English Dialect ''Default Singulars,'' Was versus Were, Verner's Law, and Germanic Dialects  

Oleh:

Trudgill, Peter

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of English Linguistics (Full Text) vol. 36 no. 4 (Dec. 2008), page 341-353.
Topik: default singular; Germanic dialects; nonstandard English; Verner’s Law; vernacular universals
Fulltext: Vol 36, no 4, page 341-353.pdf (97.32KB)

Isi artikel

A current suggestion in the variationist literature is that the predominance of forms like we was in nonstandard varieties of English is predictable in that was-generalization represents a case of the “default singular.” I argue that while the principle of the default singular is a sound one, it is not appropriate as an explanation for was-generalization. What is involved is not a matter of singular versus plural but of r-forms of the past tense of to be versus s-forms, with forms like were, war, wor representing the r-variant and was, wiz, wus the s-variant. The ancient Germanic s/r alternation has been leveled out in most dialects over the past millennium. Examination of Germanic dialects shows that in very many cases, it is the r-forms that have survived. If some general principle were at work, we would expect s-forms to predominate. The history of the Germanic dialects as a whole shows that we are dealing with analogical leveling that does not especially favor either the s-forms or the r-forms. The term default singular has no explanatory value in this case.

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