|open [’wupen] | | |
|“w” before “r” |
|is not pronounced |Western |is not pronounced |
| |> [vr]: | |
| |wreck, wren, wrench, | |
| |wrap, write, wrong | |
| |e.g. Ye vratch, ye’ve | |
| |vrutten that a’vrang. | |
| |(= You wretch, you’ve | |
| |written that all wrong.)| |
|“wh” at the beginning of a word is [w], [u:], [u?] |
|in the middle of a word [w] is pronounced |
|boy [bwo], moist [mw ?st], toad [twud], cool [kwul], country [’kw?ntr?] |
|“f”, “th”, “s”, “sh” are voiced |
|Friday [’vræ:d?], friends [vr?n(], fleas [vle:z], and in the these words: |
|foe, father, fair, fear, find, fish, foal, full, follow, filth, fist, fire, |
|fond, fault, feast, force, forge, fool. |
|[?]: thought [ð :t], thick [ð?k], thigh [ða?], and in the words: from, |
|freeze, fresh, free, friend, frost, frog, froth, flesh, fly flock, flood, |
|fleece, fling, flower, fail. |
|“t” at the beginning of the word before a vowel |
|Nothern | | |
|> [t?]: | | |
|team [t?em], | | |
|tune [t?un], | | |
|Tuesday [’t?uzde] | | |
|East D “t” in the middle| | |
|of the word is voiced: | | |
|bottle [’b dl], | | |
|kettle [’kedl], | | |
|little [’l?dl], | | |
|nettle [’nedl], | | |
|bottom [’b dm], | | |
|matter [’med?], | | |
|cattle [’k dl], | | |
|kittens [k?dnz] | | |
|“t” in the middle of the word is voiced |
| | |Western |
| | |bottle [’b dl], |
| | |kettle [’kedl], |
| | |little [’l?dl], |
| | |nettle [’nedl], |
| | |bottom [’b dm], |
| | |matter [’med?], |
| | |cattle [’k dl], |
| | |kittens [k?dnz] |
|The consonant [t] in (the French borrowings) hasn’t become [t?] as it is in |
|RP: |
|picture [’p?kt?r], nature [’net?r], feature [’f??t?r] |
|the middle [t] sometimes disappears in the positions before “m…l”, “n…l”, |
|“m…r” |
| |Western | |
| |brimstone [’br?msn] | |
| |empty [’emp?] | |
| |The same happens to the | |
| |middle [b]: | |
| |chamber > chimmer, | |
| |embers > emmers, | |
| |brambles > brimmels | |
|between “l” and “r”; “r” and “l”; “n” and “r” a parasitic [d] has developed |
|parlour [’pa:ld?r], tailor [’ta?ld?r], smaller [’sm :ld?r], curls |
|[’ka:dlz], hurl [’a:dl], marl [’ma:dl], quarrel [’kw :dl], world [’wa:dl], |
|corner [’ka:nd?r] |
| | |a parasitic [d] appeared|
| | |after [l, n, r]: |
| | |feel [fi:ld] |
| | |school [sku:ld] |
| | |idle [a?dld] |
| | |mile [ma?dl] |
| | |born [ba?nd] |
| | |soul [s :ld] |
| | |soon [zu:nd] |
| | |gown [gaund] |
| | |swoon [zaund] |
| | |wine [wa?nd] |
| | |miller [’m?l?d] |
| | |scholar [’sk l?d] |
|the middle [d] in the word “needle” comes after [l]: [ni:ld] |
| |Eastern | |
| |In the word “disturb” | |
| |[b] is pronounced as [v]| |
| |- | |
| |[dis, t?:v] | |
|the first [?] is pronounced as [ð] |
|thank [ðæ?k] and in other words: thatch, thaw, thigh, thin, thing, think, |
|third, thistle, thong, thought, thousand, thumb, thunder, Thursday |
| |Sometimes [?] is | |
| |pronounced as [t] at the| |
| |end of the word: | |
| |lath [lat] | |
| | |In some words [s] at the|
| | |beginning of the word is|
| | |pronounced as [?]: |
| | |suet [?u?t]. |
| | |The same happens when |
| | |[s] is in the middle of |
| | |the word: |
| | |first [fer?t] |
| | |breast [br??t] |
| | |next [n??t] |
| | |North-West W: [s] is |
| | |sometimes pronounced as |
| | |[(]: sure [(u?r] |
|“sh”, “sk” at the end of the word |
