Aikman's Texan English

[Dennis Preston]

Carson Schuetze's work on data evaluation (although oriented towards
grammaticality judgments and the like) is very helpful. Have a look
at  The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and
linguistic methodology (1996). University of Chicago Press.

dInIs

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       David Bowie <db.list at PMPKN.NET>
>Subject:      Re: Aikman's Texan English
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  At 10:01 AM -0400 9/25/07, Dennis Preston wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>>  and I also suspect a nonsystematic error for the double "had";
>
>>  Can we be sure it's an error, and not simply a variant?
>
>This leads into a much wider issue, particularly sticky for those of us
>who analyze language quantitatively: How can we be sure *anything* is an
>error? It always semi-bothers me (including in my own stuff) when
>"obvious errors in production were ignored". Who's to say that that
>long-u in boot that sure sounded like a short-a wasn't simply the one
>time the speaker fronted and lowered long-u extremely--but that it's
>still part of the speaker's system, despite being a clear outlier?
>
>*I* don't have an answer, that's for sure. Anything been published on
>this issue that any of you know of?
>
>--
>David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
>      Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
>      house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
>      chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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