LL-L "Grammar" 2001.10.25 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 25.OCT.2001 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: Candon McLean <candon3 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

Fit like!

I'm about to "unlurk" per Ron's rallying call, but
please realize that I only lurk because I don't have
the time to participate as much as I would like to.

So, a brief (re)introduction.  My name is Candon
McLean and I'm a graduate student in Linguistics at
the Univerisity of California, Irvine.  My major
interests are the phonology (& syntax) of the Celtic
and Germanic languages (although, I've been doing more
Germanic work lately).  As you can imagine, the life
of a graduate student is a bit less than serene, add
to the mix my lovely wife, who for some reason wants
to see more of me than my snoring hide, and what few
free moments I have left are spent "lurking" on the
language lists I am subscribed to.

But today I am procrastinating (a favorite past-time
of Grad-students), and Ron's message is recent enough
for it to still be retrieved from my tortured
synapses, and so here I am!

Andy Eagle made some intersting notes on Scots
subject/verb agreeement.  I'd like to add that the use
of a singular inflection whether the noun is plural or
singular reminds me of Welsh, but I don't know if
Scots Gaelic is similar in that way as well, which may
have influenced Lallans somewhat.

Also, a singular inflection throughout the verbal
paradigm is similar to Swedish, e.g. Jag hete_r_ lit.
'I hight_s_'  Where Scots seems to differ is that it
seems to revert to the older pronoun/verb agreement
(from Anglo-Saxon) with pronouns: A hate.

Andy goes on to say:

>>However, a point often missed by students of the
language
 (including, most unfortunately, Lorimer in his
translation
 of the New Testament), is that the verb has to be in
 _direct contact_ with the personal pronoun, or the
inflection
 will be retained.

 Montgomerie's song has no examples of this, but he
does show
 us this in action in "The Cherrie and the Slae":

 "I grip fast if the ground be good
  And fleets where it is false;"

 Here, "grip" is in direct contact with the personal
pronoun
 "I", and so loses the inflection, whereas "fleets" is
distant
>> from it and so retains the inflection.

This is very interesting.  Can you tell me what it
would be with out the "if" clause?

E.g. would we get something like: A see the wifie an
hear_s_ the lass?


>> "I lang has thocht..." (from Burns's "Epistle to a
>>Young Friend")

Presumably without the adverb we would get something
like:

I hae thocht

What about non-paraphrastic constructions, would we
get someting like:

A snell drink_s_ ma ale.

If you and other Scots speakers could give me your
grammaticality judgements on the examples I gave, I
would really appreciate it.

This is an intersting problem, and it looks like a
phrase between the pronoun and the verb causes nominal
agreement (or blocks pronoun/verb agreement). This
could be because the verb (or its features) are unable
to raise (depending on what version of Chomskian
syntax you want to use), or something like that.

I'd like to work further on this with you (and others)
if you are interested.  I think this could make for a
very interesting paper.

Candon McLean

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

Welcome among the unlurked, Brandon!

Sandy's, Andy's and your eloquent posts remind me of the verbal present tense
plural _-t_ suffix in many of the North Saxon dialects of Low Saxon (Low
German).  It coincides with that of the 3rd person singular.  I believe plural
_-en_ (surviving in other dialects) is older than this plural _-t_.

Ik lehr (I learn)
du lehrst (thou learnest)
he lehrt (he learns)
se lehrt (she learns)
it ~ dat lehrt (it learns)
wi lehrt (~ lehren) (we learn)
ji lehrt (~ lehren) (you learn)
se lehrt (~ lehren) (they learn)

I wonder if this falls into the same category with the stuff you guys (nice
plural pronoun!) have been talking about.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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