Los derechos de los inmigrantes como bien jurídico protegido

The general aim of this study is to investigate possible syntactic variation between the following four regional StE varieties of the British Isles; HISSE, LSSE, IrE and BrE. Quirk et al. (1985: 19) state that in national standard Englishes, i.e. in BrE and AmE, variation on syntactic level is low. They add that Scots and IrE do not show much variation in their grammar and lexicon in comparison to BrE and AmE (see also Hundt 1998). However, previous studies have shown that morphosyntactic variation exists, for example, between standard BrE, AmE and NZE (Biber et al. 1999; Sigley 1997; Hundt 1998).

The object of the study is the use of relative clauses, which is a syntactic feature that over the years has received wide academic interest, especially by dialectologists and sociolinguists investigating regional and social variation, and by syntacticians trying to solve the mysteries of this rather intricate clause structure. However, rela-tivization strategies in regional StE varieties of the British Isles have not yet been studied, and this is what is attempted here, the main focus being on SSE.

First, this study seeks to provide new information about real time written StE use on both the micro and macro levels in comparison to that described in literature, for example, in Quirk et al. (1985). Secondly, the theoretical contribution to English lin-guistics is to take the first steps in describing modern SSE syntax in detail. Thirdly, this work combines the description of the development of the relavization system in written Scots and SSE, and presents the current situation in one genre of formal writ-ten language use, i.e. in news language.

As already established in the previous chapter, relativization in Scots has been minutely studied from the earliest existing written records in the late 14^th century to the emergence of personal relativizer paradigm in the 17^th century (see, e.g., Caldwell 1974; Romaine 1982; Meurman-Solin 2000, 2003). What is still lacking is the descrip-tion of relativizer use from the 18^th to the early 20^th century. Relativization in varieties of modern spoken Lowland Scots has been investigated by Romaine (1980), Macafee (1983), Macaulay (1991), Herrmann (2003, 2005) and Tagliamonte et al. (2005), whereas the syntax of HIScE and written modern ScE have received surprisingly little schol-arly attention. Thus far the main focus of linguistic research in Scotland has been on its indigenous languages, i.e. Scots and Scottish Gaelic, while research on ScE/SSE has gained momentum only recently (Douglas 2009; Schützler 2010, 2013; Hillberg 2008, 2012, 2013).

Although Scotland is part of Britain, ScE and SSE are much more poorly understood

than many postcolonial and new Englishes. After all, English has been used in official and public domains in Scotland for centuries. As established in Chapter 2, it has gained a much stronger footing than Scots and Scottish Gaelic. On the other hand, ICE-corpora, which are databases of StE varieties, have been compiled for, e.g. Jamaican, Fijian and Singaporean English, while the work on the ICE-Scotland corpus started in 2013 at the University of Münster under the supervision of Professor Ulrike Gut.

According to Guy and Bailey (1995: 148), relative clauses are a popular topic of study, because first of all they are “fairly frequent in speech and writing”. Secondly, relative clauses are “subject to strong constraints”, e.g. non-restrictive relative clauses (typically) require the use of the wh-relatives, whereas that and zero are used in re-strictive relative clauses. Lastly, these “three clearly distinct variables allow a rich range of theoretical and methodological issues that can be addressed”.

As illustrated in chapter 3, the findings of previous studies have shown that rela-tivization strategies in spoken non-standard English varieties are very different from descriptions of relativizer use provided by, for example, Quirk et al. (1985) and Biber et al. (1999). Accounts of dialectal English use have shown that, for example, the fre-quencies of relativizers differ considerably from those of written language, and that a distinct set of relative markers is used in these two registers (see, e.g., Biber at al.

1999; Herrmann 2003, 2005). Having said this, it must be stressed that the majority of studies on relativizers in dialectal speech have concentrated strictly on restrictive relative clauses. Therefore, most of our knowledge regarding relativizer use concerns restrictive relative clauses. For example, our current knowledge of the use of the relativizer which as well as the general features of non-restrictive relativization comes mainly from grammars such as Quirk et al. (1985), Biber et al. (1999) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002).

Apart from the descriptions of regional and sociolinguistic variation in relativ-izer use, the internal structure of the adnominal relative clause has received a lot of attention. Researchers have tackled questions regarding restrictiveness and its traditional bipartite division into restrictive and non-restrictive (see, e.g., Jacobsson 1994; Sigley 1997; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Hundt and Denison 2013). However, this study follows strictly the traditional two-way distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive as it was found to be the most feasible and the easiest to operationalize (see section 4.2.3). Furthermore, as explained in chapter 3, comparisons to previous studies would have been impossible if any other type of division of relativization had been chosen.

Research questions

The three main research questions for this work are the following:

1. What kind of variation occurs in the relativization patterns of written HISSE and LSSE?

The socio-historical and historical-linguistic backgrounds of the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands are remarkably distinct. It is therefore plausible that differences exist in standard written language use, even on a syntactic level. Contact influence from

Scots and Scottish Gaelic may affect the relativizer choice, but in the case of the latter it is perhaps not likely on the basis of existing literature on ScE and Scottish Gaelic (cf. Miller 2008; Adger and Ramchand 2006). On the other hand, since both studied varieties have been strongly influenced by standard BrE south of the border, it is equally possible that the relativization patterns of these ScE varieties are rather simi-lar, especially in the current data, which represents written standard language. As mentioned above, characteristics of spoken HIScE remain an unknown territory, with the exception of some phonological features of Hebrides English (see, e.g., Shuken 1984, Nance 2012). Nonetheless, the results of this study will enable comparisons with spoken HIScE once databases of its earlier and current stages become available.

