Previously, no single analysis has accounted for all three subtypes of the English double genitive construction: the indefinite (a book of John’s), the definite (the book of John’s that you read), and the demonstrative (that book of John’s). Phonetic and pragmatic evidence discussed in the literature—for example, stress and familiarity/importance to the discourse participants—indicates that the demonstrative construction is a focus construction, bringing the possessed item into a prominent position in the discourse. The application of the Focus Hypothesis to all double genitives is empirically supported and is consistent with theoretical considerations having to do with the function of relative clauses and distributional differences between double genitives and standard partitives.

The past twenty-five years have seen an enormous growth in research into World Englishes, reflecting a new recognition of the status of the many national English dialects. Canadian English has been no exception to this trend and we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of research into this variety. The stature it is now accorded as a separate dialect of English is reflected in the number of dictionaries, thesauruses, usage guides, and other reference works published since the late 1990s that were devoted specifically to Canadian English (e.g., Guide to Canadian English usage; Canadian Oxford dictionary; Oxford Canadian Dictionary; Collins essential Canadian English dictionary and thesaurus; Fitzhenry and Whiteside Canadian thesaurus) as well as audio-visual productions (e.g., Dialects of Canadian English; Talking Canadian).

This article describes the realization of nasal vowels in the southeast of France. Southeastern French retains four nasal vowels , contrary to more innovative varieties of French. The perceptual analysis based on eight participants shows that, for most of the instances of each of the four nasal vowels, the pronunciation is different from that of Reference French. Additionally, these nasal vowels are followed by a nasal closure in about 10% of cases, especially in front of a pause or stop. The perceptual analysis is supplemented by an acoustic description, based on two speakers, one male and one female. The acoustic description gives support to the perceptual analysis, showing the existence of the nasal closure and the realization of /ã/ as [ã], as [ẽ], and /õ/ as .

Canadian Raising, which makes allophonic variants of the low diphthongs /ai/ and /au/, is evaluated with respect to its diachronic, geographic, and synchronic status. Its origins have been established by documentary evidence from 1934. However, comparative dialect evidence from the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada pushes the origins back to the second half of the 19th century. Raising of /ai/ in the northern United States turns out to be different from Canadian Raising, though they overlap. Sociolinguistic studies of (aw)-Fronting in 1980 showed a tendency for fronted onsets to be unraised. Though this was statistically insignificant, any strengthening would threaten the existence of Canadian Raising. Subsequent research shows that the tendency was accidental.

Canadian Raising—the phonetic changes in vowel quality and quantity in the diphthongs /ai/ and/ au/ before voiceless consonants—has been of considerable importance to phonological theories ever since Joos (1975). The opaque interaction of Canadian Raising and flapping in words such as writer consitutes one of the main arguments for rule ordering in phonology (Chomsky and Halle 1968; Chambers 1975). Recently, Mielke, Armstrong, and Hume (2003) have challenged Joos’s phonemic splitting analysis and have argued that Canadian Raising, rather than being a productive phonological process, is a static lexicalized generalization implemented as a choice between allomorphic variants. A rebuttal to this allomorphic analysis is offered based on evidence that, for some speakers, Canadian Raising productively applies in novel morphological contexts, in language games, and in the phrasal phonology, none of which are amenable to an allomorphic analysis.

General properties of the Canadian English vowel space are derived from an experimental-acoustic study of vowel production underway in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Comparing the preliminary Winnipeg results with similar data from General American English confirms previously described generalizations for Canadian English: the merger of low-back vowels, the relative retraction of /æ/, and the relative advancement of /u/ and /Ʊ/. However, a similar comparison of the Winnipeg sample with comparable Southern California data disputes the accuracy of the claim that Canadian Shift (Clarke et al. 1995) is a feature of ‘general’ Canadian and Californian English. An acoustic analysis uncovers subtle phonetic distinctions that make possible a more precise characterization of Canadian Raising: rather than only adjusting the height of the nucleus, Winnipeg speakers produce a directional shift in both the nucleus and offglide of the diphthongs /aɪ, aƱ/; this process applies to all three diphthongs (including /oɪ/).

