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The present study focuses on the use of pseudo-passives with SIT and STAND in British English (1a, 2a). These are commonly described as equivalent in meaning to the corresponding present progressive forms (1b, 2b), with pseudo-passives considered dialectal in origin (Klemola 1999):

(1) a. so then we were just sat here watching I’m a Celebrity [BNC2014 ST8H: 917]
b. and this dog was just sitting in this little champagne bucket [BNC2014 SAQD: 387]
(2) a. this man was stood there with this chainsaw [BNC2014 SAQD: 659]
b. and he was standing next to me and he kept making conversation [BNC2014 SKPP: 332]

Originally a feature of Northern English dialects (Klemola 1999), earlier studies based on the spoken section of the BNC1994 have shown that it has spread to other areas in Britain (Klemola 1999), notably the Southwest. This spread is more advanced for pseudo-passives with SIT, which are also found in the Midlands and in London (Stange 2014; see also Kortmann/ Szmrescanyi 2004 and Rohdenburg/Schlüter 2009 for the distribution of pseudo-passives in British English dialects).

Drawing on spoken data from the BNC1994 (demographic subset, 5m words) and the BNC2014 (11m words), this paper traces the diachronic development of pseudo-passives and progressives with SIT and STAND in British English in the last twenty years. Potential changes considered in the analysis include the geographical distribution of BE sat and BE stood and their frequency of use. In addition, the data are coded for speaker information (age, gender, socio-economic status, dialect) and the presence of cognitively complex features like negation or subordination (Rohdenburg 1996), which have been shown to often trigger the variant with the progressive form in the BNC1994 data (Stange 2014).

The analyses are based on c. 2,250 occurrences, c. 600 of which constitute pseudo-passives with SIT and STAND. First results show that, for both male and female speakers, BE sat is strongly increasing in frequency in real time and in apparent time (from 19 to 31 occ. pmw), while BE stood remains rather stable (very slight increase from 6 to 8 occ. pmw). In addition, younger women appear to promote the use of dialectal BE sat, with younger men lagging behind. Possibly because of an increase in familiarity, BE sat and BE stood are no longer sensitive to cognitive complexity effects. Furthermore, pseudo-passives with SIT and STAND are newly attested in Eastern England dialects in the BNC2014 data, which indicates that this structure is now diffused throughout the whole island. Pseudo-passives are thus apparently a feature that is maintained rather than effaced in the process of dialect levelling.