New Englishes

Lukcs Edit

10 April, 2012

Australian English: morphology and syntax

1. Introduction settlery variety of the English-speaking world transported by convicts and immigrants official language of the under-inhabited great South Land one of the major varieties; in some sense: a regional standard only a weak case: Australian norms are positioned somewhere between the British and American on the same scale Australian Corpus of English (ACE) 1 million words of published material from 1986

2. Irregular verb morphology a. Past tense o reduce (irregular) verb paradigms from three to two parts (especially younger people) o well-entrenched use of the u-forms (trend like in AmE) o e.g.: springsprung, shrinkshrunk, sinksunk b. Past Participle o use of some irregular past participles (beaten, gotten, proven, woven, etc.) o gotten: in everyday speech by young and middle-aged persons, in intransitive constructions; use of it may owe to colonial lag 3. Aspect: progressive and perfect the two southern hemisphere (AusE and NZE) varieties make more frequent use of the progressive than the northern hemisphere varieties a. Present perfect aspect o generalization of the present perfect to simple past contexts is more advanced in AusE than in the other varieties (radio chat shows) In the morning hes stuck an I love Redman sticker on her back... 4. Voice: the get-passive frequency of get-passives is higher than in AmE or BrE 5. Mood: the mandative subjunctive use of mandative subjunctive: after expressions of demand, recommendation, intention, etc.

New Englishes

Lukcs Edit

10 April, 2012

I recommend that he talk to a specialist (AmE) vs. I recommend that he should talk to a specialist (BrE) AusE: closer to the pattern of AmE (than NZE) 6. Modality a. shall/will o shall: obsolescent in AusE, lingers on only in root meanings in formal genres o will: use of it is higher than in the other varieties (compensatory role of shall) b. may/might o use of may to express past possibility and hpothetical possibility, as a viable alternative to might and could o general disclination to backshift in reported speech o might is not the past tense of may 7. Modality 2: non-assertive forms a. must o epistemic must occurs with the same frequency as epistemic cant He mustnt have wanted the coupons because he came up and give them to me. b. ought (to) o avoided in questions and negatives (in favour of should) o less popular than in AmE and BrE c. have (to) and need (to) o do-periphrasis in negatives and interrogatives (American pattern) They have to make a decisionby Friday, dont they? They dont need to make an appointment. d. dare (to) o do-periphrasis (with bare infinitive) especially younger Australians We didnt dare tell jokes. 8. Comparative structures (lexicogrammatical patterns) a. different from/different to/than o Australians prefer different to in informal speech (not in written texts!) o different than is sometimes heard (has to make inroads into standard AusE) b. less/fewer o acceptability of less + plural noun (informal prose, narratives, dialogue) o semantically motivated

New Englishes

Lukcs Edit

10 April, 2012

We want less taxes = We want the total amount collected to be less We want fewer taxes = There should be fewer channels or collection c. like/as o conjunctive like is rare outside colloquial contexts o more acceptable in informal genres o in newspapers and magazines as well 9. Case selection a. Than + pronoun o preference for accusative personal pronouns after than o Than me (informal spoken contexts) vs. Than I (formal writing) o dearth of prepositional than in nonfiction writing in ACE and its presence in fictional and interpersonal writing b. Pronoun + gerund-participle o preference of accusative over the genitive form (especially in fiction) o feature in which AusE is setting its own pace c. whom o use with prepositions (of, to, for, with) cannot be substituted by which/that o lower use of clause-initial whom (interrogative or relative); associated with nonfiction o Australian seem to be more generally inclined than the British to avoid clause-initial whom 10. Conclusion

AusE: grammar seems to be evolving elements of its own, reconfiguring the patterns of alternative constructions and recalibrating the stylistic status of elements has absorbed elements of AmE grammar to complement its BrE foundations; but: Australianized is endonormatively stabilized and able to support its own internal kinds of differentiation differences between younger and older Australians there are some elements out of which AusE may distinguish itself further from BrE and AmE