This dissertation investigates the use of the subjunctive in completive clauses governed by verbs in Italian, both synchronically and diachronically, and in Vulgar Latin. By making use of the tools provided by the Variationist Sociolinguistic framework (Labov 1972, 1994), the current study sheds light on the underlying conditioning on variability using actual usage and speech-surrogate data. Contemporary actual speech data comes from LIP (De Mauro et al. 1993) and C-ORAL-ROM (Cresti & Moneglia 2005) corpora, providing spontaneous discourse in casual and careful speech as well as sub-sample divisions representative of geographical variation. In order to measure any changes in the underlying conditioning on subjunctive selection, a diachronic benchmark is established: a corpus of speech-like surrogates of 16th to 20th century Italian, COHI (Corpus of Historical Italian), and a corpus of Vulgar Latin (Cena Trimalchionis, from the Satyricon by Petronius). The subjunctives were extracted in adherence to the principle of accountability (Labov 1972), using the method developed by Poplack (1992): every complement clause governed by a matrix verb (governor) that triggered the subjunctive at least once was included. This method enables us to circumvent the issue of the lack of consensus in the literature on exactly which contexts, i.e. verbs and/or meanings, should trigger the subjunctive in discourse. This issue surfaces as well from the meta-linguistic analysis of a compendium of 58 Italian grammars and treaties (CSGI, Collezione Storica di Grammatiche Italiane), constructed for the purpose of this research. A series of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors proposed by formal and prescriptive literature are operationalized and tested against the corpora of both Italian and Vulgar Latin, in order to ascertain the nature of variability in discourse: i.e. whether the use of the subjunctive is semantically motivated, productive in speech or undergoing desemanticization and lexicalization. Despite widespread assumption of a change that occurred after the political and the subsequent linguistic unification of Italy, i.e. that the subjunctive has lost ground in favour of the indicative when it was supposedly used categorically in the past, quantitative and statistical evidence shows that subjunctive selection is largely determined by lexical identity of the governor as well as embedded suppletive forms of essere, and that this pattern has been operative at least since the 16th century. On a more socio-linguistic aspect, this study confirms the linguistic prestige that the subjunctive has acquired in contemporary speech, being selected with a wider range of infrequent and singleton governors by highly educated speakers. Also, the highly lexicalized pattern on variability was found to be largely shared amongst the four main urban centres of Florence, Milan, Rome, and Naples, thus countering the assumption of divergent linguistic behaviour between northern and southern varieties of Italian. The study also shows that despite the significant time span targeted, no evidence of desemanticization has been found. Likewise, the variationist analysis on the Vulgar Latin subjunctive shows that subjunctive choice was already largely determined by, and restricted, to a few governors, identified as ‘volitive’ and ‘emotive’ matrices. These governors remained strong predictors for the selection of the subjunctive in Italian as well, suggesting that this lexical pattern has been transferred and consistently retained in the daughter language.

Esta pesquisa apresenta análises sobre avaliação, produção e percepção linguística no português paulistano, por meio do exame de quatro variáveis sociolinguísticas: a realização de /e/ nasal como monotongo [e] ou ditongo [ej] (como em fazenda); a pronúncia de /r/ em coda silábica como tepe [R] ou retroflexo [õ] (como em porta); a concordância nominal de número (como em as casas/as casa); e a concordância verbal de primeira e de terceira pessoa do plural (como em nós fomos/nós foi, eles foram/eles foi). O objetivo central é analisar, em uma comunidade amplamente heterogênea de um ponto de vista sociodemográfico, as inter-relações entre a expressão de identidades sociais através de usos linguísticos e a possível influência dos significados sociais desses usos em processos de variação e mudança linguística. Para tanto, analisou-se qualitativa e quantitativamente uma amostra contemporânea do português paulistano, composta de 118 entrevistas sociolinguísticas com falantes nativos, à luz dos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da Sociolinguística Variacionista (Labov, 2006 [1966], 2008 [1972]). Tais análises compreendem o encaixamento linguístico e social de cada variável, bem como seu encaixamento simultâneo na fala de cada indivíduo. Além disso, examinaram-se percepções sobre as variantes de (-r), com base na técnica de estímulos pareados (Lambert et al., 1960), a fim de melhor compreender os mecanismos subjacentes à associação de certos significados sociais ao emprego de diferentes formas linguísticas. Os resultados mostram que, embora as correlações entre as quatro variáveis sociolinguísticas e variáveis sociais sejam bastante semelhantes entre si (todas se correlacionam com o Sexo/Gênero, a Classe Social e o Nível de Escolaridade dos falantes), há diferentes tendências