VERBAL AND PRONOMINAL FORMS IN ENGLISH DIALECTS
1969 年 45 巻 2 号 p. 181-192
詳細
1969 年 45 巻 2 号 p. 181-192
Though dialects are spoken freely in different parts of England, they are not haphazard at all but they have the uniformity and regularity of their own in phonology and syntax. Language is living, and naturally there are hard struggles for existence among words, protecting themselves from others to survive. There are struggles between old and new, and among words which have the same meaning and function. These phenomena of the survival of the fittest come from the vitality of language which makes it change and develop. We can find it more easily in English dialects than in standard English. Here are some remarkable examples to be seen in the verb of being which is formed from three different root-"Suppletion". Though different with regard to person and tense, the meaning is the same, and hereupon break out the struggles among present forms be, am, are, and is, the past was and were. Among them one would be enough to perform the function.
