This paper is a study of internal constraints on Negative/Auxiliary-Contraction in the English of Derby, a medium-sized city in the Northern Midlands of England.

Most varieties of British English exhibit variation in auxiliary cliticisation in negative declaratives. In particular, finite auxiliary forms of be, have, will and would with some cross-dialectal exceptions -variably contract with either a preceding subject (AUXcontraction), or a following negative morpheme (NEG-contraction), as in (1) and (2), respectively. (1) Hes not doing it. (2) He isnt doing it. (AUX-contraction) (NEG-contraction)

The traditional view of this variable is summed up by Trudgill who suggested that AUX-contraction increased the further North one goes (1978:13). In a recent quantitative study of Negative/Auxiliary-Contraction in eight different speech communities around the UK, however, Tagliamonte and Smith (2003) find little support for a clear North-South divide in AUX-Contraction. They do not discuss UK Midlands dialects in detail, but based on data from a smaller speech sample from the Midlands dialects of Ironbridge and Nottingham, Tagliamonte and Smith tentatively posit the Midlands as a possible focal area for NEGContraction; a view suggesting the dialectal patterning of AUX/NEG-Contraction is perhaps something closer to centre-periphery. The goal of this paper is to examine this possibility in view of data from the city of Derby. The data used were taken from transcriptions of conversations between 8 pairs of speakers, evenly distributed for sex, gathered for the project Phonological Variation and Change in Contemporary Spoken British English (Milroy, Milroy and Docherty 1997). These were supplemented with tokens from the spoken section of the British National Corpus. In accordance with Tagliamonte and Smiths procedure, only older, native speakers of the dialect were included in the sample and a total of 291 tokens were yielded from the two corpora, which were then coded and analysed using Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith 2005). The results are notable in two main ways in view of Tagliamonte and Smiths (2003) findings. First, the Derby data show a much higher rate of AUX-Contraction (57%) than any of Tagliamonte and Smiths eight communities, which appears contrary to the latters suggestion that Midland varieties would favour NEG-contraction; suggesting instead that Derby may actually be a focal point for AUX-contraction. Secondly, the effect of the internal constraints appears unlike those from Tagliamonte and Smiths data, as preceding subject type -Pro vs. DP vs. Existential There- is shown to have a stronger effect on contraction than preceding phonological environment. Only the former is selected as significant in this study with preceding pro-forms favouring AUX-contraction (.66) and preceding DPs strongly disfavouring it (.11). In addition to the findings already presented by Tagliamonte and Smith, these data strongly suggest cross-dialectal differences in the way that internal constraints, particularly those preceding the variable site, affect the variable realisation of Auxiliary/Negative-Contraction in the UK.

References: British National Corpus. http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ (accessed 14/03/06) Milroy, L., Milroy, J. & Docherty G. 1997. Phonological Variation and Change in Contemporary Spoken British English. (Final Report to the ESRC, R000 234892) Sankoff D., Tagliamonte S.A., & E. Smith. 2005. Goldvarb X: A multivariate analysis application. Tagliamonte, S. and J. Smith, 2003. Either it isnt or its not: NEG/AUX contraction in British dialects. English World-Wide: 23:2, 251-281 Trudgill, P., ed. 1978. Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English. London: Edward Arnold.
The [Derby corpus] data on which this study is based were extracted from the project Phonological Variation and Change in Contemporary Spoken British English (UK ESRC grant no. R000 234892; 1994-1997 to J. Milroy, L. Milroy & G. Docherty).