LL-L: "How do you say ...?" LOWLANDS-L, 18.OCT.1999 (01) [E]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 18.OCT.1999 (01) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
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From: "Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: Submission: LL-L: "How do you say ...?" LOWLANDS-L,

Sandy,

Well, the reason I asked was that there seems to be a tendency in Scots, more
like other West Germanic languages except English, to put some part of the verb
phrase to the end. So in Ulster that sentence would *always* be "A set tha
computer up" - however, I've seen the alternative in Scotland a few times.

This explains the tendency, particularly with mutative verbs (i.e. those
representing a change of state), for Ulster Scots to move the participle to
after the object in the perfect tense (thus "A hae tha wark daen" rather than
?"A hae daen tha wark"). It also explains the common use of the
Scots tag "sae hit is/so it is", "sae the ir/so they are" and so on: this tag is
seldom used where part of the verb phrase is final anyway (?"A am, sae A am",
?"A hae tha wark daen, sae A hae").

The "so it is" tag is considered quintessential Belfast in the rest of the UK (a
very close English friend of mine always uses it in jest at me!), yet it is in
fact common to the whole of Northern Ireland and most of Scotland - a friend of
mine from Aberdeen even uses it commonly in her e-mails!

Best,
------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"
REPLY NOT WORK? TRY:
parsleyij at hotmail.com

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