Agreement, Gender, Relative Clauses

This book provides in-depth studies on grammatical variation in the British Isles, focusing on relativization, agreement phenomena, and pronominal gender. Agreement, Gender, Relative Clauses is essential for linguists.

This volume presents a comprehensive exploration of grammatical variation across the British Isles through qualitative and corpus-based quantitative studies. Focusing on three significant areas, the book draws extensively from the Freiburg English Dialect Corpus (FRED), which encompasses approximately 2.5 million words of predominantly British English dialects. The introduction offers insights into FRED and highlights the benefits of employing a functional-typological framework for analyzing dialect grammar.

Among the studies featured, Tanja Herrmann conducts the first systematic cross-regional examination of relativization strategies in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and four major dialect areas in England. Her research incorporates critical aspects of typological research on relative clauses, particularly the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. Lukas Pietsch delves into the Northern Subject Rule, a unique agreement phenomenon prevalent in Northern England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. His findings are primarily based on the Northern Ireland Transcribed Corpus of Speech, supplemented by data from FRED and the Survey of English Dialects.

Lastly, Susanne Wagner investigates pronominal gender, emphasizing the distinctive semantic gender system found in the dialects of Southwest England. Agreement, Gender, Relative Clauses is designed for dialectologists, sociolinguists, typologists, historical linguists, grammarians, and anyone with an interest in the nuances of spontaneous spoken English.