On the boundaries of linguistic competence: matched-guise experiments as evidence of knowledge of grammar

This paper illustrates a methodology for discovering whether speakers have knowledge of the non-categorical grammatical constraints which are evident in the distribution of sociolinguistic variables, through a case study of copula absence in AAVE. It is hypothesized that social and grammatical constraints on variation can interact. The matched-guise methodology of Lambert and others is adapted to determine whether the grammatical environment can affect listeners’ social evaluation of a linguistic variable. The evidence, though preliminary, suggests that it can, and this in turn suggests that listeners do have knowledge of the relevant non-categorical constraints.