Variation

The pattern of differential use of variants across pairs of linguistically related variables exists in the area of consonants also. The voiceless dental fricative variant of the variable /ð/ ~ /d/, and the voiced dental fricative variant of the variable /θ/ ~ /d/, each idealized JamE fricative variant does not occur in JamE with the same frequency. As Irvine intimates, model speakers of JamE produce a mere 48% of the JamE fricative variant, /ð/, and 52% of the JamC linked stop variant, /d/. The JamC linked variant is therefore very present in JamE and in fact occurs more frequently than the English variant. This is quite different with the parallel variable, /θ/ ~ /t/. Here, it is the JamE linked variant, [θ], which is in the ascendant, occurring in 88% of the occurrences of this variable.