ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we bring the historical corpora and historical spoken sources (HSS) described in the previous chapter into play. We use them in concert with the BWC and the MC to look at three areas of language where both continuity and change can be observed at the vernacular level. The three areas we cover are relativizers, verb morphology (with a particular focus on preterite and past participle forms) and a-prefixing. The rationale for the choice of these grammatical systems is that they are interesting windows on processes of change, especially the pace and direction of change and the shifting notions of which forms are regarded as standard. As we shall see, the spoken relative pronoun system has shown considerable variability historically, both in the use of non-standard relativizers and in non-standard use of standard relativizer forms, or at least what would now be regarded as non-standard use. For its part, studying the vernacular strong and weak forms of preterites and past participles gives us a ringside seat at the battle between ‘naturalness’ and prescriptivism. Finally, a-prefixing shows us how a particular form, which may appear to have succumbed completely to the forces of standardisation, can find isolated vernacular strongholds.
