Modal Verbs in Tyneside English

Until very recently, the syntax of Tyneside English, like that of most English dialects, has been more or less neglected. This has partly been due to the methodological problems involved in collecting sufficient tokens of forms that will occur rarely in even a long stretch of speech, as is pointed out by Jones-Sargeant (1985). This paper constitutes a condensed account of a larger study carried out by the first-named author: at present, this is the only major study of Tyneside syntax to have been undertaken.  The modal syntax of Tyneside differs from that of Standard English in several important ways. Firstly, may and shall are hardly used at all in Tyneside, and at best are stylistic variants of can and will respectively, there being no context in which either may or shall is compulsory. Can and could have even more 'non-modal' characteristics in Tyneside than in Standard English. Other differences between Tyneside and Standard English include the more frequent use of 'epistemic' must and the rarity of ought, which coincides with infrequent use of should in 'non-root, non epistemic' uses as would be predicted by Leech & Coates (1977a and 1977b). Finally, the system of tags is totally different in Tyneside and Standard English respectively, the former having a larger set of options in which single and double negatives, contracted and uncontracted, are contrasted in order to distinguish between tags which ask for information and those requiring confirmation

En[dj]uring [ʧ]unes or ma[tj]ure [ʤ]ukes? Yod-coalescence and yod-dropping in the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology database

Yod-coalescence involving alveolar consonants before LateModern English /uː/ from earlier /iu > juː/ is still variable and diffusing in Present-day English. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives both (/tj dj/) and (/ʧ ʤ/) British English pronunciations for tune (/tjuːn/, /tʃuːn/), mature (/mǝˈtjʊǝ/, /mǝˈʧʊǝ/), duke (/djuːk/, /dʒuːk/) and endure (/ᵻnˈdjʊə/, /εnˈdjʊə/, /ᵻnˈdʒʊə/, /εnˈdʒʊə/, /ᵻnˈdjɔː/, /εnˈdjɔː/, /ᵻnˈdʒɔː/, /εnˈdʒɔː/). Extensive variability in yod-coalescence and yod-dropping is not recent in origin, and we can already detect relevant patterns in the eighteenth century from the evidence of a range of pronouncing dictionaries. Beal (1996, 1999) notes a tendency for northern English and Scottish authors to be more conservative with regard to yod-coalescence. She concludes that we require ‘a comprehensive survey of the many pronouncing dictionaries and other works on pronunciation’ (1996: 379) to gain more insight into the historical variation patterns underlying Present-day English. This article presents some results from such a ‘comprehensive survey’: the Eighteenth- Century English Phonology Database (ECEP). Transcriptions of all relevant words located are compared across a range of eighteenth-century sources in order to determine the chronology of yod-coalescence and yod-dropping as well as internal (e.g. stress, phoneme type, presence of a following /r/) and external (e.g. prescriptive, geographical, social) motivations for these developments

Predicative Possessives Relational Nouns and Floating Quantifiers

Green (1971) notes the apparent unacceptability of certain quantificational expressions as possessors of singular head nouns. We provide data from a range of English dialects to show that such constructions are not straightforwardly unacceptable, but there are a number of restrictions on their use. We build on Kayne’s (1993; 1994) analysis of English possessives in conjunction with considerations on floating quantifiers to explain both the types of possessive that are permitted in the relevant dialects and their distribution, which is restricted to predicative position

Oxidative stress and proinflammatory cytokines contribute to demyelination and axonal damage in a cerebellar culture model of neuroinflammation