dentro da comunidade por exemplo, mudança em direção à variante ditongada [ej]; padrões divergentes quanto ao emprego de (-r) por parte de jovens de diferentes classes sociais; variação estável das concordâncias nominal e verbal em regiões periféricas e mudança em direção à variante padrão em regiões centrais. Para compreendê-los, o exame de seus significados sociais é fundamental. Argumenta-se que [ej] tem se difundido rápida e unidirecionalmente pelo fato de se constituir um marcador (Labov, 2008 [1972]) para paulistanos, que não revelam ter consciência da variável, tampouco apresentam um discurso metalinguístico sobre suas variantes. O forte favorecimento do retroflexo entre jovens de classes baixas foi desencadeado por uma reinterpretação de seu significado social como uma variante local e de prestígio, devido à presença maciça de migrantes do Norte/Nordeste, cuja variante fricativa é relativamente mais estigmatizada na comunidade. Ao mesmo tempo, ainda que o encaixamento social das concordâncias nominal e verbal seja bastante semelhante, a marca zero de concordância nominal (as casa) goza de maior vitalidade por indexicalizar significados como masculinidade, paulistanidade e morador da Mooca. Não obstante as diferentes tendências que se verificam na comunidade, os padrões de encaixamento das variáveis linguísticas se reproduzem sistematicamente na fala de cada indivíduo, o que permite caracterizar os paulistanos como uma única comunidade de fala (Labov, 2006 [1966]), que compartilha normas de produção e de avaliação linguística. De acordo com o teste de percepções, os moradores da cidade também são consistentes em suas reações subjetivas a variantes de (-r). Demonstra-se adicionalmente que a coesão dialetal é promovida não por amplas categorias sociais como Sexo/Gênero ou Faixas Etárias, mas pelo princípio mais fundamental de densidade de comunicação (Gumperz, 1971b,a). / This study examines linguistic evaluation, production, and perception in São Paulo Portuguese, through analyses of four sociolinguistic variables: the realization of nasal /e/ as a monophthong [e] or as a diphthong [ej] (as in fazenda farm); the realization of coda /r/ as a tap [R] or as a retroflex [õ] (as in porta door); nominal number agreement (as in as casas/as casa the houses); and first person plural and third person plural verb agreement (as in nós fomos/nós foi we went, eles foram/eles foi they went). The main goal is to investigate the inter-relation between the expression of social identities through language uses and the possible impact of social meanings on processes of language variation and change, in a highly diverse and heterogeneous community. Based on the theory and methods of Variationist Sociolinguistics (Labov, 2006 [1966], 2008 [1972]), each variables linguistic and social embedding, as well as their simultaneous embedding in individual speakers speech, were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively in 118 sociolinguistic interviews with native Paulistano speakers. In addition, perceptions on the variants of (-r) were examined through an experiment using the Matched Guise Technique (Lambert et al., 1960), aimed at describing the mechanisms underlying the association of certain social meanings with different language forms. The results show that, in spite of the similarity between the social embedding of the four variables (all of them are correlated with speakers sex/gender, social class, and level of education), there are different trends within the community for instance, change towards (e) diphthongization; divergent patterns regarding (-r) in the speech of younger speakers of different social classes; stable variation in nominal and verbal agreement in peripheral areas but change towards the prestige variant in central areas. The explanation for these patterns is related to the variants social meanings. It is argued that [ej] has spread rapidly and unidirectionally because it is a marker (Labov, 2008 [1972]) for Paulistanos, who are not aware of the variable and do not present an elaborate metalinguistic discourse on its variants. The fact that retroflex /r/ is strongly favored by working class youth may be attributed to a reinterpretation of its social meaning, due to the extensive presence of migrants from the Northern and Northeastern regions of the country, whose /r/ realization as a fricative is relatively more stigmatized in the community. At the same time, although nominal and verbal agreement are very similarly stratified, the nonstandard variant of the former (as casa the houses) exhibits greater vitality as it indexes masculinities and local identities with the city and with Mooca, one of its most traditional neighborhoods. Despite different trends by different social groups in the community, the embedding of the linguistic variables is systematically reproduced in each speakers speech, which allows for the characterization of São Paulo as a single speech community (Labov, 2006 [1966]) in that its native speakers share norms of use and evaluation of the variants. According to the perception test, the city inhabitants are also consistent in their subjective reactions to the variants of (-r). It is shown that such social cohesion is promoted not by census social categories such as sex/gender or age, but by the more fundamental principle of density of communication (Gumperz, 1971b,a).

