Socially motivated variation in Bermeo Basque : understanding the effects of occupation and sex on language variation and change in causal (lako)

I here report on a variationist study that investigates the variable (lako) using a set of ethnographic interviews with 19 elderly speakers of Bermeo Basque born in 1916-1939, whose speech represents the earliest stage available of (lako). Although no significant effects have been found for linguistic factors, younger speakers, females, and mariners (as opposed to townsfolk) are shown to use non-standard, innovative variants significantly more. However, even though these findings suggest that as a whole the change was underway, two opposing trends emerge such that townsfolk, in contrast to mariners, go back to conservative forms once Bermeo establishes itself as a fishing-oriented economy in the late 1920s. Moreover, males appear to be more sensitive to the occupational divide, which may be accounted for by the local dynamics whereby men remained secluded in occupationally-driven social practices while women entered public life and had more frequent inter-group interactions