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Reviewed by: Patricia Ronan, Technical University Dortmund, Germany; Arne Peters, University of Potsdam, Germany
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This article examines how certain characteristic grammatical forms in Hiberno-English (HE) are the result of a dynamic process of language formation guided by language contact. A first language contact between Irish and English gives rise to the grammar formation of HE, and a second contact between HE and other varieties of English, presumably over the past 50 years or so, has pruned HE to fit the speakers' awareness toward the standard norm. Examinations of the expressions of tense/aspect and information structure in HE lead to suggestion of grammatical oppositions being inherited from Irish and the resilience of this inheritance in present-day HE. Taking three salient characteristics of HE, the
In Ireland, like many other places, various forms of English have penetrated the everyday lives of the population
The article investigates the process behind the establishment of constructions in present-day HE. One of our concerns is the process with which the
(1) We are after missing the bus.
“We have just missed the bus”. [Cork City]
(1) is an example of
Besides the
(2) He does be eating in John B's.
“He usually eats in John B's (pub)”. [Co. Kerry, elicitation]
In SwHE,
The '
The '
(3) I suppose 'tis boozing on brandy you are with McFillen.
“I suppose you are boozing on brandy with McFillen”. (prosodic prominence on
(3) admits a different context of the use of '
(1)-(3) are present-day forms in SwHE. The
Studies on features of HE that are distinctive from StE including the seminal studies of Bliss (
Many past studies concerning the grammar of Irish English have taken a form-to-form comparative approach, focusing on the way in which forms in HE are deviant from StE and which forms in Irish or earlier English they most closely correspond to. This study, taking a different angle, examines the systematicity of the connection between HE and Irish. It seeks to find general principles from which features of HE result naturally. Taking the three distinctive features above as windows into the underlying mechanisms of the formation of HE, this study examines how their current forms and meanings are the result of a dynamic process of language formation guided by language contact. It will survey earlier forms in the rise of HE (section Earlier examples and the form-function establishment) and describe some details of contemporary HE (section Irishness realized in English). This article will finally introduce an integrated perspective across the characteristics to discuss how elements from Irish have been inherited and realized in English, along with how these realizations have been updated until today
For the investigation of present-day SwHE, this study employs a fieldwork-based qualitative methodology, which includes elicitation techniques, participant observation, and interviews, both linguistic and sociolinguistic. The majority of the author's data come from regular stays in Cork since 2002 and Listowel since 2003. The author has also visited Dublin and an Irish-speaking district called Dingle Peninsula. The examples of forms used in present-day SwHE include both the ones the author encountered in natural speech and email texts and the ones that were elicited during linguistic and sociolinguistic interviews. Furthermore, as part of the analysis of the process of the formation of HE, the author draws on examples and studies concerning earlier varieties in the literature review.
The elicited data used in this article come from five consultants living in Cork City and County Kerry whose birthdates range from the 1920s to the 1970s. The linguistic interviews were semi-structured with questions inspired by hypotheses the author drew based on a corpus of John B Keane's playscripts and letter series written mainly in the 1960s and 1970s (refer also to note 8 for the “Keane corpus”). The author had compiled this corpus for previous research and had selected sentences in his studies, which included target features including the three addressed in this article:
Timeline of the sociohistorical background of HE.
A language is naturally affected by the situation of its community. Thus, HE has changed along with the changing times of its community. In the following, after first covering the flow of history with a focus on language, we will consider the formation of HE and its changes over time.
