Grammatical Diversity Project
Minimal differences found in linguistic varieties that are overall very similar provide linguists the opportunity to take a close look at where exactly grammatical systems differ, and how exactly they differ. Though this approach to the study of syntax has proven very fruitful in several different empirical domains, it has not been applied in full force to varieties of English spoken in North America.
The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project attempts to address this gap in two ways:
- Documenting micro-syntactic variation in varieties of English
What are some of the interesting syntactic properties exhibited by varieties of English spoken in North America? Where are they attested? Why they are worth investigating and who has written about them? The website provides answers to these questions and gives access to a database of examples extracted from the relevant literature.
- Grammatical diversity in North American English
I am also working on a volume that collects articles on micro-syntactic variation in varieties of English spoken in the US (and possibly Canada, though I don’t have a contribution on Canadian English at this time). The volume is still in the making, but here is the list of contributors so far: