outcome. As a result, L1s may ‘lag behind’ L2/contact varieties with regard to some changes in progress, while other changes may have been stopped (or even reverted) in L1s but were carried on and completed in L2s. 4.3. Overlap between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Another astounding parallel found in practically all investigated subsystems concerns the overlap between systems which used to be clearly areally restricted (e.g. pronoun exchange, gendered pronouns, absolute reflexives) and ‘universal’ tendencies of spoken English (case assignment in personal pronouns, ‘emotional involvement’ in choice of gender-marked pronouns, politeness in choice of first person pronoun pronominal form). As of yet, it is unclear to what extent these systems interact, inhibit or reinforce each other, opening up a host of opportunities for future research.


404 Susanne Wagner

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