| dc.description.abstract | All of these linguists have missed the boat, however, by not Following up the suggestion that Mencken gave. The clearest evidence for the influence or one language or dialect on another lies in the grammatical systems of the language. If one language borrows parts of another's grammar, then that is strong evidence that the two have been in intimate contact.
A few linguists have made inroads in establishing historical connections in regard to black English. Davis points out that the use or invariant be with habitual aspect, something well-documented in black speech, is present in the speech or certain areas or Ireland. He goes on to say that a search to prove a connection between this Anglo-Irish feature and the same feature in the black creole Gullah would be "pointless," (p. 93) but he still sees fit to include in the his bibliography a report from a linguistic survey of Ireland, with the note that it is relevant because many Irish settlers in the United States were overseers on the large plantations in the deep South (p. 98).
Up to now a comprehensive study of parallels between the grammatical systems of Anglo-Irish and American English, especially in reference to Southern speech, has not been attempted. This paper represents the beginnings of such an effort, focusing only on the evidence found to connect Anglo-Irish and the speech of certain areas of Texas.
I will focus on five specific parallels between Anglo-Irish and the folk speech of Texas: invariant be, copula deletion, the a- prefix on progressive verb forms, inceptives such as go to and get to, and the use of is for are. Each or these will be explained in the section describing their occurence in Anglo-Irish and Texas folkspeech. | en |