Earlier studies on Lowland Scots show that it displays syntactic features that are distinct from StE (e.g., Macaulay 1991; Herrmann 2003; Tagliamonte et al. 2005; Millar 2007; Macafee 2011). On the other hand, it has been claimed that at least in its earlier stages HIScE resembled StE more closely than Lowland Scots (see, e.g. Görlach 2002:

175). Therefore, it is possible that frequencies of that and zero vs. the wh-relativizer use may vary between LSSE and HISSE, the former having perhaps more instances of that and zero, whereas the latter may have more use of the wh-strategy.

2. What similarities and differences exist in the relativization strategies between SSE, BrE and IrE?

Based on earlier statements about the grammatical similarity of national standard Englishes, it would be reasonable to expect that no great differences exist in the relativization strategies of the varieties under investigation. However, the linguistic backgrounds of these four regions of the British Isles are dissimilar, and it is conceiv-able that contacts with many other languages, especially in the case of SSE and IrE, have shaped these varieties of British Englishes in different directions. This hypoth-esis is supported by Biber et al. (1999), whose study shows that differences emerge, for example, in relativization strategies between BrE and AmE. For instance, in AmE and BrE news texts the frequencies of relativizers that and which are clearly distinct.

Since that and the zero relativizer are the prominent relativizers in spoken Scots, it is justified to expect that they would be common in LSSE news. On the other hand, it is also expected that the wh-relatives (which and who) would be the most frequent relatives in all the studied varieties, because they are considered more formal than that and zero, especially in standard BrE. There are at least two other reasons that speak in favour of the wh-relatives in news. First, non-restrictive relative clauses, in which the wh-relatives are typically utilized, are frequent in written language. As established in chapter 3, in conversation non-restrictive relative clauses are rare.

Secondly, news articles often discuss people and the relativizer in written registers usually applied to people is who (in spoken Scots that is the most common relativizer used with human antecedents).

3. What are the most likely explanations for the observed differences: can they be explained by sociohistorical factors such as language contacts, or do they follow from universal constraints on relativization?

As discussed above, sociohistorical factors may affect relativization strategies in the varieties under investigation. In addition to this, universal constraints on relativizati-on are likely to govern the choice of relatives. Crelativizati-onstraints relativizati-on relativizer choice in rest-rictive relative clauses with definite antecedents in about fifty languages have been discussed in Keenan and Comrie’s (1977) famous article “Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar”⁹⁷. Keenan and Comrie (1977: 66) formulated their theory on Accessibility Hierarchy (AH), according to which the order is as follows

SUBJECT > DIRECT OBJECT > INDIRECT OBJECT > OBLIQUE CASE⁹⁸ > GENITIVE

> OBJECT OF COMPARISON

The following conditions, i.e. the Hierarchy Constraints, need to be fulfilled:

1. A language must be able to relativize subjects.

2. Any relative clause forming strategy must apply to a continuous segment of the AH.

3. Strategies that apply at one point of the AH may in principle cease to apply at any lower point.

Based on typological comparisons, Keenan and Comrie claim that universal con-straints apply to the formation of relative clauses; subject function is relativized by all languages, and they may relativize any position to its right on the segment. In addition, the order of relativization of syntactic functions must be continuous on AH.

However, a language may cease to relativize at any point, that is, a language may rela-tivize, for example, subjects and direct objects, but not indirect objects. Consequently, this language relativizes only subjects and direct objects, and not any other positions further down the hierarchy. According to this theory, positions to the left are easier to process. The AH constraints have been reformulated since this seminal work (see, e.g., Lehmann 1986; Herrmann 2003; 2005), and the most relevant for the present study is that of Herrmann (2003).

Herrmann (2003: 129), who studied relativization in six varieties of nonstandard spoken Englishes, modified the AH based on the findings of her study:

SUBJECT > DIRECT OBJECT > PREPOSITIONAL COMPLEMENT > GENETIVE (OTHER)

97 The distribution and use of adverbial relativizers where, when and why are not included in this inves-tigation.

98 According to Keenan and Comrie (1977: 66), oblique case refers to “NPs that express arguments of the main predicate”. They are rather obligatory prepositional complements that function as adverbials (the chest in which John put the money in) than “optional prepositional complements functioning as adverbial adjuncts (John left on that day)” (see also Herrmann 2003: 128).

The separate category “other” was formed for the least relativized positions such as indirect objects, adverbials, subject complements and object complements, which are infrequent relativizer positions in spoken English. Subject is the most relativized posi-tion in all six dialects in Herrmann’s data, while, for example, indirect objects are rare (see also Romaine 1982). One of the aims of the current study is to investigate how rela-tivization strategies in news writing comply with Herrmann’s modified AH model based on speech. The present findings in relation to the AH will be discussed in section 5.9.4.