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An analysis of the syntactic and lexical features of an Indian English oral narrative: A Pear Story study. (open access)

An analysis of the syntactic and lexical features of an Indian English oral narrative: A Pear Story study.

This pilot study addresses the distribution of nonstandard syntactic and lexical features in Indian English (IE) across a homogeneous group of highly educated IE speakers. It is found that nonstandard syntactic features of article use, number agreement and assignment of verb argument structure do not display uniform intragroup distribution. Instead, a relationship is found between nonstandard syntactic features and the sociolinguistic variables of lower levels of exposure to and use of English found within the group. While nonstandard syntactic features show unequal distribution, nonstandard lexical features of semantic reassignment, and mass nouns treated as count nouns display a more uniform intragroup distribution.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Seale, Jennifer Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library