Re: Of accents & dialects (was: Azurian phonology)

On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:42:25 +0100, R A Brown
<ray@...> wrote:
>Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>>[snip]
>> Differences in dialect are much more commonly reflected as differences in
>> vocabulary than as differences in grammar.
>> Most dialects' grammar (especially syntax, but also morphology), are very
>> close to standard;
>
>Are you speaking from an American or British perspective? Traditional
>British _dialects_ often differed quite markedly from standard English -
>particularly in the use pronouns and in certain verb forms. Many of
>these dialects disappeared during the 20th century, leaving only more or
>less standard English spoken with a regional accent.
>
>If someone speaks standard English with a Geordie accent, we southerners
>can generally follow what's said. But if someone speaks in the Geordie
>dialect, then we haven't a hope    ;)
>
>--
>Ray
You're right. I meant only English language and only North American dialects.

I realized after I posted that, though I did mention I was talking about "the
average non-linguist", I should have mentioned that I was only talking about
dialects of English (not of other languages); and that probably I was talking
about the average American non-linguist speaking of American dialects.

I definitely didn't mean U.K. dialects of English outside England proper.
Differences between one British nation's dialects of English and another's, it
seems, do indeed include more, and more-prominent, differences in syntax.

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But as for English dialects (that is, dialects of the English language, spoken
within parts of the nation of England), are there really big differences in
syntax between one and another?  If so I've never heard of them.

I know that Yorkshire dialect (or is it some other dialect?) frequently leaves
out the definite article.  That's a difference in syntax, but I think it might be
reasonable not to call it a big one.

Using "yon" to mean "that guy" is more of a difference in vocabulary, I'm
thinking, than of syntax.

Differences in vocabulary can be big enough to be major obstacles to mutual
intelligibility, without differences in syntax being major at all, I'd think.

At any rate; as has been said, within England, dialectal differences come
closer to being mutually _un_-intelligible than they do in USAan and Canadian
English.  And differences in North American English tend to be more
like "accents" and less like "dialects" (though Cajun and Bajun, among others,
might be reasonably considered "dialects" rather than "accents"); at least
compared to differences within England.

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