Turning to deontic modal usage, research conducted by Tagliamonte and D’Arcy (2007a) reveals that have to outranks other exponents of deontic modality in Toronto English. Competing forms of varying antiquity, including must, the historically oldest var- iant, and (have) got to are comparatively infrequent. Diachronic evidence of gradient change in the modal system in Early Ontario English testifies to the early rise of have to, which appears to have been inherited from precursor Loyalist speech varieties (Dollin- ger 2006: 296). The ascendancy of modal have to in contemporary Canadian English dovetails more generally with a North American trend characterized by the specialization of have to across the deontic domain (Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2007a: 72). Discourse-pragmatic variation and change The quotative system In contemporary Canadian English, variation in the use of a number of competing forms to introduce reported speech, interior monologue or non-lexicalized sounds constitutes a vigorous area of change which has witnessed the dramatic rise of quotative be like (e.g. shes like, ‘You look really familiar’) within a relatively compressed time frame.