Le créole afro-portugais de Casamance reste encore méconnu. La présente étude constitue la première description des pratiques langagières des créolophones casamançais. Elle est fondée sur un corpus de première main recueilli lors de discussions spontanées entre des locuteurs créolophones dans des villes multilingues : Dakar, Thiès et Ziguinchor. Dans ce corpus, les principales langues en contact sont essentiellement le créole casamançais, le français et le wolof. Cette thèse décrit les changements induits par ce contact dans le corpus, notamment le repérage temporel et les phénomènes touchant spécifiquement les groupes nominaux (déterminants et génitifs). L’étude de ces champs m’a permis de constater que des éléments grammaticaux et lexicaux sont fournis à la fois par l’ensemble de ces langues. Ce cas de figure n'est pas souvent pris en compte dans les approches théoriques du contact de langues, lesquelles proposent souvent une séparation fonctionnelle des langues fondée sur une dichotomie entre langue matrice et langue insérée, et tendent à ignorer les situations de contact impliquant plus de deux langues. Cette thèse constitue une contribution à l’étude du contact de langues et permet en particulier de porter un regard neuf sur une situation de contact trilingue, impliquant une langue créole et deux autres langues qui en sont typologiquement éloignées. La prise en compte d’une telle configuration revêt un caractère particulièrement novateur dans le domaine des études créoles, où les chercheurs intéressés par le contact de langues se concentrent surtout sur des situations de contact entre les créoles et leurs langues lexificatrices respectives. / Casamancese Afro-Portuguese Creole is still largely unknown. The present study is the first description of the language practices of Casamance Creole speakers. The study is based on a first-hand corpus collected during spontaneous discussions among Creole speakers in multilingual cities: Dakar, Thies and Ziguinchor. In this corpus, the main languages in contact are the Casamancese Creole, French and Wolof.This dissertation describes the changes induced by this contact in the corpus, especially the temporal deixis and phenomena specifically affecting noun groups (such as determiners and genitives). The study of these domains has led me to realize that all three languages involved both grammatical and lexical elements are provided by all these languages.Such a scenario is generally not taken into consideration in the theoretical approaches to language contact, which often posit a functional separation of the languages involved based on a dichotomy between matrix language and embedded language, and tend to ignore contact situations involving more than two languages.This dissertation is therefore a contribution to the study of language contact; more specifically, it allows for the possibility to take a fresh look at a trilingual contact situation involving a Creole language and two other languages typologically distant from the former. The inclusion of such a configuration is particularly innovative in the domain of Creole studies, where researchers interested in contact languages focus mainly on situations of contact between Creoles and their respective lexifier languages

Cette thèse a été financée par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada (numéro de référence 767-2010-1310) / Dans le cadre de la théorie de l’accommodation communicative, ce travail consiste à évaluer, avec la méthodologie de la sociolinguistique comparative, dans quelle mesure les immigrants hispanophones des Andes boliviennes qui se sont établis à San Pedro de Atacama (Chili) accommodent leur langage aux hispanophones de ce pays. Pour ce faire, quatre traits grammaticaux caractéristiques de l’espagnol andin ont été choisis pour être analysés : l’usage du double possessif (e. g., He ido a su casa de mi marido), l’utilisation des adverbes de lieu comme particule finale de la préposition en (e. g., Entonces he vivido en allá así como diez años), la préférence du passé composé sur le passé simple pour exprimer des actions qui ont été accomplies dans le passé (e. g., El año pasado he ido a visitar a mi madre) et l’usage exclusif de formes verbales standard pour exprimer la deuxième personne du singulier (e. g., Tú puedes estar comiendo tu hamburguesa). Les résultats obtenus après avoir analysé statistiquement la variation dans les données empiriques qui ont été recueillies au moyen d’entrevues révèlent que, tandis que ces immigrants conservent l’usage du double possessif et l’utilisation des adverbes de lieu comme particule finale de la préposition en de manière pratiquement inchangée par rapport à un groupe de contrôle de Boliviens non-immigrants (c’est ce que l’on entend par « divergence »), ils substituent graduellement la préférence