| |> [s]: | |
| |cask [k s] | |
| |flask [fl s] | |
| |leash [li:s] | |
| |tusk [tus] | |
| |Sometimes instead of [k]| |
| |[t?] is heard: | |
| |back [b t?] | |
| |wark [wa:t?] | |
|sometimes the initial letter or a syllable is apsent |
| |Western |Eastern |
| |believe, deliver, desire, directly, disturb, |
| |eleven, enough, except, occasion, inquest, |
| |epidemic |
|the initial “cl” |
|> [tl]: clad [tlad], clap, clay, claw, clean, cleave, clergy, clerk, clew, |
|cliff, climb, cling, clip, cloak, close, clot, cloth, cloud, clout |
|“gl” in the beginning of the word |
|> [dl]: glad, glass, glisten, gloom, glove, glow |
|[l] in the middle of the word isn’t pronounced |
| |Already |
| |shoulder [’?a:d?r] |
| | |the Middle/Eastern |
| | |[l] is often > [ ]: |
| | |bill [b?’ ] |
| | |tool [tu’ ] |
| | |nibble [n?’b ] |
| | |milk [m?’ k] |
| | |silk [s?’ k] |
3. Grammar.
3.1 Nouns.
The definite article.
- There isn’t the definite article before “same”: ’Tis same’s I
always told ’ee”.
- The of-phrase “the… of” is of ten used instead of the possessive
pronoun (e.g. “the head of him “instead of” his head”)
The plural form of a noun.
- In many cases -s (es) can be added for several times:
e.g. steps [’steps?z] (South Som.)
- in some cases [n] is heard at the end of the word:
e.g. keys [ki:n] (Wil.)
cows [kain] (Dev.)
bottles [botln] (South-W. Dev.)
primroses [pr?mr zn] (Dev.)
- but sometimes [s] is heard in the words ended with “-n”
e.g. oxen [ ksnz] (Western Som.)
rushes [r?ksnz] (Dev.)
- some nouns have the same form in the singular and in the plural:
e.g. chicken - chickens [t??k] (Som.)
pipe - pipes [pa?p] (Som.)
- sometimes the plural form of the noun is used insted of the
singular form:
a house [auzn] (Southern Wil.)
3.2 Gender.
The full characteristic of Gender in South-Western English I’d like to
base on the part of the article by Paddock. Paddock uses the historical
lebel “Wessex” to describe the countries of South-Western England.
3.2.1 Gender making in Wessex-type English.
“It is usually claimed that English nouns lost their grammatical
gender during the historical period called Middle English, roughly 1100-
1500. But this claim needs some qualification. What actually happened
during the Middle English period was that more overt gender marking of
English nouns gave way to more covert marking. As in Lyons (1968:281-8),
the term ‘gender’ is used here to refer to morphosyntactic classes of
nouns. It is true that the loss of adjective concord in Middle English made
gender marking less overt; but Modern English still retains some determiner
concord which allows us to classify nouns (Christophersen and Sandved
1969). In addition, Modern English (ModE), like Old English (OE) and Middle
English (ME), possesses pronominal distinctions which enable us to classify
nouns.
We can distinguish at least three distinctly different types of gender
marking along the continuum from most overt to most covert. The most overt
involves the marking of gender in the morphology of the noun itself, as in
Swahili (Lyons 1968:284-6). Near the middle of the overt-covert continuum
we could place the marking of gender in adnominals such as adjectives and
determiners. At or near the covert end of the scale we find the marking of
gender in pronominal systems.
