Previous research has revealed a linguistic divide across the Atlantic in the use have/have got (to) to express possession (I have (got) a hat) and obligation/necessity (I have (got) to go now). The use of have got forms is declining in Canadian (Tagliamonte, 2006) and American English (Jankowski, 2004), while on the rise in British Englishes (Kroch, 1989; Tagliamonte, 2012). Hoffman and Walker’s (2014) study of Canadian English study shows change in apparent time and parallel linguistic conditioning for both variables. The present study aims to investigate if these variables also pattern together in Australian English and to explore the fortunes of the got-forms.
Using interview material from 87 speakers across four age groups, the analysis details the variation and change in the use of have/have got (to) in both possessive constructions and the expression of root (or deontic) modality. The study charts the overall distribution of variants for both functions after which the linguistic and social factors conditioning these are examined.
The overall picture is that of increased use of have (to) at the expense of the forms with got for both possession and root modality. The results further reveal how the forms pattern across apparent time and the conditioning linguistic factors for each of the uses. The study therefore contributes to understanding these variations and their place in Australian English as well as the place of Australian English in relation to some of the northern hemisphere varieties.
References
Hoffman, M. F., & Walker, J. A. (2014). “Toronto has everything”, “Toronto’s got it all”: Ethnolinguistic dimensions of have in Toronto English. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 43, Chicago, October 23–26.
Jankowski, B. (2004). A transatlantic perspective of variation and change in English deontic modality. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 23(2), 85–113.
Kroch, A. (1989). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change, 1(3), 199–244.
Tagliamonte, S. A. (2006). ‘So cool, right?’: Canadian English entering the 21st century. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 51(2–3), 309–331.
Tagliamonte, S. A. (2012). Roots of English: Exploring the history of dialects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
