A description of transitivity and intransitivity in the dialects of South-west England.

When compared with the corresponding standard language, any geographical variety may be characterized by three possibilities:

(a) identity; (b) archaism (due to slower evolution); and (c) in­novation. Interestingly enough, it is not uncommon in syntax for (b) and (c) to combine if a given dialect draws extensively on a secondary aspect of an older usage. This is true of two features which are highly characteristic of the South-west and completely absentin contemporary Standard English.

1.1 Infinitive + y

One of these characteristics is mentioned by Wakelin, the optional addition of the -y ending to the infinitive of any real intransitive verb or any transitive verb not fol­lowed by a DO, namely object-deleting verbs (ODVs) and ergatives. The use of this ending is not highlighted in the Survey of English Dialects (SED, Orton and Wakelin). It is only indirectly, when reading about relative pronouns, that we come upon There iddn (= isn’t) many (who) can sheary now, recorded in Devon (Orton and Wakelin). However, Widen gives the following examples heard in Dorset: farmy, flickery, hoopy (‘to call’), hidy, milky, panky (‘to pant’), rooty (talking of a pig), whiny. Three of these verbs are strictly intransitive (ftickery, panky, whiny), the others being ODVs. Wright also mentions this characteristic, chiefly in connection with Devon, Somerset and Dorset.

In the last century, Barnes made use of the -y ending in his Dorset poems, both when the infinitive appears after to:

reäky = ‘rake’

skimmy

drashy = ‘thresh’

reely

and after a modal (as in the example from the SED):

Mid (= may) happy housen smoky round/The church.

The cat veil zickan’ woulden mousy.

But infin.+y can also be found after do (auxiliary), which in South-west dialects is more than a more ‘signal of verbality’, serving as a tense-marker as well as a person-marker (do everywhere except for dost, 2nd pers. sing.). Instead of being emphatic, this do can express the progressive aspect or more often the durative-habitual (= imperfective) aspect, exactly like the imperfect of Romance languages. Here are a few examples culled from Barnes’s poems:

Our merry sheäpes did jumpy.

When I do pitchy, ‘tis my pride (meaning of the verb, cf pitch-fork).

How gaÿ the paths be where we do strolly.

Besides ODVs and intransitive verbs, thereis also an ergative:

doors did slammy.

In the imperative, infin. -y only appears with a negative:

don’t sobby!

The optional use of the -y ending is an advantage in dialect poetry for metre or rhyme:

Vor thine wull peck, an’ mine wull grubby (rhyming with snubby)

And this ending probably accounts for a phonetic peculiarity of South-west dialects, namely the apocope of to arguy (the former dialect pronunciation of to argue), to carry and to empty, reduced to to arg, to car and to empt.

In the grammatical part of his Glossary of the Dorset Dialect, Barnes insists on the aspectual connection between do and infin.+y:

“Belonging to this use of the free infinitive y-ended verbs,is another kindred one, the showing of a repetition or habit of doing as ‘How the dog do jumpy’, i-e keep jumping. ‘The child do like to whippy’, amuse himself with whipping. ‘Idle chap, he’ll do nothen but vishy, (spend his time in fishing), if you do leâve en alwone’. ‘He do markety’, he usually attends market.”

Barnes also quotes a work by Jennings in which this South-west feature was also described:

“Another peculiarity is that of attaching to many of the common verbs in the infinitive mode as well as to some other parts of different con­jugations, the letter -y. Thus it is very common to say ‘I can’t sewy’, I can’t nursy’, ‘he can’t reapy’, ‘he can’t sawy’, as well as ‘to sewy, to nursy, to reapy, to sawy’, etc; but never, I think, without an auxiliary verb, or the sign of the infinitive to.”

Barnes claimed, too, that the collocationofinfin. +y and the DO was unthinkable: ‘ We may say, “Can ye zewy?” but never “Wull ye zewy up theäse zêam?” “Wull ye zew up theäse zêam” would be good Dorset.”

Elworthy also mentions the opposition heard in Som­erset between I do dig the garden and Every day, I do diggy for three hours (quoted by Jespersen and by Rogers). Concerning the so-called ‘free infinitive’, Wiltshire-born Rogers comments that ‘ it is little heard now, but was common in the last century’, which tallies with the lack of examples in the SED. (This point is also confirmed by Itialainen) Rogers is quite surprised to read of a science-fiction play (BBC, 15 March 1978) entitled ‘Stargazy in Zummerland’, describing a future world in which the popu­lation was divided between industrial and agricultural workers, the latter probably using some form of south-western speech, fol­lowing a time-honoured stage tradition already perceptible in King Lear (disguised as a rustic, Edgar speaks broad Somerset).