During all three main historical stages of the English language (OE,
ME, ModE) one has been able to assign nouns to three syntactic classes
called MASCULINE, FEMININE and NEUTER. However, throughout the recorded
history of English this three-way gender marking has become less and less
overt. In OE all three types of gender marking were present. But even in OE
the intrinsic marking (by noun inflections) was often ambiguous in that it
gave more information about noun declension (ie paradigm class) than about
gender (ie concord class). The least ambiguous marking of gender in OE was
provided by the adnominals traditionally called demonstratives and definite
articles. In addition, gender ‘discord’ sometimes occurred in OE, in that
the intrinsic gender marking (if any) and the adnominal marking, on the one
hand, did not always agree with the gender of the pronominal, on the other
hand. Standard ME underwent the loss of a three-way gender distinction in
the morphology of both the nominals and the adnominals. This meant that
Standard ModE nouns were left with only the most covert type of three-way
gender marking, that of the pronominals. Hence we can assign a Standard
ModE noun to the gender class MASCULINE, FEMININE or NEUTER by depending
only on whether it selects he, she or it respectively as its proform.
During the ME and Early ModE periods the south-western (here called
Wessex-type) dialects of England diverged from Standard English in their
developments of adnominal and pronominal subsystems. In particular, the
demonstratives of Standard English lost all trace of gender marking,
whereas in south-western dialects their OE three-way distinction of
MASCULINE/FEMININE/NEUTER developed into a two-way MASS/COUNT distinction
which has survived in some Wessex-type dialects of Late ModE. The result in
Wessex was that the two-way distinction in adnominals such as
demonstratives and indefinites came into partial conflict with the three-
way distinction in pronominals”. (¹18, p.31-32)
- Nowadays in the south-western dialects the pronouns ‘he’ / ‘she’ are
used instead of a noun:
e.g. My ooman put her bonnet there last year, and the birds laid their
eggs in him. (= it)
Wurs my shovel? I aa got’im; him’s her. (= Where is my shovel? I’ve
got it. That’s it.)
- In the south-western dialects objects are divided into two categories:
1) countable nouns (a tool, a tree), and the pronouns ‘he’ / ‘she’ are used
with them
2) uncountable nouns (water, dust), and the pronoun ‘it’ is used with them.
The pronoun ‘he’ is used towards women.
3.3 Numerals.
In south-western dialects the compound numerals (21-99) are pronounced
as: five and fifty, six and thirty.
In Devonshire instead of ‘the second’ ‘twoth’ is used (the twenty-
twoth of April).
3.4 Adjectives.
In all dialects of the south-west -er, -est are used in the
comparative and superative degrees with one-, two- and more syllabic
adjectives:
e.g. the naturaler
the seasonablest
delightfuller (-est)
worser - worsest (Dw.)
- The words: ‘gin’, ‘an’, ‘as’, ‘nor’, ‘till’, ‘by’, ‘to’, ‘in’, ‘on’
are used instead of ‘than’ in the comparative forms:
e.g. When the lad there wasn’t scarce the height of that stool, and a
less size on (= than) his brother…;
That’s better gin naething;
More brass inney (= than you) hadd’n;
It’s moor in bargain (= more than a bargain).
- The word ‘many’ is used with uncountable nouns
e.g. many water / milk
- The word ‘first’ is often used in the meaning of ‘the next’:
e.g. The first time I gang to the smiddie I’ll give it to him.
Will you come Monday first or Monday eight days?
3.5 Pronouns.
- The forms of the nominative case are often used instead of the forms
of the objective case and vice versa:
e.g. Oi don’t think much o’ they (= of them).
Oi went out a-walkin wi’ she (= with her).
Oi giv ut t’ he (= it) back again.
Us (= we) don’t want t’ play wi’ he (= him).
Har (= she) oon’t speak t’ th’ loikes o’ we (= us).
When us (= we) is busy, him (= he) comes and does a day’s work
Ñòðàíèöû: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
