Feature loss in 19th century Irish English
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Raymond Hickey
Abstract
The current contribution is concerned with the disappearance of a number of dialect features from the English language in Ireland during the course of the 19th century. At the outset of this century there were many archaic and dialectal features from earlier input varieties of English as well as transfer features from Irish which had been carried over by bilinguals during the language shift to English. In the course of the 19th century a native middle class arose in Ireland due to the emancipation of, and general education for the Catholic population. This in turn led to the emergence of a supraregional variety of English in which many of the earlier features were removed and/or replaced by more mainstream ones, stemming from southern British usage. Developments were not always straightforward and many features were relegated to vernacular varieties or to positions of slighter salience, thus escaping censure by later generations. The consideration of just what paths was taken by what features forms the backbone of this contribution.
Abstract
The current contribution is concerned with the disappearance of a number of dialect features from the English language in Ireland during the course of the 19th century. At the outset of this century there were many archaic and dialectal features from earlier input varieties of English as well as transfer features from Irish which had been carried over by bilinguals during the language shift to English. In the course of the 19th century a native middle class arose in Ireland due to the emancipation of, and general education for the Catholic population. This in turn led to the emergence of a supraregional variety of English in which many of the earlier features were removed and/or replaced by more mainstream ones, stemming from southern British usage. Developments were not always straightforward and many features were relegated to vernacular varieties or to positions of slighter salience, thus escaping censure by later generations. The consideration of just what paths was taken by what features forms the backbone of this contribution.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora 1
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Part I. Creating discourse
- Introduction 13
- ' And so now …': The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now 17
- Self-repetition in spoken English discourse 37
- Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech 61
- Pressing -ing into service: I don't want you coming around here any more 85
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Part II. Moving across varieties
- Introduction 101
- Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora 107
- The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation 129
- Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English 147
- Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English 163
- Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English 183
- South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect 203
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Part III. Levelling out variability
- Introduction 223
- Feature loss in 19th century Irish English 229
- The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia 245
- The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? 269
- Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres 291
- Her daughter's being taken into care or her daughter being taken …? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English 311
- Subject index 335
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora 1
-
Part I. Creating discourse
- Introduction 13
- ' And so now …': The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now 17
- Self-repetition in spoken English discourse 37
- Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech 61
- Pressing -ing into service: I don't want you coming around here any more 85
-
Part II. Moving across varieties
- Introduction 101
- Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora 107
- The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation 129
- Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English 147
- Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English 163
- Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English 183
- South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect 203
-
Part III. Levelling out variability
- Introduction 223
- Feature loss in 19th century Irish English 229
- The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia 245
- The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? 269
- Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres 291
- Her daughter's being taken into care or her daughter being taken …? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English 311
- Subject index 335
