Natural selection in syntax: Notes on adaptive variation and change in vernacular and literary grammar☆

Abstract Syntactic and morphological usages in conversational and formal written English show a number of differences, both in what is accepted and what is preferred or most frequent. The central argument is that some of these variations can be explained in terms of the Darwinian concept of natural selection, in which the forms better suited to particular conditions survive or are favoured in those conditions. A subsidiary hypothesis is that English vernacular (conversational) grammar represents an older and more natural tradition, and that certain levels, and constraints generally considered to be characteristic of English grammar, e.g. the sentence level, and elements of relative clause formation, are innovations belonging to a literacy-based form of English.

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