Background: Demyelination and axonal damage are critical processes in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS). Oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory cytokines elicited by inflammation mediates tissue damage. Methods/Principal Findings: To monitor the demyelination and axonal injury associated with microglia activation we employed a model using cerebellar organotypic cultures stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Microglia activated by LPS released pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6 and TNFα), and increased the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This activation was associated with demyelination and axonal damage in cerebellar cultures. Axonal damage, as revealed by the presence of non-phosphorylated neurofilaments, mitochondrial accumulation in axonal spheroids, and axonal transection, was associated with stronger iNOS expression and concomitant increases in ROS. Moreover, we analyzed the contribution of pro-inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress in demyelination and axonal degeneration using the iNOS inhibitor ethyl pyruvate, a free-scavenger and xanthine oxidase inhibitor allopurinol, as well as via blockage of pro-inflammatory cytokines using a Fc-TNFR1 construct. We found that blocking microglia activation with ethyl pyruvate or allopurinol significantly decreased axonal damage, and to a lesser extent, demyelination. Blocking TNFα significantly decreased demyelination but did not prevented axonal damage. Moreover, the most common therapy for MS, interferon-beta, was used as an example of an immunomodulator compound that can be tested in this model. In vitro, interferon-beta treatment decreased oxidative stress (iNOS and ROS levels) and the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines after LPS stimulation, reducing axonal damage. Conclusion: The model of neuroinflammation using cerebellar culture stimulated with endotoxin mimicked myelin and axonal damage mediated by the combination of oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory cytokines. This model may both facilitate understanding of the events involved in neuroinflammation and aid in the development of neuroprotective therapies for the treatment of MS and other neurodegenerative diseases

Dialect, interaction and class positioning at school: from deficit to difference to repertoire.

Sociolinguists have been fighting dialect prejudice since the 1960s, but deficit views of non-standard English are regaining currency in educational discourse. In this paper I argue that the traditional sociolinguistic response – stressing dialect systematicity and tolerance of ‘difference’ – may no longer be effective by questioning a key assumption that both deficit and difference approaches share, namely that there exist discrete varieties of English. Based on an empirical study of the language of working-class children in north-east England, I demonstrate that non-standard dialects of English do not have a discrete system of grammar that is isolated from other varieties; rather local dialect forms interact with a range of semiotic resources (including standard forms) within speakers’ repertoires. Interactional analyses of the children’s spontaneous speech highlight this hybridity, as well as the social meanings behind the linguistic choices children make. I conclude by addressing educational responses to non-standard dialect in the classroom, suggesting that it is not the presence or absence of non-standard forms in children’s speech that raises educational issues; rather, educational responses which problematise non-standard voices risk marginalising working-class speech, and may contribute to the alienation of working-class children, or significant groups of them, within the school system

A radical plan for the English language : Thomas Spence’s "New Alphabet"

This article discusses Thomas Spence’s scheme of reformed spelling and its place within Spence’s broader plan for the reform of society. Whilst earlier commentators on and biographers of Spence tended to dismiss his ideas on language as trivial or even misguided, more recent scholarship recognises the interconnection of language and politics in Spence’s radical plan. This article sets Spence’s linguistic ideas within the context of 18th-century prescriptivism and standardisation of language, arguing that, although Spence is prescriptive in advocating the adoption of “correct” pronunciation, his plans for spelling reform are in direct opposition to the prevailing trends of the time. Spence’s ideas on spelling reform both hark back to those of 16th-century reformers (e.g. Hart), and anticipate 20th-century schemes such as the Initial Teaching Alphabet, but his scheme for implementing them is unique. Finally, the article resumes its discussion of the interconnectedness of language and politics, setting Spence’s ideas alongside those of later scholars and activists such as Cobbett and Foucault

‘Back to the future’: The ‘new prescriptivism’ in twenty-first-century Britain

Most introductory textbooks on linguistics make a point of highlighting the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive approaches to the study of language: ‘linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive” has long been a mantra. Although this is the consensus amongst professional linguists, prescriptivism is alive and well outside the academy. There is a huge market for prescriptive texts such as Lynn Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves (2003), the best-selling non-fiction book in the UK in the year of its publication. The election of a Conservative-led coalition government in 2010 and a Conservative one in 2015 coincided with a further resurgence of prescriptive attitudes, most infamously in the reaction to a letter signed by 100 academics protesting against the education secretary’s reactionary policies and the introduction of the ‘‘SPaG” (spelling, punctuation and grammar) tests for eleven-year-old pupils. In this paper I examine the phenomenon of popular and institutional prescriptivism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and consider why, far from receding in the face of descriptive linguistics it is, if anything, resurgent