du passé composé sur le passé simple pour exprimer des actions qui ont été accomplies dans le passé par une prédilection du passé simple sur le passé composé (e. g., Esta mañana fui a la playa) et intègrent progressivement l’alternance entre les formes verbales standard et les formes verbales vernaculaires du voseo pour exprimer la deuxième personne du singulier (e. g., Cuando tú flotái… y no te sumerges hacia adentro), à l’instar de ce qui se fait dans l’espagnol parlé au Chili (c’est ce que l’on entend par « convergence »). En d’autres termes, on peut affirmer qu’ils incorporent de nouvelles ressources linguistiques dans leur langage, en même temps qu’ils en conservent d’autres sans modifications significatives. On remarque donc que le contact dialectal provoqué par l’immigration bolivienne au Chili a des conséquences linguistiques indéniables qui font ressortir le dynamisme de la langue. En effet, le fait que ces immigrants adoptent de nouvelles ressources linguistiques tandis qu’ils en gardent d’autres sans changements notables met en évidence que les processus de convergence et divergence dialectales ne sont pas exclusifs, mais plutôt inclusifs, c’est-à-dire qu’ils peuvent avoir lieu simultanément au sein de la même communauté linguistique. Enfin, le fait que ces immigrants parlent désormais un dialecte qui n’est équivalent ni au dialecte d’origine ni au dialecte du lieu d’accueil permet d’avancer qu’ils parlent une sorte de dialecte nouveau. / Within the framework of the communication accommodation theory, the present study evaluates the extent to which Spanish-speaking migrants from the Bolivian Andes to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) accommodate their speech to Chilean Spanish, using a comparative sociolinguistics methodology. Four distinctive grammatical features of Andean Spanish were selected for the analysis: the use of the double possessive adjectives (e.g. He ido a su casa de mi marido), the use of adverbs of place as adjuncts of the Spanish preposition en (e.g. Entonces he vivido en allá así como diez años), the preference for the present perfect over the simple past to express the perfective aspect (e.g. El año pasado he ido a visitar a mi madre), and the exclusive use of standard verbal forms to express the second person singular (e.g. Tú puedes estar comiendo tu hamburguesa). Results were obtained from a statistical analysis of variation in the empirical data, which were collected through interviews, and compared with a non-migrant Bolivian control group. The data reveal that, while these migrants maintain a practically unaltered use of both the double possessive adjectives and the adverbs of place as adjuncts of the Spanish preposition en (this is understood as “divergence”), they gradually develop a preference for the present perfect over the simple past to express the perfective aspect by a predilection for the simple past over the present perfect (e.g. Esta mañana fui a la playa), and they progressively adopt an alternation between standard forms and vernacular ones (i.e. voseo) to express the second person singular (e.g. Cuando tu flotái… y no te sumerges hacia adentro), as occurs in Chilean Spanish (this is understood as “convergence”). In other words, the migrants have incorporated new linguistic resources into their speech, while they have simultaneously maintained others without any significant change. The dialect contact situation caused by migrants from the Bolivian Andes to Chile, therefore, has undeniable linguistic consequences, which bring out the dynamic character of the language. Indeed, the fact that these migrants integrate new linguistic resources into their speech while simultaneously maintaining others without serious changes highlights that the processes of dialectal convergence and divergence are not exclusive, but rather inclusive. That is, they can occur simultaneously within the same linguistic community. In conclusion, the fact that these migrants henceforth speak a dialect that is equivalent neither to their original dialect nor to the host dialect supports the claim that they speak a kind of new dialect. / Dentro del marco de la teoría de la acomodación en la comunicación, este trabajo consiste en evaluar en qué medida los inmigrantes hispanohablantes de los Andes bolivianos establecidos en San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) acomodan su habla a la de los hispanohablantes de este país, recurriendo a la metodología de la sociolingüística comparativa. Para ello, se seleccionaron para análisis cuatro marcas gramaticales del español de los Andes: el uso del posesivo doblado (e. g., He ido a su casa de mi marido), la utilización de los adverbios demostrativos de lugar como términos de la preposición en (e. g., Entonces he vivido en allá así como diez años), la preferencia