Grammatical variation in World Englishes

Abstract

Abstract This study adopts an onomasiological, alternation-based approach to the exploration of grammatical variation across World Englishes, using data sourced from the 1.9 billion-word Global Web-based English corpus. The macro-orientation of the study, which investigates a set of ten alternations known to be susceptible to diachronic change, facilitates identification of a number of general trends, including the typical advancement of the Inner Circle varieties and of the South-East Asian varieties, the hypercentrality of American English, and the epicentrality of Indian English in South Asia. Possible explanatory factors include colloquialisation, grammatical simplicity/complexity, developmental status, and areal proximity.