There’s three variants:
Agreement variation under existential there
BONNIE KREJCI AND KATHERINE HILTON, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
LSA 2015: PORTLAND, OR
Agreement variation under existential there
there + BE + NPplural
1)
AGREEMENT:
There are more new subdivisions in the south side of town.
2)
NON-AGREEMENT WITH FULL VERB:
3)
NON-AGREEMENT WITH CLITIC:
There is basically no jobs in the industry.
There’s only two thrift shops down there.
Non-agreement predominates
Non-agreement occurs in 60-90% of existential there constructions
(Meechan & Foley 1994; Tagliamonte 1998; Riordan 2007)
60-90% of
tokens
This is despite the relative infrequency of non-agreement elsewhere,
especially in standard varieties of English
Defining the variants – Past studies
Agreement
• there are + NPpl
• there were + NPpl
• there have been + NPpl
•…
Non-agreement
• there’s + NPpl
• there is + NPpl
• there was + NPpl
• there has been + NPpl
•…
Defining the variants – This study
Agreement
•
•
•
•
there are + NPpl
there were + NPpl
there have been + NPpl
…
Non-agreement
with copular clitic
• there’s + NPpl
Non-agreement
with full verb
•
•
•
•
there is + NPpl
there was + NPpl
there has been + NPpl
…
Motivating the three-way distinction
•
•
each correlates differently with age, education and sex
there’s may be an unanalyzed lexical unit for some speakers,
not a contraction of there is (Crawford 2005)
Main argument
Non-agreement with copular clitic (there’s + NPpl) is distinct
from full verb non-agreement (e.g. there is + NPpl)
These two realizations of non-agreement merit distinct
sociolinguistic and syntactic analyses
Data
Redding
144 sociolinguistic interviews
◦ from three cities in California’s Central Valley
◦ collected between 2010-2012
Merced
Bakersfield
Data
144 sociolinguistic interviews
◦ three cities in California’s Central Valley
◦ collected between 2010-2012
non-agreement
with full verb
14%
4,368 tokens of existential there
◦ 1,960 with plural NPs
◦ 1,304 (66% of total) with non-agreement
◦ 1,028 (79% of non-agreement)
with copular clitic (there’s)
non-agreement
with clitic
52%
agreement
34%
Circumscribing the variable context
CRITERIA
EXAMPLES
Existential there, not presentational
there
EXISTENTIAL:
There’s an old house on our
block.
PRESENTATIONAL:
Here’s my house, and
there’s Jan’s house.
Circumscribing the variable context
CRITERIA
EXAMPLES
Existential there, not presentational
there
PLURAL:
Syntactically plural postverbal
subjects
There was about 800 students at
our school.
SINGULAR:
school.
There was a popular crowd at
Circumscribing the variable context
CRITERIA
EXAMPLES
Existential there, not presentational
there
DISPLAY NUMBER AGREEMENT:
Syntactically plural postverbal
subjects
Verbs that display number
agreement
is/are,
was/were, is/are going to be, was/were
going to be, has/have been
DO NOT DISPLAY NUMBER AGREEMENT:
will be,
might be, may be, can be, would be, could
be, should be, used to be
Circumscribing the variable context
CRITERIA
EXAMPLES
Existential there, not presentational
there
AGREE:
Syntactically plural postverbal
subjects
Verbs that display number
agreement
Coded as AGREE, NON-AGREE or CLITIC
there are, there were, there are
going to be, there were going to be, there
have been
NON-AGREE:
there is, there was, there is
going to be, there was going to be, there
has been
CLITIC:
there’s
EXCLUDED FOR NOW:
there’s been
there’s going to be,
Social factors
Age
◦ 18 – 93
Field site
◦ Merced
◦ Redding
◦ Bakersfield
Sex
◦ Female
◦ Male
Education
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
some high school
completed high school
some college or 2 year degree
completed 4 year degree
completed graduate degree
Speaker as a random effect
Effects of social factors tested with
mixed-effects logistic regressions
Results - summary
Non-agreement
with copular clitic
and full verb
non-agreement
correlate with
different social
factors
there’s + NPpl
there is + NPpl
used more by
used more by
• younger speakers
• male speakers
• speakers with less
education
Results - education
graduate
school
Non-agreement with full verb
occurred significantly more often
than agreement in the speech of
less educated speakers (p = 0.01)
Non-agreement with copular clitic
did not significantly differ from
agreement wrt education
college
some
college
high
school
some high
school
agree
clitic
non-agree
Results - age
90
80
70
Non-agreement with copular clitic
was used by younger speakers
significantly more often than either
of the other variants (p = 0.006)
60
50
40
30
20
agree
clitic
non-agree
Interpreting the results – education
There’s + NPpl seems to be less socially marked and stigmatized than full
verb non-agreement (e.g. there is + NPpl)
◦ Squires (2013) noted the relative unmarkedness of there’s + NPpl in
comparison to other forms of non-agreement (e.g. he don’t)
◦ Work on the social perceptions of this variable found that there is + NPpl
negatively affects perceptions of intelligence, education, articulateness and
wealth, while there’s + NPpl had no effect relative to standard agreement
(Hilton & Krejci in progress)
Interpreting the results – age
Greater use of there’s + NPpl by younger speakers suggests possible
change in progress with increasing lexicalization of there’s
there + BE
there’s
Support for change in progress interpretation
Younger speakers use there’s + NPpl at higher rates than older speakers but
not non-agreement more generally
Younger speakers use there’s more often with singular NPs
Younger speakers use other contractions (e.g. here’s, can’t, she’s) at the
same rate as older speakers. Greater use of there’s by younger speakers is
not merely due to higher rates of contraction
Theoretical implications for syntax
Although most theoretical syntactic work on agreement in existential
constructions does not account for variation, some do
◦ Schütze (1999) argues that both agreeing and non-agreeing variants are
unproblematically generated by the grammar
◦ Crawford (2005) argues that there’s is an unanalyzed lexical unit not
generated by the grammar
◦ Our account can reconcile these two approaches: there’s can be a lexicalized
unit, and there is and there are can be generated by the grammar
Conclusion
There’s should be treated separately from other non-agreeing forms
◦ there’s patterns differently from full verb non-agreement with respect
to education, age and sex
◦ our results and ongoing work on social perceptions of this variable
suggest that there are distinct social meanings for there’s and there is
◦ there’s may be increasingly becoming an unanalyzed lexical unit
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