LINGUIST List 15.2728

Fri Oct 01 2004

Qs: Ellipsis Survey; English Dialect Alternation

Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyerlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Marjorie McShane, Ellipsis Survey
2. Mark Jones, English Dialect Alternation

Message 1: Ellipsis Survey

Date: 30-Sep-2004
From: Marjorie McShane <marge

umbc.edu>
Subject: Ellipsis Survey

I am seeking linguists who are native speakers of languages other than
English or Russian to participate in a project to describe the ellipsis
properties of languages cross-linguistically. Participants will be asked to fill
out a theory-neutral survey about ellipsis whose results will be compiled
into a freely accessible database. Linguists who are not native speakers but
can work with the latter are also encouraged to participate.

At this point, I would appreciate hearing from anyone who is, in principle,
interested in participating in this project (no strings attached!). Ideally, this
work will lead to building a community of researchers who can jointly flesh
out this complex aspect of language description.

Please respond directly to me, Marge McShane, at:

marge

umbc.edu

Thank you!

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics; General Linguistics;
Language Description; Semantics; Syntax

Message 2: English Dialect Alternation

Date: 30-Sep-2004
From: Mark Jones <markjjones

hotmail.com>
Subject: English Dialect Alternation

I'm aware that there is some literature on the use of 'were' instead of 'was' in
northern English dialects though I'm not familiar with it at all. I have a query
about the basis on which 'were' has been assumed to be the dialect form in
use.

I'm a non-native speaker of the dialect(s) concerned, but I do count myself
as a ''native listener'' of the Sheffield dialect, having been exposed to it in
my mother's and family's speech and having lived in the area for 10 years.

When I first came across this area of research while transcribing recordings
of the Survey of English Dialects in Leeds in 1997, it seemed remarkable to
me that the forms assumed to be 'were' and 'weren't' had been analysed as
such - for me they always seemed to be 'was' and 'wasn't'. Loss of /z/ is
common at least for negative forms in the accent: isn't = in't, doesn't =
dun't, hasn't = an't.

The quality of the short vowel in both the dialectal negative and the
affirmative is perhaps another indicator of the origin of these forms: it
tends to be the short open back rounded CLOTH vowel in British
English 'hot', making 'wan't' = 'wasn't' homophonous with 'want' as in 'to
want to'. Much more rarely is it the British English NURSE vowel which I take
to be a long schwa (cf. many transcriptions of NURSE in Foulkes and
Docherty (1999) Urban Voices). I don't think that a form with short schwa
occurs.

In other words, I feel that 'were' and 'weren't' may possibly occur
occasionally but the majority of reported cases could involve a short CLOTH
vowel and therefore be more appropriately derived from 'was', particularly
(and perhaps crucially in a diachronic sense) in the negative, where /z/ loss
is usual. The possibility of phonological 'contamination' by 'were' must also
be borne in mind. The situation is complicated by the possible occurrence
of linking / intrusive /r/ after the 'wa(s)/were' form in some dialects. This
often makes it look like the form 'were' _must_ be involved, but a
counterexample is in the tag 'worrit' with a clear CLOTH vowel, e.g. 'that
wan't a good idea, worrit?'. Perhaps vowel lowering before /r/ could be
argued to play a role in this case, but the vowel is short and there is still the
CLOTH vowel in the /z/- less 'wan't' form.

These thoughts have just been stirred up again by a word-list of local
dialect forms I've been sent by a native speaker of South Yorkshire dialect
for transcription into IPA. The forms have been collected by her for use in a
project she is carrying out. Interestingly, she has spontaneously used an
orthographic form 'wan't' for the dialect form, not the assumed 'weren't'.

I wondered whether Listmembers familiar with the literature could comment
on whether or not the possibility had been addressed that dialectal use of
supposedly 'were/weren't' forms actually involved 'wa(s), wa(s)n't' forms,
and whether any instrumental phonetic studies on the vowel quality or
some investigation of native speaker intuitions/perceptions/categorisations
had in fact been carried out which might justify the analysis as 'were'.

Obviously I'd also welcome any comments from native speakers too. I will of
course post a summary should the responses warrant it.

Many thanks,

Mark Jones
Department of Linguistics
University of Cambridge
mjj13

cam.ac.uk

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Phonology
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