Re: USAGE: NATLANG: I've Gots An English Question

----- Original Message -----
From: "BP Jonsson" <bpj@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2003 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: NATLANG: I've Gots An English Question


> At 12:09 22.6.2003 -0400, Steg Belsky wrote:
>
> >So then what dialect of English *adds* final |-s|s where Standard
> >American says they don't belong?
>
> Some traditional British English dialects have generalized -s
> throughout the present tense.
As I said before, in British Dialects,  a generalised -s indicates a past
tense.  I'm not sure how to describe it...recountative tense?  It's used
when recounting an event.  For instance "I goes to town" would be correctly
translated as "I went to town", rather than "I go/am going to town".  The
phrase is nearly always preceded or followed by 'and' [n=]  For instance "I
goes to town, right, and..."[7g@z t&:~ r\7i? n=](very thick london accent,
spoken very quickly) is correct(in that it occurs).  However, in answer to
the question "what did do yesterday?", "I goes to town"  is incorrect.  The
answer can only be "I went to town"[7 wEn?@ t&:n]. I hope that clears some
stuff up.

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