Gender making in Wessex-type English

Gender making in Wessex-type English.

It is usually claimed that English nouns lost their grammatical gender during the historical period called Middle English, roughly 1100-1500. But this claim needs some qualification. What actually happened during the Middle English period was that more overt gender marking of English nouns gave way to more covert marking.

As in Lyons 1968 281-8 , the term gender is used here to refer to morphosyntactic classes of nouns.

It is true that the loss of adjective concord in Middle English made gender marking less overt but Modern English still retains some determiner concord which allows us to classify nouns Christophersen and Sandved 1969 . In addition, Modern English ModE , like Old English OE and Middle English ME , possesses pronominal distinctions which enable us to classify nouns.

We can distinguish at least three distinctly different types of gender marking along the continuum from most overt to most covert.

The most overt involves the marking of gender in the morphology of the noun itself, as in Swahili Lyons 1968 284-6 . Near the middle of the overt-covert continuum we could place the marking of gender in adnominals such as adjectives and determiners.

At or near the covert end of the scale we find the marking of gender in pronominal systems.

During all three main historical stages of the English language OE, ME, ModE one has been able to assign nouns to three syntactic classes called MASCULINE, FEMININE and NEUTER. However, throughout the recorded history of English this three-way gender marking has become less and less overt.

In OE all three types of gender marking were present.

But even in OE the intrinsic marking by noun inflections was often ambiguous in that it gave more information about noun declension ie paradigm class than about gender ie concord class. The least ambiguous marking of gender in OE was provided by the adnominals traditionally called demonstratives and definite articles.

In addition, gender discord sometimes occurred in OE, in that the intrinsic gender marking if any and the adnominal marking, on the one hand, did not always agree with the gender of the pronominal, on the other hand. Standard ME underwent the loss of a three-way gender distinction in the morphology of both the nominals and the adnominals.

This meant that Standard ModE nouns were left with only the most covert type of three-way gender marking, that of the pronominals.

Hence we can assign a Standard ModE noun to the gender class MASCULINE, FEMININE or NEUTER by depending only on whether it selects he, she or it respectively as its proform.

During the ME and Early ModE periods the south-western here called Wessex-type dialects of England diverged from Standard English in their developments of adnominal and pronominal subsystems.

In particular, the demonstratives of Standard English lost all trace of gender marking, whereas in south-western dialects their OE three-way distinction of MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER developed into a two-way MASS COUNT distinction which has survived in some Wessex-type dialects of Late ModE. The result in Wessex was that the two-way distinction in adnominals such as demonstratives and indefinites came into partial conflict with the three-way distinction in pronominals . 18, p.31-32 - Nowadays in the south-western dialects the pronouns he she are used instead of a noun e.g. My ooman put her bonnet there last year, and the birds laid their eggs in him. it Wurs my shovel? I aa gotim hims her. Where is my shovel? Ive got it. Thats it In the south-western dialects objects are divided into two categories 1 countable nouns a tool, a tree, and the pronouns he she are used with them 2 uncountable nouns water, dust, and the pronoun it is used with them. The pronoun he is used towards women. 3.3 Numerals.

In south-western dialects the compound numerals 21-99 are pronounced as five and fifty, six and thirty.

In Devonshire instead of the second twoth is used the twenty-twoth of April . 3.4 Adjectives.

In all dialects of the south-west -er, -est are used in the comparative and superative degrees with one two- and more syllabic adjectives e.g. the naturaler the seasonablest delightfuller -est worser - worsest Dw The words gin, an, as, nor, till, by, to, in, on are used instead of than in the comparative forms e.g. When the lad there wasnt scarce the height of that stool, and a less size on than his brother Thats better gin naething More brass inney than you haddn Its moor in bargain more than a bargain The word many is used with uncountable nouns e.g. many water milk - The word first is often used in the meaning of the next e.g. The first time I gang to the smiddie Ill give it to him. Will you come Monday first or Monday eight days? 3.5 Pronouns The forms of the nominative case are often used instead of the forms of the objective case and vice versa e.g. Oi dont think much o they of them. Oi went out a-walkin wi she with her. Oi giv ut t he it back again.

Us we dont want t play wi he him. Har she oont speak t th loikes o we us. When us we is busy, him he comes and does a days work for we us The pronoun mun min is used in those cases, when in the literary language them is used e.g. put mun in the house gie mun to me I mind remember the first time I seed mun Mun is also used instead of him, it e.g. let min alone it would sarve un right if I telled the parson of mun - Instead of those, them is used e.g. I mind none of them things.

Give us them apples.

Fetch them plaates off o th pantry shelf In the south-western dialects at the beginning of the sentenu the personal and impersonal pronouns are often dropped Whom is never used in the south-western dialects.

Instead of it as at is used e.g. Thats the chap as or what his uncle was hanged.

The man at his coats torn The nominative case of the personal pronouns is also used before selves e.g. we selves Somerseshire, Devonshire - The standard demonstrative pronoun this is used in the south- western dialects as this, this here, thease, thisn, thisna The standard demonstrative pronoun that is used in the south-western dialects as thatn, thickumy, thilk e.g. I suppose I could have told thee thilk Those is never used in the south-western dialects. thir ans is used instead of it. 3.5.1