appalachian english grammar

We learned we had to call him a long time beforehands. 14.1  Prepositions with Verbs of Sensation and Mental Activity. This text talks about the Appalachian Trail. Can we make it through this winter, I'll get the spring crops in the ground for you. We used to didn't have nearly so many houses. 17.1  Indirect yes-no questions sometimes take the word order of direct questions, with inversion of the subject and auxiliary verb and with the tense conforming to that of the main clause. - Southern Appalachian English", "A-prefixing | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America", "Inside Appalachia: Do We Talk Funny? -y to form adjectives from nouns: strengthy, thickety, twisty. Likewise, singingest can be paraphrased as “sings better than anyone else,” “enjoys singing more than anyone else,” or “sings more than anyone else.”5. In Smokies speech has been frequently occurs with adverbials that take the simple past tense in general usage, especially phrases having the form ago. I never did live in a place where they was no meetings or no singings. Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. Was is occasionally contracted with I to form I's or with they or there in existential clauses. Best, the superlative form of the adverb good, may take the definite article. [79] The most enduring of these early theories suggested that the Appalachian dialect was a remnant of Elizabethan English, a theory popularized by Berea College president William Goddell Frost in the late 1800s. For subject-verb agreement the principal difference between Smoky Mountain English and general American English lies in third-person plural contexts. They went ahead there and went to running a-backwards and forwards. 8.1  Modal verbs. John Lewis Moore's boy can pick it on the guitar. The Scotch-Irish influence on American English. The house is so far up in the hills that when me and my old woman fuss, He wouldn't eat but two messes out of a big’un and then kill, I get close around four hundred dollars a month, and it don't go, They'd pull [the trains] in and take track up and put it, Me and my brother went a-coon-huntin', but we never done. mso-style-noshow:yes; -some to form adjectives from verbs: blundersome, boresome, troublesome. It most often precedes a past participle and may be accompanied by a form of have or be. Others have scorned or dismissed it as uneducated, bad grammar, or worse. I've done forgot what they call theirself. 9. against/again “by the time of, before”: He'll be in town against nine o'clock; He didn't make it back again the night. Everwhich one come nigh always come down to the house and stayed full half the night. 14.3  Prepositions and Particles in Dialectal Phrases and Idioms. The table below identifies verbs whose principal parts vary in SME. We decided we’d go back in the sugar orchard to see if ary’un had come in there. To negate a verb, don't is occasionally added to be, especially in an imperative clause with a following progressive verb form. They don't like it real genuine. start in to + verbal noun: So we started in to fishing near the Chimney Tops. Much information on grammar appears in the latter work as well, but in piecemeal fashion at separate entries. It's been twenty year ago they offered me a house and land. Some phrases can be inflected for tense, but others are more adverbial in their properties. how soon “that ... soon”: I hope how soon he comes. Smoky Mountain English uses never in two ways differing from general usage. [4] All Appalachian English is rhotic and characterized by distinct phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. for “because of, on account of”: I couldn't see across that log for the fog. This pattern is attested in old letters written from the Smoky Mountains, but apparently did not survive into the twentieth century: I am very glad to hear that you have saved my foder and is doing with my things as well as you are. The prefixes un- (also on- in traditional speech) and in- are sometimes interchangeable: inusual/unusual; inconvenient/unconvenient; impossible/unpossible. Though not equivalent in status to the first three sources, such materials are invaluable for attesting many infrequent and old-fashioned forms. That's not a cow brute's skull. In addition to whose, thats is attested as infrequent possessive form, but is extremely rare. It was just about as steep as a yoke cattle could go up or come down either one. Despite formal similarity to the other usages, postposed one is most likely derived from the phrase one or the other. Now my memory's not as good as it used to be. Hain't nobody never set [the trap] for any bears since. afteren “after”: He never give me his check before, just what was left over after'en he had been out with the boys. Auxiliary done expresses completion and is roughly equivalent to “already,” “completely,” or both. In his notes from the 1930s Joseph Hall observed that less-educated speakers used -s outside the third-person singular (as “if you wants to go”; “I knows them when I sees them”; “they says he done it”) and that -s was in some cases absent from the third-person singular (as “Who want to know?” and “He still do live here”). [16] The southern drawl is of an unknown American origin. on (after a verb to express an unfortunate, unforeseen, or uncontrollable occurrence): When my cow up and died on me, hit wuz a main blow. (i.e. 3.4.1  In Smokies speech present participles of verbs used as attributive adjectives sometimes take the superlative suffix -est. Syntax. The weather never got any colder up there much than it did here. Edward Everett Dale, "The Speech of the Pioneers", Susan Brown, "Biscuits and Salt-Rising Bread.". It's a wonderful place where nature reigns.I was lucky enough to spend eight days in Maine and I discovered that just a few people know this area.I decided to write a presentation of that place in a test because I want to let people know about the existence of this small paradise.. From wikipedia.org Today the prefix is only a only a relic without meaning of its own, but it may lend a slight dramatic effect in story-telling, which it may occur in a series. In Appalachian English, the form 'liketa' functions as an adverb and occurs before the past form of a verb. [Bears] were bad to kill sheep, but not so bad to kill the hogs. They’d turn the sap side up and they'd use that for to spread the fruit on. study after “study under, follow after”: He never went to college. If you want them out, get in and get them. The Queen family was all of them good to sing. It disgustes me now to drive down through this cove. (= He didn't like to hunt, he was a poor hunter.). Appalachian English. mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;