Chris Joby* Third-person singular zero in Norfolk English: An addendum DOI 10.1515/flih-2016-0002 Abstract: An article published in 2014 argued that the third-person singular present tense indicative zero was already present in Norfolk English before the arrival of Dutch- and French-speaking immigrants in Norwich in the middle of the sixteenth century. This position differs from that of Trudgill, who has argued that zero-marking in Norfolk English arose as a result of language contact between the immigrants (or ‘Strangers’) and local English people. One response to the earlier article is that it relies on examples involving the verb have, and that this verb is something of an exception as it is found with zero-marking in other varieties of English. The present article addresses that concern by provid- ing further evidence that zero-marking was already used in Norfolk English for verbs other than have before the arrival of the Strangers in Norwich. It then evaluates whether, although zero-marking was present prior to 1565, Trudgill’s language contact thesis may nevertheless help to explain how zero-marking became a common feature of Norfolk English and indeed of varieties of English elsewhere in East Anglia. In short, this article aims to shed further light on the interesting question of how and when zero-marking developed in Norfolk English. Keywords: Norfolk English, language contact, zero-marking, third-person singular present indicative 1 Introduction A recent article argued that there is evidence that zero-marking was used in the Norfolk dialect for the third-person singular present indicative (e. g., he go rather than he goes) before the arrival in Norwich from 1565 onwards of large numbers of Dutch- and French-speaking immigrants, who had left the Low Countries as a *Corresponding author: Chris Joby, Department of Dutch, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea, E-mail: chrisjoby@hufs.ac.kr This work was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund. Folia Linguistica Historica 2016; 37: 33–60 Brought to you by | University of Exeter Authenticated Download Date | 4/4/17 9:23 PM