Grammatical Variation in British English Dialects - 9781107003453

Grammatical Variation in British English DialectsA Study in Corpus-Based Dialectometry\nAuthor(s): Benedikt Szmrecsanyi\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9781107003453, 978-1107003453\nSynopsis\nVariation within the English language is a vast research area, of which dialectology, the study of geographic variation, is a significant part. This book explores grammatical differences between British English dialects, drawing on authentic speech data collected in over thirty counties. In doing so it presents a new approach known as 'corpus-based dialectometry', which focuses on the joint quantitative measurement of dozens of grammatical features to gauge regional differences. These features include, for example, multiple negation ([url] don't you make no damn mistake), non-standard verbal-s ([url] so I says, What have you to do?), or non-standard weak past tense and past participle forms ([url] they knowe.