In the southwest of Ireland, including the counties Cork and Kerry, statistics of Irish and bilingual speakers in the 18th and 19th centuries show that Irish had not succumbed to English before the Famine in 1840s, but that it was not inherited by the generation of speakers who were born post-Famine. According to FitzGerald (
After the Great Famine, there was little room for doubt that the language shift progressed rapidly. In southwest Ireland, the shift started at a comparatively late date, understood to be around the mid to late 19th century. However, the earlier English-lexifier varieties emerged in most cases as the result of natural or untutored L2 acquisition. At the beginning of the 19th century, the only schooling available for the population was obtained from “hedge” schools (Edwards,
Supposing that the formation of HE accelerated in some south-western communities in the latter half of the 19th century, we can estimate that sometime between 1930 and 1950 a largely stable system for HE had taken root in southwest Ireland. However, that stable system, amid the changes in environment brought by TV broadcasting, widespread education, and entry into the EU (European Union), along with emigration and migration, came into contact with other major forms of English, and it underwent standardization and leveling. Following this, the social situation brought by the rapid economic growth of the latter half of 1990s, called the Celtic Tiger, brought even further changes to the English spoken in Ireland. As many varieties of English, including StE, flowed into Ireland, the once stable system began to falter. HE is now experiencing what we might call a “second contact”, this time with other forms of English.
The linguistic history leading up to the formation of HE and subsequent changes to it can be roughly summarized as shown in
On the timeline of the development or transition of HE, two contacts in different times seem to be recognized as prominent milestones. The first contact is that of Irish and English. The second is that of HE and major varieties of English or what can be described as mainstream English. Thus, in a simple way, three stages can be distinguished: (I) English enters the Irish-speaking community, (II) HE forms and gains relative stability, and (III) HE undergoes contact and convergence with mainstream English. The dynamics of contemporary HE can be regarded as the outcome of two different occurrences of contacts, one completed and the other still in progress.
During the period in which English, in some form, came into common usage in Ireland, stage (I) in
This section addresses examples of the three constructions found in the texts written in the 16th-19th centuries to see initial forms of HE. In terms of the timeline given in
Examples of
(4) Deare Catolicks, you shee here de cause dat
A common view in the literature on HE is that the
(5) a. Tom is after his supper. [HE]
Tá Tomás tréis a shuipéar. [Irish]
“Tom is in the state where he has had supper”.
b. I am after taking three plates from the cupboard. [HE]
Tá mé tréis trí phláta a thógáint ón gcófra. [Irish]
“I've just taken three plates from the cupboard”.
Having seen the parallelism between the two languages, one may presuppose that the Irish
Besides the view that studies on HE have offered, Heine and Kuteva (
There are several examples of periphrastic
(6) Why Neighour, you do be mauke de Rauvish upon de young Womans, and when…. (Bliss,
In a later stage, in the 1860s, emigrants' letters show that the
(7) i. I do be disputing with my mother… [1857/TCD 10435-15]
ii. I do be sick every year at this time but I was not prepared anytime until now. [1863/TCD 10435-21].
In (6), the verb
(8) Indeed I do be thinking of ye when ye least suspect it (Schrier,
The
The word '
(9) 'Tis not that she would renovate her affection with this Prince. [1656 J. Davies tr. M. de Scudéry
The '
(10) ME tys, ME– tis, 15 t'is, 15–'tis (now
Variants of '
(1) Deare Catolicks, you shee here de cause dat is after bringing you to dis place: '
Importantly, Bliss (
The Irish copula
(12) Commanded bee superior powers,
And fate!, and be!, I never thought
(Bliss,
The Irish
(13) …;
(Bliss,
(13) uses
(14) I know de[e] vell enough, and bee!
(Bliss,
According to Bliss (
In addition,
(15) Is may as velkisse my breesh
“You may as well…”
(Bliss,
In (16), there is an example of the tensed copula, namely,
(16) Vas carry it on his Shoul-deer
“He carried me…”
(Bliss,
This use of
In this section, our discussion turns to HE after it reached a certain stage of maturity. We thus highlight facets of grammar concerning the three features in focus in stages II and III in
The
A contrast between the
(17) {Context: Mary has cleaned her son Brian's room before he comes home from school. When he gets home, Brian throws his uniform, shoes, and school bag on the floor, and then he puts on his casual clothes and is about to go out to meet his friends. Mary sees the mess in the room. She says to Brian:}
a. # I've cleaned your room. (normal pitch)
b. Ok I'm after cleaning your room. [elicitation] (Shimada,
(18) {Context: Ger comes home from work. He is in a hurry and leaves his working clothes and shoes on the bed. He says to his wife, Mary,
a. Ok I've tidied your clothes.
b. # I'm after tidying your clothes. [elicitation] (Shimada,
The
The pair of (19) and (20) is an example of a “having a guest” situation.
