Third-person singular zero in the Norfolk dialect A re-assessment

AbstractI use the results of my own research into the language use of the immigrant (or ‘Stranger’) communities in early modern Norwich to evaluate Peter Trudgill’s thesis that it was language contact in Norwich between the Strangers and the local English inhabitants that led to the emergence of third-person singular present tense zero (he go rather than he goes). I present evidence that third-person singular zero was already in use in Norwich and elsewhere in Norfolk by the time when Dutch- and French-speaking immigrants arrived in Norwich. The question then arises as to whether language contact did in fact play any role in establishing zero-marking as the norm in the Norfolk dialect, a process which was complete by about 1700. I argue is that if language contact did play a role in the success of zeromarking, it would have been in a manner different to that described by Trudgill.