The Morphology of English Dialects: Verb-Formation in Non-standard English

by Lieselotte Anderwald

Overview

Where do dialects differ from Standard English, and why are they so remarkably resilient? This new study argues that commonly used verbs that deviate from Standard English for the most part have a long pedigree. Analysing the language use of over 120 dialect speakers, Lieselotte Anderwald demonstrates that not only are speakers justified historically in using these verbs, systematically these non-standard forms actually make more sense. By constituting a simpler system, they are generally more economical than their Standard English counterparts. Drawing on data collected from the Freiburg English Dialect Corpus (FRED), this innovative and engaging study comes directly from the forefront of this field, and will be of great interest to students and researchers of English language and linguistics, morphology and syntax.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521884976
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/09/2009
Series:	Studies in English Language
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lieselotte Anderwald is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Kiel, Germany.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Past tense theories; 3. Naturalness and the English past tense system; 4. Sellt and knowed: non-standard weak verbs; 5. Drunk, seen, done and eat: 2-part instead of 3-part paradigms; 6. Come and run: non-standard strong verbs with a 1-part paradigm; 7. Conclusion: supralocalization and morphological theories.