Although it has generally been recognized that Old English was a verb-final language with verb-seconding, the existence of clauses with main verb complements and adjuncts appearing after the otherwise clause-final verb seems to contradict the hypothesis that the language was strictly verb-final in underlying structure. There are three possible analyses to explain these clauses: variable word order in the base, leftward verb movement, and rightward movement of NPs and PPs. In this article, we demonstrate that only the third analysis adequately explains the data of the Early Old English poem Beowulf. Moreover, by investigating the mapping between syntactic structures and metrical units, we provide evidence for two types of rightward movement with two distinct structures: heavy NP shift, with a characteristic major intonational boundary between the main verb and the postposed NP, and PP extraposition, where the intonational boundary was much less common.

Some recent research proposes that changes observed in the morphology and syntax of Vernacular Black English (VBE), combined with the failure of VBE to participate in regional changes in the pronunciation of white speech, constitutes evidence for the divergence of VBE from white and standard varieties. The present article presents quantitative evidence for a change in VBE which appears to involve increasing similarity between VBE and other varieties: a marked tendency toward higher, fronter realizations of the final /i/ in words like happy in the speech of younger blacks. Evidence for the character of the change comes from English dialectology, historical phonology, and research conducted by the author on the speech of residents of East Palo Alto, California. It is proposed that whereas black and white varieties may remain distinct, undergoing some changes separately, this need not be regarded as absolute divergence. Distinct varieties in contact may, for complex sociological and linguistic reasons, be expected more realistically to appear to diverge and converge simultaneously.

Spanish dialects may differ according to the behavior of voiced obstruents following r, l, s, and the glides. For most dialects, for example, Mexican, fricatives occur in these environments; in some, such as highland Colombian, stops tend to occur. Another feature distinguishing dialects is s-aspiration/deletion. Several Central American dialects are of particular interest because they are both s-aspirating/deleting and stop-conserving in the series of postconsonantal environments (Canfield, 1961/1981). Detailed examination of spirantization in these dialects, as well as of the particular question of what occurs after /s/ → [s] [z] [h] [Ø] has been nonexistent. Obviously, if s is deleted before a voiced obstruent, the resulting environment of the obstruent is intervocalic, which is a favored environment for spirantization. For this investigation, 14 Honduran speakers were interviewed using standard sociolinguistic interview techniques. Tokens were transcribed and categorized according to whether s-aspiration/deletion had applied, whether spirantization had applied, and by preceding/following environment. It is shown that (a) in Honduran Spanish the group r, l, glides, and s inhibit spirantization variably, much as they do in highland Colombian Spanish; (b) neither voicing, aspiration, nor deletion of (s) favor spirantization, despite the apparently favorable (surface) environment created when deletion applies; (c) even though an analysis of (b) that orders spirantization before deletion is apparently explanatory, a view that attributes spirantization to syllable structure offers a more comprehensive explanation of what happens when the two variable processes intersect by applying to adjacent segments.

Brazilian Portuguese has a vowel harmony rule which consists of the optional raising of the pretonic e and o vowels to i and u, respectively, if there is a high vowel in the following syllable. This is an old rule, the origin of which can be traced back to the Latin of the 4th century a.d. Because the rule is subject to multiple conditioning by both linguistic and social factors, it can be treated as a variable rule.