(19) A (host): D'you want some tea?
B (guest):
(20) A: D'you want some tea?
B:
In (19), the speaker (guest) asks the listener (host) not to get him tea, simultaneously encoding the fact that “I have already had tea”. On the other hand, in (20), the SwHE speaker's relatively neutral attitude toward the proposition of having had tea is observed.
There is another example that highlights the pragmatic difference between the
(21) I just started working on Monday– am working in a center for adults with learning disabilities as a psychologist –
In (21), the italicized sentence cannot be interchanged with the
(22) {Context: A taxi driver picked me up on the road. She contacted the company to report this, while listening to me, and said to me after the contact:}
I was after being called, you know. [Dublin]
In (22), the utterance of
The preceding illustration of the pragmatic contrast between two perfects in SwHE suggests that the
The
In summary, the
The
(23) and (24) are examples of the
(23) 'Tis not aisy, a-girl, to kill you! You have the appearance of a small one, a young one. We
(24) Why
This usage is now called “habituality
(25) Will you open it or you'll drive me to
“
(26) 'Tis a wonder you took your backside from
(27) What would be in it but thoughts to disturb her young head the night before her marriage. Have you no knowledge of the way
In (25), the place name
The
(28) and (29) are examples of SwHE cited from Filppula (
(28) a: And did they speak English and Irish?
I: There's more spoke Irish one time. It have died away. Our language is dying away, since we got our own, independence.
(29) …and I here in bed with my nerves in a bad state and my left breast sore. Maybe '
(30) How do we know but maybe 'tis dead you are, or worse. [STD 11]
These types of sentences are often described as
Studies have noted that in HE, “clefts,” the '
'
(31) A:'
B: '
(32) Ellen: But Glory be to God is anyone safe? That's a dead loss.
Nora:
Ellen: That's a dead loss that place.
Nora:
This usage of '
(33) B: A lot of, a lot of them now we get, come from Beechwood or, some of these […] yeah yeah. And they can't understand, that the measure of care they get, by comparison with paying a wad of money.
A: Mm
B: For nothing.'
(33) is a conspicuous example that reveals continuity of the function of '
(34) I: But '
b: I didn't know that.
I: '
The first sentence, in which '
Furthermore, the continuity of the discourse function of the '
(35) A: Why do you say so?
B: '
The '
The '
This article maintains a “non-cleft” analysis suggested by Shimada (
To make the concept of salience more explicit, Shimada (
While the
'
(36) I do like to be beside the seaside. '
(37) …and I here in bed with my nerves in a bad state and my left breast sore. Maybe '
(38) (In the beginning of a column) '
'
In HE, salience is marked by fronting a salient constituent in cooperation with prosodic prominence, sometimes with the supplement of
(39) a.'Tis dead you are.
b. *'Tis dead
(40) a. 'Tis grumbling he is.
b. *'Tis grumbling
The use of
(41) He's doing well for himself when you consider he left the national school from the fourth class. '
The boundary of the salient constituent
The
Greene (
(42) Tá sé tréis leitir a scríobh.
“He's after writing a letter.”[HE] (Greene,
In Irish, aspect is denoted by constructions with the substantive verb
(43) a. Tá an leabhar léite agam. [perfect, Irish]
“The book is read by me./ I have the book read [HE]”.
b. Tá an leabhar léite.
“The book is read”.
c. Tá sé tagtha
“He has arrived”.
d. Tá sé feicthe ag Máire.
“Mary has seen it”.
Ó Sé (
(44) a. Tá an leabhar leléamh agam. [prospective, Irish]
“The book is to be read by me”.
b. Tá mé le/chun léamh an leabhar.
“I am to read the book”.
(45) Tá an leabhar (dh)á léamh agam. [progressive, Irish]
“The book is being read by me/ I'm reading the book”.
These periphrastic sentence constructions seem to have provided Irish speakers who were shifting to HE with the sentence-construction schema for expressing aspectual meanings. Considering the deep-rooted use of the
Since the form of
Explaining the habitual
In Modern Irish, habituality is expressed as in
(46) Bíonn sé tinn.