The Canadian English vowel system is undergoing a shift, and the dialect of English spoken in St John’s, Newfoundland—which for demographic and geographic reasons has remained autonomous from North American varieties—is being affected by this change. Incorporating both real-time and apparent-time data, the findings show a process of communal and generational change. The front lax vowel lowering and/or retraction that characterize Canadian Shift appear to be active in St. John’s English. Consistent with the late adoption model of language change, older speakers show ongoing changes from their early 20s through to middle age. Moreover, the older female cohort seems to lead in the adoption of supralocal Canadian English forms, and this both in apparent time and in real time. This challenges the idea that younger generations are the sole or primary locus of language change. While innovative forms are typically associated with younger speakers, this study shows that they can also be adopted, accelerated, and advanced by older speakers.

Prior studies have established that the Atlantic region of Canada constitutes a dialect zone. Data from the Dialect Topography of New Brunswick, gathered from 2001 to 2003, permit a comparison of linguistic trends in this part of the Atlantic region with those observed in the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario. In both cases, there is a convergence towards American forms. However, at a certain point on the border between New Brunswick and Maine, where there is significant social contact between Canadians and Americans, the data suggest that Canadian youth are resisting adoption of several American forms. The present study considers this border effect in the responses of 14–19-year-olds living in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and in the adjacent town of Calais, Maine. Sixteen items identified as Canadian/American shibboleths in the Golden Horseshoe study are examined, and the results are assessed in relation to the Boberg’s (2000) claims regarding geo-linguistic diffusion.

Isoglosses do not accurately reflect linguistic usage in a region, because the isolated conservative forms they are based on do not represent actual variants extant in the population. The isograph enables researchers to find more representative dialect trends. Canadian and American data from the Dialect Topography database are submitted to isographic analysis of linguistic boundaries at the provincial, national, and cross-border levels. Topography provides a multi-dimensional picture of how variants are used. Variants occur in different proportions, so analysis is quantitative and implies the abandonment of the isogloss because the discrete datum-points of dialect geography are unavailable. The isograph compares adjacent regions, and plots potential channels for language spread. Percentage differences between neighbouring regions are calculated, and a line is drawn between neighbours with the least difference. When all lines of minimum distance have been drawn, the result is a constellation of the most similar regions.

Although the received wisdom is that English in Quebec, as a minority language, has undergone contact-induced language change, little scientific evidence has been brought to bear on this claim. We describe a project designed to assess the impact of a majority language on the structure of the minority language in a situation of long-term contact. The existence and directionality of change is assessed by comparing the behaviour of linguistic phenomena (1) over (apparent) time, (2) according to intensity of contact, and (3) against French as a non-contact benchmark and putative source. We detail the methods employed in selecting a sample and constituting a corpus, and characterize the speakers and aspects of their speech. Finally, we present an analysis of the sociolinguistic situation of the Quebec anglophone community, and offer an empirical measure of the impact of the French lexicon on Quebec English.

The French language in Alberta is evolving in a strongly minority context. An examination of three generations of speakers from the Peace River region in northwestern Alberta—the area with the highest proportion of francophones—shows the progressive effects of longstanding contact with English. While the grandparents have fluent spontaneous speech with little calquing or code switching, the father’s speech is less spontaneous and shows increased calquing and switching, and the son’s speech has extensive calquing, code switching, and lexical gaps. Despite strong external and community support, the Peace River community manifests many of the traditional indices of minority languages faced with assimilatory pressures.

We examine the diffusion of a phonological feature, namely the deletion of palatal glides in words such as news, tune, duke, and student. Within Canada, the conservative glided and innovative glideless pronunciations are no longer viewed as carrying, respectively, British versus American affiliation. One observes a steep generational decline in glide usage, with older, and especially upper-middle-class, females, resisting this change. This contrasts with broadcast media, where the overall glide usage rate is high: national media adopt the glided variant to a greater degree than their local counterparts; moreover, male media personnel display more glide retention than females. Both variants index different social meanings: the glided variant is associated with cultural erudition but is nevertheless not the formal target for all groups. Thus, the two variants hold different appeal for different segments of the population, and both are viewed as a prestige target within the same speech community.