This looks close enough to the mark in the non-socio category:

Collins, Peter. 2012. Singular agreement in there-existentials: An intervarietal corpus-based study. English World-Wide 33(1): 53-68.

Dan

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 6:29 PM, Robert Lawson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi folks,

One of my final year UG students is currently working on a research project for my language and gender module, and one of the things he's interested in is is vs. are forms in plural noun phrases (e.g. There is/are three men in a bar). His suggestion is that is is used more by males than by females, and he's attributing that to orientations towards the (non-)standard markets. He wants to record male and female speakers in Birmingham to see if this holds up in this part of the world, which I'm happy for him to do. It seems to me that this must have already been studied in the literature, but I have no idea where to even start, much less advise him on what kind of literature would be relevant. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for reading (both sociolinguistic and non-socio) on a topic of this kind?

Thanks in advance,

Rob

Dr Robert Lawson
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of English
Birmingham City University
Birmingham, B42 2SU

Fulbright Scottish Studies Award, 2012/13

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