Full Description
Warren Maguire examines Mid-Ulster English as a key case of new dialect formation, considering the roles of language shift and dialect contact in its phonological development. He explores the different processes which led to the development of MUE through contact between dialects of English, Scots and Irish and examines the history of a wide range of consonantal and vocalic features. In addition to determining the phonological origins of MUE, Maguire shows us why the dialect developed in the way that it did and considers what the phonology of the dialect can tell us about the nature of contact between the input language varieties. In doing so, he demonstrates the kinds of analysis and techniques that can be used to explain the development of extra-territorial varieties of English and colonial dialects in complex situations of contact, and shows that Irish English provides a useful testing-ground for models of new dialect formation.
As one of the oldest 'new' extra-territorial varieties of English, one which developed in a context of language and dialect contact, MUE provides an excellent opportunity to study how new dialects develop in situations of settlement colonisation.
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1. About this book 1.2. What is Mid-Ulster English? 1.3. The phonological origins of Mid-Ulster English 1.4. Sources and methods 1.5. Structure of this book Chapter 2: Background 2.1. Preliminaries 2.2. English in Ulster before the 17th century 2.3. The Plantation of Ulster and its associated settlements 2.4. Demographic and linguistic transformation in the 17th and early 18th centuries2.5. Ulster in subsequent centuries 2.6. The decline of Irish in Ulster 2.7. The ethno-religious dimension 2.8. The linguistic history of Ulster Chapter 3: Consonants 3.1. The consonants of MUE 3.2. The dorsal and glottal fricatives 3.3. Velar Palatalisation 3.4. The Palato-alveolars and Palatal Velarisation 3.5. Pre-R Dentalisation 3.6. Intervocalic /t/-Voicing 3.7. Dental fricatives 3.8. Rhoticity, /r/ realisation and Post-/r/ Retraction 3.9. The distribution and realisation of /l/ 3.9.1. The lexical distribution of /l/ 3.9.2. The realisation of /l/ 3.10. Epenthesis 3.11. Consonant cluster simplification 3.11.1. Deletion of /t/ 3.11.2. Deletion of /d/ after /l/ 3.11.3. Deletion of /d/ after /n/ 3.11.4. Deletion of /b/ and /g/ 3.11.5. Summary 3.12. Other consonantal features 3.13. Summary Chapter 4: Vowels 4.1. The MUE vowels 4.2. Vowel quality in MUE 4.3. Vowel quantity in MUE 4.4. Lexical distribution 4.5. Summary Chapter 5: Discussion 5.1. Preliminaries 5.2. Contact with Irish 5.3. The English input to MUE 5.4. The Scots input to MUE Chapter 6: Conclusions Bibliography
