Variation and Morphosyntactic Change: The Case of Stative Possession in English

In this paper I demonstrate how actively changing linguistic features can provide valuable evidence for understanding diachronic processes. The stative possessive in English, as in (1), is a case in point. (1) a. I’ve got a cousin that has it and she gets it every month (CMK/I) b. They got a lovely family bible … Thomas has it. (CLB/q) The construction with have is the oldest. Got was added in the late 16th century producing have got. However, have often contracted, leading to ‘v/’s got and then in some cases elided leaving got alone. Yet all variants persist in contemporary English dialects—have/has; have/has got; ‘v/’s got; got—providing a quintessential case of ‘layering ’ of older and recently evolved forms (Hopper, 1991:23). Using comparative sociolinguistic techniques and variationist methodology, I provide an analysis of this variation, as illustrated in (1), in a number of British and Northern Irish dialects, each of which has evolved in contrasting social and geographic contexts. Extrapolating from suggestions that the details of a form’