2018/01/01 by Raffaella Zanuttini, Jim Wood, Jason Zentz +1 · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
paper · doi:10.1515/lingvan-2016-0070
openalex publication_date 2018/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project approaches the empirical domain of North American English from the perspective of generative microcomparative syntax. In addition to eliciting judgments from speakers of particular varieties, we also conduct large-scale surveys, map the results of those surveys geographically, conduct statistical tests taking geography and other social variables into account, and look for theoretically significant linguistic correlations. In all cases, we do this with the primary goal of understanding variation between speakers at the individual level. While our goals and methodologies are informed by our theoretical perspective, we expect that our work and results will be of interest to linguists working in other frameworks and even to the public more generally. This article outlines the goals and methodologies of the project and describes in broad strokes some of the results obtained so far, as well as some of the ways we have shared our findings with others, inside and outside academia.