IN/ING Variable

Abstract

Since the advent of modern sociolinguistics, researchers have used the (ING) to assess both social variation and language change. (ING) has two variants: The velar nasal [{eng}]; the alveolar nasal [n]. These variants occur predominantly in suffix but may also appear in unstressed monomorphemic forms, like morning. The synchronic variation which makes this variable highly useful for sociolinguists has been active since the Old English period. In Modern English, (ING) variation is present almost everywhere English is spoken, but it is not currently undergoing language change.

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Hazen K (2006), IN/ING Variable. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-Chief) Encyclopedia
of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 5, pp. 581-584. Oxford: Elsevier.

Author's Personal Copy
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IN/ING Variable
K Hazen, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV,
USA
ß2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The sociolinguistic variable (ING) accounts for the
variation of the production of two phonetic forms: a
coronal nasal [n] and a velar nasal [N], as in I was
walki[n] and Walki[N]is fun.
This variable has been a staple of sociolinguists
since the advent of the modern field. Scholars of
language variation have studied this variable since
the 1950s, and historical linguists have argued its
origins since the end of the 19th century (although
most of the attention by historical linguists came as a
result of their study of the development of gerunds
and the progressive): Callaway (1889, 1929), Curme
(1912), Poutsma (1923), Langenhove (1925), Gaaf
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(1928), Jespersen (1926), Rooth (1941), Dal (1952),
Mosse
´(1938), Irwin (1967).
Several properties of the (ING) variable have main-
tained its scholarly popularity. First, a wide variety of
people talk about it: For over two centuries, nonlin-
guists and linguists alike have discussed for various
dialects the prescriptive values of ‘G-dropping,’the
nonacademic name for the [In] variant of this vari-
able. As reported in Houston (1985: 338), Lowe pro-
vides the following homophonous pairs of words:
coffin and coughing,coming and cumin,heron and
herring. Each of these pairs indicates that the author
was aware that <ing>was linked to an [In] articula-
tion. The first negative prescriptive evaluation
Houston found derives from a letter to the editor of
a British newspaper in 1902 which decried ‘‘a disloyal
crusade against the Queen’s English ...which ... will
...deprive present participles of their final ‘g.’(1985:
338)’’ By the 20th century, it appears that the public
assumed the velar nasal articulation to be the basic
form from which the coronal pronunciation derived.
The second property of the (ING) variable which
makes it popular among sociolinguists is the relative-
ly easy set of methodologies involved in its collection.
For sociolinguists in research projects or for peda-
gogical class projects, reliably conducting analysis of
(ING) is relatively easy: trained undergraduates and
seasoned professors can both yield dependable results
for recorded interviews as the two variants are
impressionistically simple to discern.
Third, and perhaps most important, the sociolin-
guistic variable (ING) has a richly complex path of
diachronic variation while maintaining a relatively
clear synchronic profile. Synchronically, (ING) varia-
tion can be used to map out social dimensions;
diachronically, (ING) variation involves several
realms of language change for over a millennium.
For sociolinguistics, the (ING) variable is like the
fruit fly (drosophila) for biology, a complex subject
yielding results for researchers with different goals.
(ING) has had diachronic (phylogenic) development;
its synchronic (ontogenetic) variations in the speech
community reflect mutations in areas of the lexicon,
morphology, and phonology as well as extensive
social variation.
Historical Roots of ING
The (ING) variable has had a long diachronic path.
Like several of its Germanic sisters, Old English had
the roots of -ing. Along the path towards Modern
English, these separate, apparently stable forms
merged to become the modern suffix -ing. Irwin
(1967) reported that the feminine suffix -ung for
verbal nouns was replaced by the masculine suffix
for verbal nouns, -ing: e.g., OE hael ‘to heal’;haelung
‘the act of healing’was rendered as haeling. By the
end of the 13th century, this gender distinction
appears to have been completely lost, with the -ing
form as the sole survivor.
Irwin (1967) examined <nd>and <ng>forms
from the 8th to the 15th centuries; her scholarship
indicates that the majority <nd>forms were replaced
by the <ng>forms in the 15th century. It appears that
<nd>forms did not replace <ng>forms: the alter-
nations were not random confusion but a unidirec-
tional replacement. Houston (1985: c. 100) reported
that the geographic area where -ing replaced -ind in
the 15th century maintained higher probabilities of
the velar variant in the 20th century. It is partially
with this alternation between -ing and -ind that the
alternation between the velar and alveolar nasals of
modern -ing arose. The full diachronic story appears
to have other possible influences (Houston, 1985:
164), but these three suffixes were the major players.
In the transition from Middle to Early Modern
English, Houston (1985) described a vowel situation
which may have led the orthographic overlap of
<ing> for both -inde and -inge. Several studies
reported variability of the preceding vowel between
[I], [e], and even high tense [i] (Houston, 1985;
Woods, 1978). In the south of England, where
the printing houses of London were establishing the
orthographic standards, the high vowel before the
nasal allowed the coronal nasal of -ind to be heard
more as a velar. This influence may have contributed
to the merger of the suffixes. Houston, in contrast
with previous scholars, argued for the establishment
of the modern spelling system as a reflection of the
lack of distinction between verbal and nominal forms
of the suffix. Previous scholars, for example Wyld
(1936), had argued that a pre-Early Modern English
[In] articulation was affected by the orthographic
<ing>, resulting in a pronunciation of [IN].
Prescriptive Commentary
Of note for (ING) is the use of the orthographic
apostrophe, as in walkin’. Although this is the clear
favorite for orthographically marking the coronal [n],
it is relatively new in relation to the actual alternation
between these forms. The apostrophe does not appear
until the 19th century (Houston, 1985: 53). Before
this convention, Houston argued that a final
<e>marked the released velar stop in forms such as
