Relative clauses in Australian English: a cross-varietal diachronic study

Abstract

Research on grammatical change in the Late Modern English period has concentrated almost exclusively on British and American English. This study traces developments in the category of relative clauses in Australian English, seeking to determine whether historical exonormative ties with the ‘Mother Country’ are still in evidence and, if not, whether there is evidence of any alignment with American English, the current centre of gravity in English world-wide. Data derived from two recently compiled Australian corpora, COOEE and AusCorp, which together cover the period of approximately two centuries from the foundation of the first British colony in Australia in 1788 to the present day, are compared with that from ARCHER, a diachronic corpus of British and American English. The results indicate that in developments such as the rise of that-relatives and decline of wh-relatives, Australian English patterns closely with innovative American usage, eschewing the conservatism of its colonial parent.