How grown Grew from one syllable to two∗

We would like to thank the following people: those who helped with the data collection include linguistics students at the University of Canterbury, pupils and teachers at Christ's College, Rangi Ruru, St Margaret's College, Riccarton High School and Linwood High School; the teachers who participated in the Auckland attitude study; David Maclagan who helped with the analysis of spoken data. We acknowledge the research carried out by Tony Deverson and Gabrielle Tavener, and we are grateful to them for permitting us to use their results. We would especially like to thank Gillian Lewis, Chris Bartlett, Lyle Campbell, Peter Trudgill and Jean Hannah for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and all those who responded to our query on the internet. We would like to thank the University of Canterbury for financial support for Study A and the N.Z. Foundation for Science and Technology for financial support for the analysis of the 1940s recordings collected by the Mobile Disc Recording Unit of the NZBC; also for financial support for Studies B and C and the Auckland teachers’ attitude study.

Abstract

This paper examines the use of two variants of participles ending in ‐own in New Zealand English: the traditional OWN and the newer analogical OWEN form. It traces the historical background of the OWEN variant, indicating where this occurs in other varieties of English. Data on current usage in New Zealand are presented showing that professional men and younger professional women prefer the OWEN variant, while non‐professional men and older women use the traditionally correct OWN form. Older professional women use both forms almost equally. Data from attitude studies are presented to support the hypothesis that these results have come about because of different notions of correctness relating to these variants.

Notes

We would like to thank the following people: those who helped with the data collection include linguistics students at the University of Canterbury, pupils and teachers at Christ's College, Rangi Ruru, St Margaret's College, Riccarton High School and Linwood High School; the teachers who participated in the Auckland attitude study; David Maclagan who helped with the analysis of spoken data. We acknowledge the research carried out by Tony Deverson and Gabrielle Tavener, and we are grateful to them for permitting us to use their results. We would especially like to thank Gillian Lewis, Chris Bartlett, Lyle Campbell, Peter Trudgill and Jean Hannah for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and all those who responded to our query on the internet. We would like to thank the University of Canterbury for financial support for Study A and the N.Z. Foundation for Science and Technology for financial support for the analysis of the 1940s recordings collected by the Mobile Disc Recording Unit of the NZBC; also for financial support for Studies B and C and the Auckland teachers’ attitude study.