YAEDT? Syntax in dialects of English (was: Of accents & dialects (was: Azurian phonology))

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:50:26 +0100, R A Brown
<ray@...> wrote:
>Michael Poxon wrote:
>>You don't have to go outside England for weird dialects, by the way!
>>Yes, there certainly are huge differences in both vocab and syntax just
>>within England.
>
>Quite so. Eldin is unlikely to have heard them from over the other side
>of the Pond. You have be there among the dialect speakers.
>[snip]
>>> 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.
>
>Syntax, morphology & lexis, as well as phonology. As I said above, it's
>not likely you would hear them across the Pond.
>
>--
>Ray
Can anyone tell us what some of these major differences in syntax are, and
which dialects have them, and where they're spoken?

Especially those spoken within the kingdom of England itself.

And, why those differences in syntax count as "major"?

And, if there are any dialects of English spoken in England, that have several
such major differences in syntax, what dialects and what differences are
involved?

And BTW: When you speak of major differences in morphology; are there any
dialects of English spoken in England, in which there are any morphological
categories that don't exist in Standard English?
And if there are some that omit morphological categories that exist in
Standard English, which dialects omit them, and which categories are omitted,
and what do dialect-speakers say instead?

Thanks.

>
>In these days of universal education and mass communication, most people
>in such places are 'bilingual', i.e. they speak dialect among those
>around them, but in situations when a wide audience is aimed at then
>they'll speak more or less standard English with some regional coloring
>in pronunciation.
>
>In my last job before I retired one of my colleagues came from the
>Toxteth area of Liverpool. He spoke standard English with a marked
>regional accent - he referred to it as "poshed up Scouse" - i.e. the
>phonology was partially modified to smooth out, so to speak, the more
>extreme differences between Scouse & RP (and the syntax and vocab were,
>of course, standard). But his wife told me that when he's with his
>brother then he's actually speaking Scouse and is almost
>incomprehensible to us southerners.
>
I have noticed among nearly all of my acquaintances that their speech
conforms more closely to whatever 'lect they happen to share with their
interlocutors whenever they have a common 'lect, and to Standard Average
American English whenever they don't have a common 'lect.

My own speech, when speaking to another Texan, is markedly more Texan,
than when speaking to other Michiganders.

For children, or people who haven't "been around" much, differences in dialect
between, say, Tennessee and New York, can be "mutually unintelligible".  For
most random pairs of adult USAans or Canadians, though, it's possible for any
two of them to make themselves comprehensible to each other.

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