“He is (regularly) sick; he is sickly” (Stenson,
The existence of a morphological category for the habitual in the form of the substantive verb would have been important, as it would inspire the need for the equivalent category in the newly adopted language. Also, Bliss (
Concerning the use of
In Irish grammar, the opposition between permanency and temporality is primarily significant; this is most evident in two types of verbs for “to be”, namely, copula and substantive verbs. (47) illustrates the fundamental distinction.
(47) a. Is bainisteoir mé.
“I am a manager”.
b. Tá mé i mo bhainsteoir.
“I am a manager (lit. I am in my manager.)” (Stenson,
In (47b), a construction consisting of the substantive verb
Aspectual distinctions such as perfect, progressive, prospective, and conditional are subsequently and periphrastically expressed by a combination of the substantive verb
Furthermore, by taking into account the oppositions in the Irish verbal system, we could seek the answer to the question “why
We are now in a position to consider why the '
We have adopted “salience” rather than “focus” to describe the information structure of '
Let us have a closer look at examples of HE and Irish. In HE, salience can be syntactically expressed even when not accompanied by '
(48) Pats: I saw the young girl, Sive, and the other one going the road to town airly [early] in the day.
Nanna:
Pats: 'Tis about the wedding I came. Last night we made a plan in the caravan. [SIV 34]
Marked constituent order, underlined in the conversation above, is often used for expressing informational saliency in SwHE,
The analysis of the '
(49) a.
COP leprechaun REL seeks John
b. Lúchorpán a chuartaíonn Seán.
leprechaun REL seeks John (McCloskey,
In Irish, the clause initial
(50) a.
“Tis a leprechaun John seeks” [HE]
b. Lúchorpán a chuartaíonn Seán. [Irish]
“A leprechaun John seeks” [HE]
The Irish
(51) Is ag caint a bhíodar. [Irish]
“Tis talking they were” [HE].
“They were TALKING./(*It is talking that they are.)” [StE].
(52) Is é an t-arbhar a bhaineann m'athair le speal [Irish].
“Tis the grain my father reaps with a scythe“ [HE].
“My father reaps the GRAIN with a scythe/(It is the grain that my father reaps with a scythe)” [StE].
The correspondence between '
In other words,
(53) a. Is múinteoir é. [Irish]
“It's a teacher him/He is a teacher”.
b. Is é Seán an múinteoir [Irish].
“It's him, Seán, the teacher/Seán is the teacher”.
Greene also points out that in the identification sentence (54a), the words
(54) a. Is múinteoir Seán.
“It's a teacher, Seán”.
b. Is múinteoir atá ina chónaí anso.
“It's a teacher who lives there”.
The
In this way, the '
HE has been referred to as a “contact vernacular”, and the resemblance of its historical background to that of creoles has been discussed by some linguists of HE (Harris,
Studies of other scholars from contact-linguistic perspectives also support this analysis of HE, leading us to consider the link between so-called creole and non-creole languages like HE and focus on language phenomena. DeGraff (
So far, we have observed some earlier examples in the rise of HE and some of the contemporary facets of the system behind it. We have discussed Irish language traits and their realization in HE morphosyntax. A common factor among
For example, we have seen that habituality is grammaticalized both in Irish and HE, and that the informational saliency of constituents is represented syntactically in both Irish and HE. The above examinations on the aspectual expressions of HE suggested the robust involvement of the sentence construction pattern in Irish. The verb-initial property of Irish has contributed to the formation of HE, inducing features apart from StE. The examination in this article specifically suggests that the
Based on the discussions so far, the following working hypothesis 1 is suggested: The main contributor of vocabulary (the lexifier) is English, and the basic morphosyntax also comes from English. Irish provides grammatical oppositions, thus serving as a base for expression formation.
In Section Irishness realized in English, we have examined the development of original forms in the system of HE. The distribution of
With hypothesis 1, we may find some grammatical states of the supposedly stable HE (remember stage II in
The
Note that not all the Irish characteristics of HE are judged as bad grammar or taken negatively by the speakers. See details in (Shimada,
The norm adopted in the primary and stable stages of contact-induced language formation, stages I and II in
Working hypothesis 2: In the process of HE formation to date, a norm shift occurred during the second contact (stage III in
Grammar formation of HE.
