<i>Was/were</i>variation across the generations: View from the city of York

TLDR

Nonstandard was is a synchronic remnant traceable to earlier stages of English history. The study documents York English and quantitatively analyzes was/were variation in its past‑tense paradigm. The authors perform a quantitative analysis of was/were usage across York English data. They find nonstandard was in existential constructions and nonstandard were in negative tags, with women leading both changes over time.

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I describe a new research project on York English (YrkE), a variety in northeast England. In addition to providing the first systematic linguistic documentation of YrkE, I conduct a quantitative analysis of a linguistic feature which not only is well documented in the literature, but also recurs pervasively in varieties of English worldwide— was/were variation in the past tense paradigm. Two separate tendencies are observed, neither of which can be explained by any unidimensional notion of analogical leveling of the paradigm: (1) nonstandard was in existential constructions, and (2) nonstandard were in negative tags. Both trends can be tracked in apparent time in which the contrasting behavior of men and women reveals that women are leading both types of linguistic change. In other contexts, nonstandard was is a synchronic remnant which can be traced to earlier stages in the history of English.