Subject: LL-L: "Pronouns" [E/S] LOWLANDS-L, 13.JUN.1999 (04)

Mon Jun 14 00:38:26 UTC 1999

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From: "Sandy Fleming" <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Pronouns

John wrate:
>
> "I love her for herself//And she me."?

"And her me" sounds mair richt tae me!

> The "I" in "'Tis I"
> at this time
> >may not have been a nominative (nor even a "subject
> complement"), but simply
> >the emphatic form of "me" (switching between
> nominative-accusative forms for
> >emphasis, as is found in some English dialects for all pronoun forms even
> >today).
>
> Can you think of any examples of this? I'm asking because I have just read
> a paper which states that the relationship between _du_ and _dee_ in
> Shetlandic is one of emphasis (they called it stress) whereas I thought
> that _du_ indicated the subject and _dee_ oblique cases. I can't see that
> in the phrases:
>
> du saa me
>
> and
>
> I saa dee
>
> the difference is one of emphasis - otherwise 'it wis _dee_ at I saa'
> should be 'it wis *du at I saa.' The same paper considers the difference
> between 'ae' and 'ane' to be one of emphasis. And what about 'dae
> and 'div'?
>
> It seems to me that this is owing to the the actual usage of these forms
> being misapprehended by people who have lost the distinctions in their own
> dialects.
>
Weel, in _ma_ dialect "you" is definitely the emphatic form o "ye", tho tae
leuk in the SND ye'd niver guess that it wis onything but the oblique form.
The SND cites a 1925 airticle on Hawick dialect whare the writer says that
"you" is niver uized as the nominative wi a verb in the past tense, yit his
examples dinna illustrate this case. In fact the examples he dis gie are
richt in line wi ma ain dialect, say A dout the idea that "ye" is nominative
an "you" oblique isna richt ony mair in modren Scots. In ma dialect there
seems nae dout tae me that "you" is juist the emphatic form o "ye" (same as
"me" is the emphatic form o "iz" an like the emphatic forms o ither pronoons
that isna seen in the spellins).

This is exactly what thon paper ye mentiont says o "du" & "dee", an the
opposite o what you'r sayin. Sae it could be that you'r richt an the
writer's made a fause analogy wi mainland Scots like mine? Onywey, tae
transleiterate your examples tae ma dialect, if A says "You saw me", that
wad be emphatic (baith the "you" an "me"), an "A saw ye" haes nae emphasis
(at laest no on the "ye").

Niver heard o the differ atween "ae" an "ane" bein adae wi emphasis tho.

In West Country dialect, it's different aathegither - A ken there maun be
_something_ signeificant, A juist dinna ken what. Some kin o emphasis or
drawin the subject maiter tae the fore seems tae be involved, but it disna
seem tae coincide wi emphatics in Scots nor stress in stanart English.

Tad Harding gied a guid example in a mailin a while back:

(start quote)
Also occurs in English local speech -- best encapsulated in an anecdote
I once heard on BBC Radio:

Man waiting at bus stop behind two teenage girls, in village in remote
rural Oxfordshire. On the other side of the road, a woman passes and
as she walks she looks across at the bus stop.

Man hears one girl say to the other:

  "Why be her looking at we? Us don't know she".

(end quote)

(A winna gae intae the airgyment aboot whether pairts o Oxfordshire's in the
West Country or no (Lord Bath says they ar :) but this seems obviously West
Country spaek tae me)

It wad be juist as richt in West Country dialect tae say "Why be she looking
at us? We dwon't know her." The nominative/oblique nifferin in the example
abuin maun hae some kin o ettle, something like emphasis, but A dinna
unnerstaun it weel eneuch tae talk (or even write) this richt masel.

For a peity, James Atwell (that A quotit anent lichtenin & keikin-glesses)
juist aboot niver seems tae uize n/o nifferin, A dinna ken hou no, but that
dis shaw that sic nifferin is a variant ower an abuin the basic gremmar o
the dialect.

The ar some examples in thae dialect stories A postit a while back, e.g. in
the Shapwick story, the auld man in the barrae shouts "Wheel I off!" As ye
see, what A'm caain a "emphatic" form seems tae be emphasisin the hale
subject o the utterance (the auld man's sel, the wifie ower the road fae the
bus stop), no juist actin like a stress on the word like it daes in Scots.
But whiles A'm ficklt:

"Vind out the price o tiddies will 'ee an let I know when 'ee d' come back."

(tiddies = tatties, 'ee = ye, d' = dae)

A could gie ye some mair examples if ye'r still interestit, but as ye see,
it's no muckle adae wi what ye wis speirin.

> All the more odd that the 'C'est moi' type of construction occurs in
> French, a romance language. But other romance languages use the other -
> formal English - type of construction, don't they?
>
> Is there any actual documentation about the history of such usages in
> French/English/Scots?

A dinna ken, but this is the pynt A wis makkin - in certain langgages like
French, English & Scots, the nominative forms seems tae a juist been no
uized for the subject complement (save for a brief spell in English, that
even syne micht a juist been n/o nifferin, an syne an on whan enforced in
English). A dinna see onything tae connect it wi the Laitin, an like a says,
A dinna think ye should _assume_ a gradual cheynge fae nominative tae
oblique subject complement juist wi French comin doun fae Laitin. Laitin
didna uize this for the French "C'est moi", sae the'r nae raeson tae assume
that "C'est je" wis iver uized in French.

> (I'm finding it extremely difficult to write in English with reference to
> something written by Sandy - I keep lapsing into Scots and then having to
> re-write it!)

Ooh ah, 'tidden any different for I!  :)

Sandy Fleiman
http:\\www.fleimin.demon.co.uk

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