“There is many criteria that I’m studying”: There-Existentials in African Englishes

Abstract

This study investigates existential there-constructions in three African Englishes, namely Ugandan (UgE), Nigerian (NiE), and Kenyan-Tanzanian English (K&TE). Extending Collins’ (2012) comparative analysis of World Englishes, five morphosyntactic constraints on existential non-concord are examined to assess alignment with Inner and Outer Circle patterns, using spoken data from the International Corpus of English: subject-verb agreement, verb tense, copula contraction, covert plural marking, and bare vs. extended existentials. Findings reveal low overall existential non-concord rates characteristic of Outer Circle varieties, with tense emerging as a conditioning factor, though patterns vary depending on analytical perspective. UgE and K&TE exhibit conservative profiles aligning with Non-South-East Asian Outer Circle Englishes, reflecting Phase 3 prescriptivism in Schneider's Dynamic Model. NiE shows greater flexibility, converging with South-East Asian and select Inner Circle norms, indicative of early Phase 4 hybridization and American influence. The results challenge uniform “African English” assumptions, highlighting intra-continental diversity in structural nativization and underscoring the need for expanded corpus representation of underrepresented varieties.