WE have had very pearlous times and lost much but through devine providance is blessed with sufficent of the nessarys of life': A study of subject-verb concord in 18th-century Ulster
Type
Master thesisNot peer reviewed

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Date
2015-11-20Author
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This thesis investigates subject-verb concord
(SVC) in varieties of Irish English in Ulster
between 1741 and 1800. The quantitative study
is based on the 4747 occurrences of SVC in
personal correspondence in a subcorpus of the
Corpus of Irish English Correspondence
(CORIECOR) (McCafferty & Amador-Moreno in
preparation). In general, studies of SVC in
18th-century Ulster are few. The studies are
based on relatively small data sets, take few
factors into account and do not test the
statistical significance of the results. In
order to fill the gaps in our knowledge about
SVC in 18th-century Ulster, the present study
tests the impact of several linguistic and
extralinguistic factors found to affect the
distribution of nonstandard verbal -s in past
and present varieties in Ulster and beyond.
While some results confirm those of previous
studies, others add new insight into SVC during
the early history of Irish English in Ulster. A
key finding is the use of verbal -s in
accordance with the Northern Subject Rule
(NSR). The study further shows that verbal -s
is sensitive to type of plural NP subject and
subject heaviness. Interestingly, the NSR-
related proximity to subject constraint is not
found to operate in clauses with plural NP
subjects in the 18th century data. Further, no
correlation is found between verbal -s and the
relative pronoun. These results have
methodological implications for future
research. Finally, the study shows that NSR is
solid in areas where descendants of Scots
settlers dominated, as well as in areas where
descendants of English settlers were numerous.
The geographic spread of the NSR adds support
to the hypothesis that the NSR was introduced
to Ulster during the 17th century by founding
populations from Scotland as well as England.
The study thereby contributes to our
understanding of the emergence of this SVC
system in Irish English.
Publisher
The University of BergenSubject
Subject-verb concordNorthern Subject RuleNSRVerbal -sHistorical linguisticsIrish EnglishUlsterCollections
- English 185
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