del pretérito perfecto sobre el pretérito indefinido para expresar el aspecto perfectivo (e. g., El año pasado he ido a visitar a mi madre) y el uso exclusivo de las formas verbales del tuteo para referir a la segunda persona del singular (e. g., Tú puedes estar comiendo tu hamburguesa). Los resultados, que se obtuvieron después de haber analizado estadísticamente la variación en los datos empíricos que se recogieron mediante entrevistas, revelan que mientras que estos inmigrantes mantienen el uso del posesivo doblado y la utilización de los adverbios demostrativos de lugar como términos de la preposición en sin cambios aparentes con respecto a un grupo de control constituido por bolivianos que no han emigrado de la zona andina (esto es lo que se entiende por “divergencia”), sustituyen gradualmente la preferencia por el pretérito perfecto frente al indefinido para expresar el aspecto perfectivo por una predilección del pretérito indefinido sobre el perfecto (e. g., Esta mañana fui a la playa), e integran progresivamente la alternancia entre las formas verbales tuteantes y las formas verbales del voseo para referir a la segunda persona del singular (e. g., Cuando tú flotái… y no te sumerges hacia adentro), a la manera de lo que se hace en el español chileno (esto es lo que se entiende por “convergencia”). En otras palabras, se puede afirmar que estos inmigrantes incorporan nuevos recursos lingüísticos en su habla al mismo tiempo que mantienen otros sin modificaciones significativas. Así, pues, se puede considerar que el contacto dialectal provocado por la inmigración boliviana en Chile tiene consecuencias lingüísticas innegables que resaltan el dinamismo de la lengua. Efectivamente, el hecho de que estos inmigrantes adopten nuevos recursos lingüísticos mientras que mantienen otros sin cambios notables pone de manifiesto que los procesos de convergencia y divergencia dialectales no son exclusivos, sino que son más bien inclusivos, es decir, pueden acaecer simultáneamente en el seno de una misma comunidad lingüística. Por último, el hecho de que estos inmigrantes hablen ahora un dialecto que no es equivalente ni al dialecto original ni al dialecto del lugar de acogida permite postular que utilizan una suerte de dialecto nuevo.

This project uses corpus linguistics and geostatistics to test the sociolinguistic typological theory put forward by Peter Trudgill on the history of Norwegian. The theory includes several effects of societal factors on language change. Most discussed is the proposal that ‘intensive’ language contact causes simplification of language grammar. In the Norwegian case, the claim is that simplificatory changes which affected all of the Continental North Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) but not the Insular North Germanic Languages were the result of contact with Middle Low German through the Hanseatic League. This suggests that those simplificatory changes arose in the centres of contact with the Hanseatic League: cities with Hansa trading posts and kontors. The size of the dataset required would have made it impossible for previous scholars to test this prediction, but digital approaches render the problem tractable. I have designed a 3.5m word corpus containing nearly all extant Middle Norwegian, and developed statistical methods for examining the spread of language phenomena in time and space. The project is made up of a series of case studies of changes. Three examine simplifying phonological changes: the rise of svarabhakti (epenthetic) vowels, the change of /hv/ > /kv/ and the loss of the voiceless dental fricative. A further three look at simplifying morphological changes: the loss of 1.sg. verbal agreement, the loss of lexical genitives and the loss of 1.pl. verbal agreement. In each case study a large dataset from many documents is collected and used to map the progression of the change in space and time. The social background of document signatories is also used to map the progression of the change through different social groups. A variety of different patterns emerge for the different changes examined. Some changes spread by contagious diffusion, but many spread by hierarchical diffusion, jumping first between cities before spreading to the country at large. One common theme which runs through much of the findings is that dialect contact within the North Germanic language area seems to have played a major role: many of the different simplificatory changes may first have spread into Norwegian from Swedish or Danish. Although these findings do not exactly match the simple predictions originally proposed from the sociolinguistic typological theory, they are potentially consistent with a more nuanced account in which the major centres of contact and so simplifying change were in Sweden and Denmark rather than Norway.