17.4 Some regional features
I. Auxiliary Verbs
An auxiliary verb is an extra verb that supports the main verb in some way. We use the verb to be as an auxiliary as in he wis rinnin, the verb to hae as in He haes boakit on the carpet, or the verb to dae in questions and negatives: He gaed > Did he gae? He didna gae. There is a special group of auxiliary verbs called the modal auxiliaries (will, wad, may, micht, can, cuid, shall, shuid, maun, yaised tae). They can carry a lot of meaning. Compare I can bile an egg with I micht bile an egg or I shuid bile an egg, (but I’m no daein it).
Particularly in Ulster Scots and in the Edinburgh and the Hawick dialects, you will hear combinations of modal auxiliary verbs which would sound odd to speakers from elsewhere. These ‘double modals’ are well established features of the grammar of these regions. Work with the examples below and read the transcript, which contains the translation of the sentences.
Transcript
Listen
We used to could dae that
We used to do that
Model
We used to could dae that
We used to do that
Transcript
Listen
He’ll no can come the day
He’ll not come today
Model
He’ll no can come the day
He’ll not come today
II. Subject/verb agreement
You may notice something different about this sentence compared to how it would sound in the English language:
- Its springs wis hingin oot, twa legs wis aff it.
Springs and legs are plural but the verb wis looks singular. To complicate matters, the same speaker might also say:
- They are hingin oot and they are aff it.
This is an example of the Northern Personal Pronoun Rule. This too is a survival from an earlier period. This requires verbs to end in -s even when the subject is plural (compare Scots the babies sleeps with Standard English the babies sleep) unless the pronoun is plural and is placed immediately beside the verb, so:
- the babies sleeps but they sleep
Activity 7
In this activity, you will test your understanding of the subject-verb-agreement rule relating to the Northern Personal Pronoun Rule. Listen to the example and then decide whether the explanation for the use of the verb with or without an –s ending is true or false.
Part 1
Transcript
Listen
The dugs lowps the fence.
Model
The dugs lowps the fence.
a.
True
b.
False
The correct answer is a.
Part 2
Transcript
Listen
They lowp the fence.
Model
They lowp the fence.
a.
True
b.
False
The correct answer is a.
Part 3
Transcript
Listen
We wha daes wir hame sume gets guid merks.
Model
We wha daes wir hame sume gets guid merks.
a.
False
b.
True
The correct answer is a.
a.
True
b.
False
The correct answer is a.
This all sounds very complicated, but the fact that people with no knowledge of formal grammar get the Northern Personal Pronoun Rule right tells you something important. The speakers are the real experts – not the people who write books about it. This is far from a universal feature of Scots and even the people who use it in their dialect often drift into a more standard English form.
III. Northern Personal Pronoun
The Northern Personal Pronoun Rule is a historical feature once common across the North of England as well as in Scotland. When you find a sentence like They gets aa affrontit – where the -s form appears with an adjacent person pronoun – it may look as if the rule is being broken. On these occasions, however, it may be that a narrative present tense is being used.
IV. Present participles and verbal nouns
The present participle is the part of the verb that we use after the verb to be in so-called progressive constructions such as:
- I am rinnin. He wis walkin.
You can also use it like an adjective:
- the drippin tap, the bilin kettle.
In Modern Scots it usually ends with –in but a few hundred years ago, it used to end with –and:
- I am rinnand. He wes walkand.
V. Determiners
The verbal noun also ends with –in for Modern Scots. It is called a verbal noun because, although it is part of a verb, it behaves like a noun. It often comes after a determiner:
- A’m here for the singin His singin wad turn milk soor.
It can be the subject of a sentence:
- The singin wis braw.
It can be the object of a sentence:
- We heard the singin.
Subjects and objects are usually nouns or pronouns. The verbal noun ended with –ing for a very long time.
Activity 8
Read the list of examples of older Scots and highlight the verbal nouns and present participles.
Discussion
Note:
- war sportand (were sporting) sportand is a present participle
- my begynning (my beginning) verbal noun after a possessive (compare my end, your book)
- variand windis (varying winds) present participle being used as an adjective as opposed to: The winds are varying.
- your slomering (your slumbering) verbal noun after a possessive
- syttand on thair nestis present participle being used an adjective to describe birdis.
This is the stage that many Scots speakers were still at only a generation or two ago. Again, speakers who had never heard of a verbal noun or a present participle made the distinction in their speech and got it right all the time. Now this distinction only survives in Orkney and Shetland, and among older speakers in isolated pockets elsewhere. Today we can see how often and becomes an and -ing becomes -in.
It is therefore not surprising that the old verbal noun ending -ing became -in and the old present participle ending -and became -an. We can hear all the time how vowels in unstressed syllables become pronounced less clearly, so for the rest of us, the two endings have long since collapsed together with no distinction. Indeed, the -ng sound has even been extended by analogy to the English present participle, where historically it does not belong.
VI. Personal Pronouns and polite forms of address
The first person pronoun is usually A in the Central Belt, but as you move up the East Coast you are more likely to hear I. The second person plural is often youse in Ulster Scots and West Central Scots and this feature is spreading. It seems that we are not altogether content with you for both the singular and plural second person.
Historically, thou (thee, thy) was second person singular and ye (you, your) was second person plural. Then it became fashionable throughout Europe to use the singular form to address social inferiors, children, people you knew very well or people that you did not know very well and wished to insult. The plural form was used to show respect and formality. Scots was no exception and we followed similar rules to those which still operate in French (tu, vous) and German (du, Sie) today.
One theory for thou falling out of use in Scotland (and England) could be that the rules became too cumbersome and confusing, so everyone went with the safe, polite option. The exception is in Shetland where du, dee and dy are still used for the intimate informal singular.
17.3 Some widespread features of Scots grammar – continued