A sociolinguistic perspective on the (quasi-)modals of obligation and necessity in Australian English
Journal article
Authors | Penry Williams, Cara and Korhonen, Minna |
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Abstract | This article examines the distribution and sociolinguistic patterning of (quasi-)modals which express strong obligation/necessity, namely must, have to, have got to, got to and need to, in Australian English. Variationist studies in other varieties of English have had contrasting findings in terms of distributions of root forms, as well as their conditioning by social and linguistic factors. The corpus analysis suggests real-time increased use of need to and decrease in have got to through comparison to earlier findings. The variationist analysis shows quasi-modals have to, have got to and got to as sensitive to speaker age and sex, and a recent increase of have to via apparent time modelling. Linguistic conditioning relating to the type of obligation and subject form is also found. The study contributes to sociolinguistic understanding of this large-scale change in English and the place of Australian English amongst other varieties. |
Keywords | Australian English; Root modality; Epistemic modality; Quasi-modals; Language change; Apparent time; Age; Sex |
Year | 2020 |
Journal | English World-Wide |
Journal citation | 41 (3), pp. 267 - 294 |
Publisher | John Benjamins |
ISSN | 0172-8865 |
1569-9730 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00051.pen |
Web address (URL) | https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eww.00051.pen |
hdl:10545/625214 | |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | 09 Nov 2020 |
Publication process dates | |
Deposited | 28 Sep 2020, 15:36 |
Accepted | 11 May 2020 |
Contributors | University of Derby (CPW), La Trobe University (Victoria, Australia) (CPW) and Macquarie University (New South W,ales Australia) (MK) |
File | File Access Level Open |
File | File Access Level Open |
https://repository.derby.ac.uk/item/93z89/a-sociolinguistic-perspective-on-the-quasi-modals-of-obligation-and-necessity-in-australian-english
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