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Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 44:3 (2023) ► pp.381–402

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As if, as though, and like in Canadian English

Register and the onset of change

ORCiD logo with link | University of Toronto
Published online: 23 March 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.22038.bro
Abstract
This article traces the history of the minor complementisers as if, as though, and like (when they follow evidential verbs such as seem and look) in Canadian English. By the 21st century, both as if and as though were rare in Canada, while like appeared to have become popular (. 2012b. “On the Use of as if, as though, and like in Present-Day English Complementation Structures”. Journal of English Linguistics 401: 172–195. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The Victoria English Archive (D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2011–2014. Victoria English: Its Development and Current State. Research grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC, #410-2011-0219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2015. “At the Crossroads of Change: Possessions, Periphrasis, and Prescriptivism in Victoria English”. In Peter Collins, ed. Grammatical Change in English World-Wide. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 43–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Roeder, Rebecca, Sky Onosson, and Alexandra D’Arcy. 2018. “Joining the Western Region: Sociophonetic Shift in Victoria”. Journal of English Linguistics 461: 87–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) is used to map out the change in a combination of synchronic and diachronic spoken data. Results show that as if and as though are unusual even in the earliest speakers, which puts spoken Canadian English at odds with contemporaneous writing (. 2014. “Comparative Complementizers in Canadian English: Insights from Early Fiction”. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 201: Article 2.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, this unexpected register difference may explain why the complementiser like caught on in North American dialects of English sooner and more readily than in the United Kingdom – where a robust as if and as though in speech would have remained barriers.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Corpora
    • 3.2Extraction and exclusions
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Checking for cross-varietal comparability
    • 4.2Looking back at real time and register
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
References (68)
Sources
D’Arcy, Alexandra. 2011–2014. Victoria English: Its Development and Current State. Research grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC, #410-2011-0219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
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