ASSESSMENT OF SYNTAX IN SCOTTISH LANGUAGE

Different speakers make different choices in different situations. This paper focuses on structures towards and at the broad scot end of range. Broad scots is essentially a spoken variety and spontaneous spoken language as its own structures and properties. The structures and properties are found in all nonstandard varieties of English, but also in spontaneous spoken Standard English. Research gap The relationship between syntax in Scottish English and Standard English has not yet been clearly clarified, it is illusive whether some Scottish dialect especially the ancient one still exist. The structures described here are part of everyday language of many speakers in Scotland but differ greatly from the structure of standard written English. They form a different system on this matter (syntax).

Their survival is worth recording, to help in the role of construction of Scottish identity and the identity of individuals is central even if sadly neglected by researchers, and they influence directly on education, employment, and social exclusion. The specific structures of syntax are clearly illustrated below; Morphology Irregular verbs A given verb may have different irregular (strong) forms in scots and Standard English. For example, seen (scots) vs. Not the widely use wifes, knifes, lifes, leafs, thifes, dwarfs, loafs, wolfs, all in a regular relationship with wife. Pronouns Scots has a second person plural yous or yous yins, avoided by educated speakers. Us is informal but widespread instead of me, particularly with verbs such as give, show, and lend. For example, can you lend us a quid? The possessive pronoun mines is analogous to yours, and his.

Hisself and theirselves are analogous to yourself. ‘The windows were all broken. ’ (2) The lambs is oot the field. ‘The lambs are out of the field. ’ We was is frequent. We is does not occur. b. She’s not leaving. (9) a. She isnae leaving. b. Won’t you put too many. asks for too many to be put on. Clauses without an auxiliary verb, as in I got the job, can be made negative with didn’t or didnae but never is frequently used, as in (13). (13) a. I could’ve got the job. and the quantifiers all, each and every. Consider (15): (15) a. It is not democratic, because every member is not consulted on the decision. [ radio interview] b. We all don’t have to be there.

c. They got going to the match. Should and not ought is used, but want is frequent, as in (17), uttered by a judo instructor: (17) You want to come out and attack right away. b) In Standard English must expresses conclusions, as in (18a), and obligation, as in (18b): (18) a. You must be exhausted. [ECOSSE] b. We werenae really wanting to go last year but they sent us a lot of letters to come. [ ECOSSE ] c. He’s not understanding a single thing you say. [TV programme] d. Interrogatives Scots regularly uses how where Standard English uses why: (47) a. A: Susan, how’s your ankle? B: I can walk on it I think how? ‘…why?’ b. How did you not apply? ‘Why did you not apply?’ b) Whereabout is used instead of where and is regularly split into where and about.

How + about relates to quantity. (48) a. For example, the use of what appeared to be singular forms of verbs with plural noun subjects as in, bairns is easie pleased, will probably continue to be seen as an option, rather than an obligation by Scots makkars. Now that a Scottish parliament is established with responsibility for education and the arts, no doubt there will be major changes in educational policy for the Scots language. Scottish executive advocates the inclusion of Scots in the school curriculum. In the present situation, it seems unlikely that literacy in Scots can be sustained for very long, unless the language is effectively thought both at school and university level. This can only be done by regarding Scots as a linguistic system in its own right, distinct from English, although closely related to two resources which are obviously necessary for this purpose, are generally recognized orthography and recent Scots grammar.

About 50% of the words commonly found in literary Scots are used in common with English. A large proportion of distinctively Scots words have closely related English equivalence, for example snaw and snow, bane and bone, hert and heart, breid and bread. Scots has evolved, over the centuries from the Northumbrian form of Anglo-Saxon, in continuous contact with English. For these reasons, Scots is often regarded as simply a dialect of English. Sometimes as uncouth kind of English. For example, in Scots English, there is a marked preference for “please sit down!” over “do sit down!” In contemporary written Scots the indefinite article is generally a before consonants and an before vowels. In modern spoken dialects the tendency is to use a before both consonants and vowels.

For example, “we saw a elephant at the zoo” there is a tendency in Scots to use the indefinite article with a noun where a verb might be more normal in English, for example “Jennet is awa for a soum” The term Scottish English or more preferably scots in present day encompasses a wide spectrum of varieties. It is important to note that many speakers of scots have access to a number of varieties in their linguistic repertoire, allowing them to move up and down this linguistic continuum depending on context of use (Murray 1873). Thus a speaker may move from pervasive use of a broad scots feature in conversation with friends to virtually no use at all in more formal contexts.

He smokes - He doesnae smokes. Another form of negation is the standalone participle no. auxiliary verbs which can citify to the subject show a tendency to do so, and in this case, the negetor is expressed as no: He’s smoked. He’s no smoked. He’ll smoke. This was done to identify any problems in the questionnaires before actual study was conducted. RESEARCH DESIGN Research design refers to a plan of action to carry out in connection with proposed research work. The study sort to assess Scottish syntax and its relation to Standard English. A deductive approach was used as it is concerned with developing a hypothesis based on existing theory, and then designing a research strategy to test the hypothesis.

Based on the focus of the study, a case study research design was used. DATA ANALYSIS Frequency tables were used in analyzing the data. Question 1 from the questionnaire was to identify whether some Scottish dialect still existed. Have you ever heard of the word een? Yes (-) No (-) Have you ever heard of the word shin? Yes (-) No (-) Response Frequency Percentage (%) Yes 12 37. 5 No 20 62. 5 RESULTS/FINDINGS The percentage of respondents who said no was higher than those who said yes. Many people still use the plural forms of words in Scottish syntax instead of Standard English. Question 3 from the questionnaire was to determine whether some forms of demonstrative adjectives were still alive and in frequent use. Which of the following sentences is common to you? I) Thea cakes was awfy dear.

II) Them cakes was awfy dear. Response Frequency Percentage (%) I) 10 31. Response Frequency Percentage (%) Yes 26 81. 25 No 6 18. 75 RESULTS/FINDINGS Many people pronounce words with an r. This indicates that the influence of Standard English on people is of less extend. Assumption: Scottish dialect was greatly used compared to Standard English. Due to many developments the social situation of Scots weakened and in the 19th century it began to appear as nothing but a substandard and bad form of English. New bodies of data on computer, such as the SCOTS archives at the University of Glasgow, have to be exploited. The systematic collection of data by cassette recorder and elicitation techniques has yet to be under taken. Map task dialogues help to build up our knowledge of structures currently in use but represent a different genre from spontaneous conversation.