caa a22 4500 388058641 CHVBK 20180307125114.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199807 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0954394500001277 doi S0954394500001277 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0954394500001277 Tagliamonte Sali University of York Was/were variation across the generations: View from the city of York [Elektronische Daten] [Sali Tagliamonte] 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. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998 Language Variation and Change Cambridge University Press 10/2(1998-07), 153-191 0954-3945 10:2<153 1998 10 LVC https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001277 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001277 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Tagliamonte Sali University of York NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Language Variation and Change Cambridge University Press 10/2(1998-07), 153-191 0954-3945 10:2<153 1998 10 LVC CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge