AMERICANISMとANGLO-IRISH

抄録

The influences of Anglo-Irish on Americanism are examined chiefly in their syntactical peculiarities. Eight salient points are mentioned-(1) Prepositions "off", "out", "with", "over", "for", (2) "Have+object+past participle", (3) "Have+object+infinitive (without to)" (not in causative use) and "Have+obj.+present participle", (4) "Like+obj.+adjective," (5) The peculiar use of the definite article, (6) Identity of idiomatical patterns in (a) Irish "put the comether on〜" etc., and American "put the blast on〜" etc., and in (b) Ir. "kick the shite out of〜" and Amer. "knock the hell out of〜" etc., (7) Intensives composed of "adj.+and", i.e. "nice and〜", "good and〜", (8) Frequent appearances of appositional genitives, i.e. "a lump of a woman" etc. Irish influence is, the present writer thinks, much greater in the formation of American English than has been admitted so far. Many instances of "archaic flavor" of Americanism is to be ascribed to the Irish imigrants in the 19th century, who are said to have retained the English of Oliver Cromwell's age faithfully. In the Appendix are given a number of metaphors and words common to Anglo-Irish and American, of which the dates of the earliest evidences are supplied by DAE and NED wherever available. Almost all of them point to 19th cent, as the date of their adoption.