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

I am not a native speaker of british english, so my observatiions may not count
as much. However, I have lived in England for about two and half years or so. I
have observed that people from Lincolnshire have a very intriguing cleft
construction which is very different than what I would use as an American
English speaker from New York. So, instead of saying something like:

'He's a good man is Tony Blair.'

I would say 'Tony Blair is a Good man'

similarly with a wide variety of clefts like:

'It's a cold country is Iceland' or 'That's a good beer is Becks'

As for more general British dialects, it is common to say 'I am/was sat in the
pub drinking a beer' as opposed to standard British/American English 'I was
sitting in the pub drinking beer.' If any native British speaker would like to
counter these assertions, please do so - as I have only had a limited
experience of these sorts of constructions.

-Elliott.





----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Poxon <mike@...>
To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 8:32:18 PM
Subject: Re: YAEDT? Syntax in dialects of English (was: Of accents & dialects (was:
Azurian phonology))

There's a construction in Norfolk dialect that may be called the "strict
imperative" taking the form of "do you come here now!" (this is a command,
not a question and has the intonation of an imperative) meaning "come here
now... or else!"
Also quite common is the the use of "that" as a definite article and a
stressed pronoun too: "that dog died, that did"
Mike

> 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?

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