LL-L: "How do you say ...?" LOWLANDS-L, 21.OCT.1999 (01) [E]

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From: G Halliday [G.Halliday at xtra.co.nz]
Subject: LL-L: "How do you say ...?" LOWLANDS-L, 20.OCT.1999 (06) [E/S]

John M. Tait  wrote:

> Is it necessary to assume that the form 'hit' is stressed - i.e. that it
is
> not pronounced 'it'? In English, we normally write 'him' and 'her'
although
> we may not pronounce the 'h' in speech, so why should 'hit' in Scots be
> different?

I take your point. However for me there are two issues.

Firstly that it is important for written Scots in principle to keep close to
speech. English orthographical practices are not necessarily to be imitated,
eh no? I also associate the use of <hit> in unstressed contexts as belonging
to a "maximally different to the eye from English mode" which in turn I
associate with a lot of literary Scots that is much closer to English
grammatically than the Scots I speak.

Secondly, for me anyway the cases are not the same. I very frequently use
/hIm/ in English in unstressed positions - typically I would in sentences
like "I saw him" most of the time, in the same way I would use them not 'em.
Objects are typically unstressed and English speakers think of these words
as him and her. I would call these forms neutral not stressed. On the other
hand I would only use /hIt/ in Scots sentence initially and then not
always - I feel it is a specifically stessed form and in some sense not so
basic as him or her. This may of course differ for other speakers and it
would be interesting to hear if people with an Eastern type pitch pattern
e.g. like English violanetly disagree, but I would have a system like:

Neutral                                                    Stressed

Am no                                                        Me, Am no
He's no                                                        Him, he's no
t's no                                                            Hit's no

etc.

Geordie Halliday

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