Based on speakers' statements from sessions with them during fieldwork (e.g., Shimada,
HE provides an example of what happens when two different languages come into contact within a community. HE, unlike creole languages, has a single substrate language. This has an advantage in isolating a specific area of substrate influence and assessing contact-induced grammatical formation. Harris (
In
Going further down the timeline, HE is then in the second contact phase and exposed to the major varieties of English. This is indicated by (III), where (A' + B')1, the progressed version of A' + B', faces intense contact with B1 in the given community. The contact fosters convergence; the renewed language is tagged with (A' + B')
This article, taking salient characteristics of HE, including the
One of the main issues was Irish language traits and their realization in HE morphosyntax. Examinations of expressions of tense/aspect and information structure in HE have led to the conclusion that it has inherited grammatical oppositions from Irish. The division of grammatical categories, with which states of affairs are rendered, has been realized using English morphosyntax. This article illustrated cases of habituality marking and saliency marking, in which HE adopts the oppositions from Irish. Also pointed out was the high degree of involvement of the Irish sentence construction pattern in the aspectual expressions of HE, wherein the verb-initial property of Irish has contributed to the formation of HE. Specifically, this article argues that the
From a sociolinguistic perspective, norm shift, which occurs in the second contact with other varieties of English (refer to
This article has confined itself to the description of HE; thus, the model suggested within addresses the grammar formation of HE, considering settings and language contact situations particular to HE. However, the model, along with the two working hypotheses of the formation of grammar in a contact situation and of norm shift, can be applied to find similarities and contrasts with other language-contact phenomena. This, in turn, can contribute to various studies in a variety of languages, helping to enrich our understanding of contact-induced language change and the mechanism of grammar formation of a language in contact.
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary materials, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
TS: design of the study, collection and analysis of the data, and preparation of the manuscript.
This study was supported by JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
The author would like to express her gratitude to all those who have supported her fieldwork. Particularly, she would like to note her friends who have been key consultants: Elsie Harris, Emmet Stones, and the Keane, Clifford, and O'Connor families. The comments and questions she has receiving at various occasions in conferences since 2005 and those from discussions with her teachers and colleagues have also been of great help to her investigation. In addition, the author is very thankful to reviewers and editors whose comments and advice have been of great help for the current study.
1The phrase “salient characteristics” is used when comparing with other varieties of English including British Standard English. The idea of the “salient features”/“salient characteristics” comes from Filppula (
2The article is based on the author's prior studies and descriptions, which include Shimada (
3The examples (17)-(22) are discussed in detail in Shimada (
4These implications are not made by the
5As to the wide range of verbs, Kallen (
6This form has been labeled as “hot news perfect” Harris (
7This is based on the author's sessions with speakers in years 2004-2007. In the impression the author has formed from visiting Ireland regularly, the usage of
8Keane is a playwright from Listowel, County Kerry, where the author has been undertaking fieldwork since 2003. Examples from John B. Keane's plays and letter series written from the 1950s to1980s are cited with their abbreviations; the collection of examples is referred to as the “Keane corpus”. The examples are sorted by grammatical features and categories; one of the features is'
9The author's data looked at the constituent in the position following '
10Some SwHE speakers who pronounce
11The passive status of this construction may be questioned in terms of how it is formed and the fit of the passive in the system of Irish. Dillon (
12This aspect has been referred to in the literature with various terminologies such as “perfect,” “perfective”, and “completive” (Ó Siadhail,
13There are dialectal variations for the use of the preposition
14The author's assertion here is bolstered by Harris' insights. He notes (Harris,
15Likewise, Cotter (
16The basic word order of HE, including SwHE, is SVO. It is often said, however, that the order of HE is not so rigid because “topicalisation is more frequently used in the rural varieties of HE” (Filppula,
17Thurneysen (
18As an anonymous reviewer has pointed out,
19Schneider (