“I DONT CARE ONE CENT WHAT [Ø] GOYING ON IN GREAT Britten”: BE-Deletion IN IRISH ENGLISH

Abstract

In the english-speaking world, be-deletion, or copula absence, is best known as a likely creole feature of African American english (AAe) and basilectal Caribbean englishes. this historical case study examines raymond hickey's contention that attestations of be-deletion in present-day Irish english (Ire) must lead to revision of accounts assuming that be-deletion does not and did not occur in the englishes of britain and Ireland. A survey of reports of be-deletion in present-day and historical varieties of british english (bre) and Ire suggests that be-deletion is and was found not only in Ireland, but also in Scotland and northern england, regions that contributed greatly to british settlement in Ireland. Deletion appears to have been widespread in Ire historically and was present in time to cross the Atlantic with Ulster Scots (Scotch-Irish) settlers in the eighteenth century and with other Irish

Irish English in emigrant letters

“…Letters have provided data for linguistic studies of IrE, beginning with Montgomery's () survey of possible Ulster influences on Appalachian dialects. There is by now a large body of studies based on linguistic data from letters, either partly (Filppula ; Hickey , ) or entirely (Montgomery , ; McCafferty , , ; Pietsch , ; McCafferty & Amador‐Moreno ). Linguists are more interested in the linguistic forms used by letter writers than in the letters’ contents.…”

“…However, in the British Isles, it is reported only from IrE in progressive environments and in IrE and Southwest and Southeast English English in going to contexts, while no British Isles variety in that survey reports be ‐deletion before NPs, LocPs or AdjPs. The presence of be ‐deletion at all in the Schrier material suggests it might be interesting to examine this in a larger corpus like CORIECOR (McCafferty ). It also reminds us that new data sets may reveal interesting features that have not previously received much attention.…”

“…Note that Hickey () reports be ‐deletion in the full range of environments where it occurs in African American English and Caribbean English‐based creoles. McCafferty () is a case study that finds be ‐deletion in almost the same range of contexts in the letters of a single late nineteenth‐century letter writer, while McCafferty (: 225–231) reports similar patterns in eighteenth and early nineteenth‐century IrE.…”