sinnynge. For those authors of fictional works who
used the apostrophe to mark a speaker as of lower
socio-economic status or less educated, Houston
(1985: 350) did not find that the apostrophe’s mark-
ing of [n] follows the grammatical constraint found
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for modern speakers or pre-apostrophe documents.
She claimed (1985: 362) that the authors did not
share these grammatical constraints and were not
aware of them. The presence or absence of <e>does
correlate with the grammatical constraint (Houston,
1985: 361).
Conditions of Synchronic Variation
The sociolinguistic variable (ING) encompasses, in
part, the English inflectional progressive morpheme
and the English derivational gerundial morpheme,
both spelled <ing>, as in the following examples:
she is walking;walking is fun. Labov (1989: 87)
reported a grammatical set of conditionings within
an implicational hierarchy where the [In] variant was
favored ‘‘most in progressives and participles, less in
adjectives, even less in gerunds and least of all in
nouns like ceiling and morning.’’ With these mono-
morphemic lexemes such as ceiling, the variation be-
tween the coronal and velar nasals is not an
alternation of morphemes, but a switching of places
of articulation. As a sociolinguistic variable, (ING) is
a coherent whole with two variants; however, (ING)
is not the result of a single linguistic process.
Most studies focus on unstressed -ing, following
Labov (1972). Thus, monosyllabic words such as
ring,king,sing, and bring are not considered possible
environments. For most speakers surveyed, this cate-
gory of lexemes does not vary in the velar place of
articulation of its final nasal. Stress patterns may also
affect realizations of -ing in multisyllabic words.
Houston (1985: 22) found the velar variant to be
nearly categorical in the words everything and any-
thing but nearly absent in the words something and
nothing for Southern U.S. speakers, although this
pattern was not robust for her British urban data.
Houston reasons that the -ing syllable receives sec-
ondary stress in everything and anything but not in
the disyllabic words something and nothing.
Beyond prosodic concerns, another phonological
factor Houston (1985: 19) discussed is the regressive
homorganic assimilation and the progressive homor-
ganic dissimilation for [n] and [N]. For example, in
peeling carrots the following velar favors an [N] and
feeling tired the following alveolar favors [n]; in
speaking up and sending out, the preceding conso-
nants disfavor homorganic articulation of [N] and [n]
respectively. However, Labov (2001: 87) claimed
that ‘‘there seems to be no strong phonological
conditioning before following velars or apicals.’’
One important typological quality of these phonetic
variants relates to implicational tendencies: the velar
nasal is not as common as the alveolar nasal in the
world’s languages; its distribution in the inventory of
English sounds is more restricted; children acquire the
velar nasal latter than the alveolar (Grunel, 1987). It
could well be that such tendencies for [N] to be dis-
favored could have played a role throughout the
history of these forms.
An important quality of the (ING) variable is that
no modern study has shown a change in progress.
Despite its abundant linguistic and social variation,
it does not appear to be undergoing diachronic
variation currently.
Social Factors
Fischer (1958) employed (ING) in his foundational
work on a New England village. Labov (1966) was
the first study to detail social constraints on (ING).
This work demonstrated both socio-economic effects,
specifically an inverse relationship between socio-
economic status and rate of [In], and stylistic effects,
specifically an inverse relationship between formality
and the rate of [In]. In general, these results have
been found in every community where (ING) has
been studied: the variant [In] is associated with both
informality and lower socioeconomic status (see
Labov, 2001: ch. 3).
Many sociolinguistic studies have examined the
(ING) variable, including the following: Shuy et al.
(1968) for Detroit, Labov (2001) for Philadelphia,
Trudgill (1974) for Norwich, Woods (1978) for
Ottawa, Reid (1978) for Edinburgh, Douglas-Cowie
(1978) for Northern Ireland, and Wolfram and
Christian (1976) for West Virginia. Variation in the
(ING) variable has been noted in Australia, Canada,
England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and the
United States. Only in South Africa is there a native
English-speaking population which reportedly does
not vary between [n] and [N] for the (ING) variable
(Gordon and Sudbury, 2002: 81). Labov (2001: 90)
reported that ‘‘Southern States English, northern
English, and Scots stand out [because] there the /in/
form is used almost exclusively in speech, even of the
most formal kind.’’
Within the United States, researchers have studied
(ING) usage in both African-American and Europe-
an-American communities. Anshen (1969) compared
these two ethnic groups in the southern United States,
finding several similarities: For both ethnic groups,
men use [In] more than women.
(ING) is one of the consummate sociolinguistic
variables. Its complete story involves both diachronic
and synchronic variation, both internal and external
factors. Three original Old English forms merged
over the centuries into one form for one regional
dialect. This one dialect established the prescriptive
orthographic standard as <ing>, covering for two
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different suffixes and monomorphemic forms. The
modern grammatical patterns for (ING) are now a
synchronic echo of these previously heterophonous
morphemes. Social differentiation arose between the
two forms, where the southern English [N] was
considered standard and the [n] nonstandard. This
social distinction may have arose after the regional
differentiation came to the level of consciousness.
See also: Assimilation; Labov, William (b. 1927); Old English
Dictionaries; Sociophonetics; Synchronic and Diachronic
Variation.
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Incorporation
J M Sadock, University of Chicago, Chicago,
IL, USA
ß2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Incorporation is the grammatical phenomenon
whereby a word contains morphemes that can be
understood as separate elements of a proposition.
The term is sometimes used more narrowly to refer
only to cases where the morphemes are joined by
compounding or where the grammatical or semantic
relation is restricted in one way or another, and it is
sometimes used more generally to include certain
cases where the morphemes are not clearly joined
morphologically at all.
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