Implicational scales in colloquial Belgian Dutch

Abstract In variationist linguistics, the concept of implicational hierarchies, i.e. the idea that feature x implies y but not the reverse, has passed into oblivion the last decades (cf. Rickford 2002: 142). This paper aims at showing the usefulness of implicational scales as an analytical tool, especially when attempting to understand stylistic dynamics and the structure of intermediate variations in dialect/standard continua. The discussion is based on results from empirical research in Flanders, where intermediate language use between dialect and standard language (the so-called tussentaal) is increasingly prevalent. In general, tussentaal is conceived of as the whole continuum of regionally coloured language use in between the poles ‘traditional dialect’ and ‘standard language’, and it is hence said to differ from region to region, situation to situation and even from speaker to speaker (Willemyns 2005: 31). Necessary and sufficient conditions would be impossible to define (cf. De Caluwe 2006: 19). This paper however demonstrates, on the basis of quantitative analyses of nine language features as used by ten West Flemish speakers in three types of speech settings, that tussentaal is not just a random idiolectal mix of dialect features, but that it is structured by implicational principles shared across the speech community.