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2	Virgin Islands English Plural Marking 1a) The goat dem in the yard. (Marked def. reference) 1b) The goatØ in the yard. (Unmarked def. reference) 1c) I n tell you, keep your goats in the pen? (Marked def. reference) 1d) I n tell you, keep ju goatØ in the pen? (Unmarked def. reference) 1e) Leave two/some johnny cakeØ for tomorrow. (Unmarked indef. reference)
3	Bare Nouns 2a) Monkey know what tree to climb. (unspecified reference) 2b) RS: What animals did your great grand parents own? Ms. A: They had cow and mule. (unspecified reference) RS: How many cows and mules? Ms. A I don’t know. They never tell me.
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5	"Clues to Plurality" Clues to Plurality Linguistic Clues Plural morpheme Plural verb form Plural modifier Contextual Cues Prior or subsequent discourse Knowledge of world Items Not Included in the Count Vocatives (e.g., Gentlemen [,] I do not at all question . . .) Items to which number could not be assigned unambiguously (e.g., Your worships order, he saw no ship) Genitives of measure (e.g., 11 hand canoe); Numeral/number + Collective noun combinations (e.g., 45 dozen) Pluralized adjectivals (e.g., men slaves) De-adjectival generic collective nouns ending in sibilants that occurred with the definite article. (e.g., The Dutch) Marked plurals with the preceding word(s) missing (e.g., [omission] chests) Plural NPs containing ditto
6	Factor Groups Dependent variable: Mark Unmarked plural (regular or irregular) Marked regular plural Marked irregular plural 1. Agent (N = 12) 2. Preceding Segment Vowel Nasal Glide - Did not occur Sibilant Irregular plural 3. Following Phonological Environment Vowel Consonant Pause Irregular plural 4. Definiteness/Specificity Definite Specific Non-specific 5. NP modification Quantifier Partitive Demonstrative pronoun Number Other None 6. Animacy Human Inanimate, - measurable quantity Animate, - human Measurable quantity 7. Perceptual saliency Syllable stressed Syllable unstressed
7	Dependent Variable: Mark
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16	What does the analysis reveal about English on the West African coast? High rate of plural marking shared by 10 RAC agents. Conditioning for following phonological environment not inconsistent with laboriously written tokens. Relatively weaker effect of preceding segment suggests writing did not influence patterning of plural markers.
17	What does the analysis tell us about links between 17^th century British English and Diasporan language varieties? Evidence for continuity with African American varieties is mixed and weak: Unexpected and non significant effect of following phonological environment (rarely) attested in African American communities, Strong evidence for patterning of nouns of measure consistent with White Nova Scotia English, but patterning does not occur in Samaná English, the Ex-Slave Recordings, or African Nova Scotian English. Non-significant functional effect for unmodified nouns, but effect for demonstratives is not in the expected direction. Little evidence of continuity of patterning with informal speech in the Caribbean. Definite nouns are more likely to be marked than unmarked No evidence of the definiteness constraint No evidence of the bare noun category
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