Narrative Structures in Colloquial English
- Jamie Bailey, University of Cambridge
- Old Medical School G.16, University of Edinburgh
This presentation introduces three under- discussed structures used in British dialectal English, including my own native North Yorkshire variety. The grammatical acceptability of sentences like (1), which I will call a 'Short Narrative Relative' (SNR), and which I will analyse as being a type of subject contact relative, appears to be subject to complex variation across the British Isles.
(1) There's a man gone past the window.
Such utterances are used primarily in spoken contexts, often in narrative situations or to convey new or urgent information. Intriguingly, there is often, though not always, a semantic distinction between SNRs like (1) and their Standard English approximations in (2) and (3).
(2) A man's gone past the window.
(3) There's a man who's gone past the window.
As this structure does not generate grammatical or distinctive sentences for all of the tense/aspect paradigm, SNRs alternate with structures like (4), a 'Long Narrative Relative' (LNR, also a subject contact relative), and (5), a 'Narrative Small Clause' (NSC), resulting in suppletion across one speaker's paradigm. Furthermore, different speakers appear to select different options to complete their paradigm.
(4) There's a man has gone past the window.
(5) There's been a man go past the window.
Drawing on previous literature on subject contact clauses and data collected from my own survey with respondents from a diverse range of regions, I aim to present an introductory profile of these structures, including initial analysis of their syntax, contexts of usage and sociolinguistics.
(1) There's a man gone past the window.
Such utterances are used primarily in spoken contexts, often in narrative situations or to convey new or urgent information. Intriguingly, there is often, though not always, a semantic distinction between SNRs like (1) and their Standard English approximations in (2) and (3).
(2) A man's gone past the window.
(3) There's a man who's gone past the window.
As this structure does not generate grammatical or distinctive sentences for all of the tense/aspect paradigm, SNRs alternate with structures like (4), a 'Long Narrative Relative' (LNR, also a subject contact relative), and (5), a 'Narrative Small Clause' (NSC), resulting in suppletion across one speaker's paradigm. Furthermore, different speakers appear to select different options to complete their paradigm.
(4) There's a man has gone past the window.
(5) There's been a man go past the window.
Drawing on previous literature on subject contact clauses and data collected from my own survey with respondents from a diverse range of regions, I aim to present an introductory profile of these structures, including initial analysis of their syntax, contexts of usage and sociolinguistics.