To sum up, after to, do (auxiliary), or a modal, the formula of the ‘free infinitive’is

intr. V → infin. + -y/0

where ‘intr.’ implies genuine intransitives, ODVs and even ergatives. As a dialect-marker, -y is now on the wane, being gradually replaced by 0 due to contact with Standard English.

1.2 Of + DO

The other typical feature of south-western dialects is not mentioned by Wakelin, although it stands out much more clearly in the SED data. This is the optional use of o’/ov (occasionally on) between a transitive verb and its DO. Here are some of the many examples. Stripping the feathers off a dead chicken (Orton and Wakelin) is called:

pickin/pluckin ov it (Brk-loc. 3);

trippin o’ en (= it) (D-loc. 6);

pickin o’ en (Do-loc. 3);

pluckin(g) on en - (W-loc. 9;Sx-loc. 2).

Catching fish, especially trout, withone’s hand (Orton and Wakelin) is called:

ticklin o’/ov em (= them) (So-loc.13; W-loc. 2, 8; D-loc. 2, 7, 8; Do-loc. 2-5; Ha-loc. 4);

gropin o’/ov em(D-loc. 4, 6);

ticklin on em (W-loc. 3, 4; Ha-loc. 6; Sx-loc. 3);

tickle o’ em (Do-loc. l) (note the absence of -in(g)).

The confusion between of and on is frequent in dialects, but although on may occur where of is expected, the reverse is im­possible. The occasional use of on instead of of is therefore unimportant. What really matters is the occurrence of of, o’ or ov between a transitive verb and the DO. The presence of the -in(g) ending should also attract our attention: it occurs in all the examples except tickleo’ em, which is exceptional since, when the SED informants used an infinitive in their answers, their syn­tax was usually identical with that of Standard English, ie without of occurring before the DO: glad to see you, (he wants to) hide it (Orton and Wakelin).

Following Jespersen, Lyons makes a distinc­tion between real transitives (/ hit you: action → goal) and verbs which are only syntactically transitives (/ hear you: goal ← ac­tion). It is a pity that the way informants were asked questions for the SED (‘What do we do with them? - Our eyes/ears’) does not enable us to treat the transitive verbs see Orton and Wakelin and hear (Orton and Wakelin) other than as ODVs.

The use of of as an operator between a transitive verb and its DO was strangely enough never described by Barnes, and is casually dismissed as an ‘otiose of’ by the authors of the SED, even though nothing can really be ‘otiose’ in any language sys­tem. Rogers points out that ‘Much more widely found formerly, it is now confined to sentences where the pronouns en, it and em are the objects.’ This is obvious in the SED materials, as, incidentally, it is in these lines by Barnes:

To work all day a-meäken haÿ/Or pitcheno’t.

Nevertheless, even if his usage is in conformity with present syn­tax, it is important to add that, when Barnes was alive, o/ov could precede any DO (a-meäken ov haÿ would equally have been pos­sible). What should also be noted in his poetry is the extremely rare occurrence of o’/ov after a transitive verb with no -en (= -ing) ending, which, as we just saw, is still very rare in modern speech:

Zoo I don’t mind o’ leäven it to-morrow.

Zoo I don’t mind o’ leäven o’t to-morrow.

The second line shows a twofold occurrence of o’ after two tran­sitive verbs, one with and one without -en.

This -en ending can be a marker of a verbal noun, a gerund or a present participle (as part of a progressive aspect form or on its own), and o’ may follow in each case.

VERBAL NOUN

My own a-decken ov myown (‘my own way of dressing my darling’).

This is the same usageas in Standard English he doesn’t like my driving of hiscar.

GERUND

 That wer vor hetten o’n (‘that was for hitting him’).

... little chance/O’ catchen o’n.

I be never the better vor zee-en o’ you.

The addition of o’ to a gerund is optional: Vor grinden any corn vor bread is similar to Standard English.

PROGRESSIVE ASPECT

As I wer readen ov a stwone (about a headstone).

Rogers gives two examples of the progressive aspect:

I be stackin’ on ‘em up.

I were a-peeling of the potatoes (with a different spelling).