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3.5.1 Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns in a Devonshire dialect.

I’d like to give not only the grammatical description of adjectives and pronouns in the south-western part of England, but the pronunciation of demonstrative adjectives and pronouns found in the dialect of south zeal, a village on the northern edge of Dartmoor. Martin Harris made his research work in this field:

“The analysis is based on a corpus of some twenty hours of tape- recorded conversation, collected in the course of work for a Ph.D. thesis, either in the form of a dialogue between two informants or of a monologue on the part of a single informant. The principal informant, Mr George
Cooper, has lived for some eighty-five years in the parish, and has only spent one night in his life outside the county of Devon.

For the purposes of this chapter, only one phonological point needs to be made. The /r/ phoneme is retroflex in final position, and induces a preceding weak central vowel [?] when occurring in the environment /Vr/,
(thus [V?r]), when the /V/ in question is /i:/ or /?/. (These are the only two vowels relevant within this work.). The transcription used for the actual forms should not give rise to any further problems. In the case of the illustrative examples, 1 have decided to use a quasi-orthographical representation, since the actual phonetic/phonemic realization is not directly relevant to the point under discussion. The prominent syllable(s) in each example are illustrated thus: “.

We may now proceed to look at the actual forms found in the dialect
(Table 1):
|Singular adjective| | | |
| |/рi:z/ |/рat/ |/рi-ki:/ |
|Simple |/рs/ | | |
|First compound |/рi:z/ ji:r/ |/рat р?r/ |/рi-ki: р?r/ |
| |/рis ji:r/ | | |
|Singular pronoun | | | |
|Simple |/рis/ |/рat/ |/ рi-ki:/ |
| |/рi:z/ | | |
|First compound |/рis ji:r/ |/рat р?r/ | |
|Second compound |/рis ji:r ji:r/ |/рat р?r р?r/ | |
|Plural adjective | | | |
|Simple |/рejz/ |/рej/ |/рi-ki:/ |
| |/рi:z/ | | |
|First compound |/рejz ji:r/ |/рej р?r/ |/рi-ki: р?r/ |
|Plural pronoun | | | |
|Simple (only) | |/рej/ | |

The relative frequency of these forms is shown in Table 2.
|Adjectives |
|Singular |% |Plural |% |
|/рi:z/ |13 |/рejz/ |23 |
|/рis/ |11 |/рi:z/ |2 |
|/рi:z ji:r/ |9 |/рejz ji:r/ |7 |
|/рis ji:r/ |2 |/рi:z ji:r/ |4 |
|/рat/ |15 |/рej/ |49 |
|/рat р?r/ |3 |/рej р?r/ |2 |
|/рi-ki:/ |43 |/рi-ki:/ |10 |
|/рi-ki: р?r/ |4 |/рi-ki: р?r/ |3 |
| |100 | |100 |
|Pronouns |
|Singular |% |Plural |% |
|/рis/ |10 | | |
|/рi:z/ |4 | | |
|/рis ji:r/ |2 | | |
|/рis ji:r ji:r/ |25 |/рej/ |100 |
|/рat/ |22 | | |
|/рat р?r/ |2 | | |
|/рat р?r р?r/ |34 | | |
|/рi-ki:/ |1 | | |
| |100 | | |

The paradigm as outlined in Tables 1, 2 presents few morphological problems. The two pairs of forms /рi:z/ and /рis/ and /рejz/ and /рi:z/ do, however, need examination. In the singular of the adjective, the two forms
/рi:z/ and /рis/ are both frequent, being used mostly in unstressed and stressed position respectively. However, some 30 per cent of the occurrences of each form do not follow this tendency, so it does not seem profitable to set up a stressed: unstressed opposition, particularly since such a division would serve no purpose in the case of /рat/ and /рi-ki:/.
With the ‘first compounds’, the form /рi:z ji:r/ outnumbers /рis ji:r/ in the ratio 1 in the adjective position.

When functioning as a pronoun, /рi:z/ is rare as a simple form and never occurs at all either within a first compound (although ‘first compounds’ are so rare as pronouns that no generalization can usefully be made, see Table 2) or within a ‘second compound’, where only /рis ji:r ji:r/, never /рi:z ji:r ji:r/, is found. Thus /рis/ seems to be more favoured as a pronoun, and /рi:z/ as an adjective; this, of course, is only a tendency.

In the plural, the position is more clear-cut. The normal adjective plurals are /рejz/ and /рejz ji:r/, which outnumber /рi:z/ and /рi:z ji:r/ by a large margin (see Table 2). Such cases of the latter as do occur may perhaps be ascribed to Standard English influence, since /рi:z/ is clearly used normally as a singular rather than a plural form. The absence of any reflex of /рejz/ as a plural pronoun is discussed below.

The other forms present little morphological difficulty. There is only one occurrence of /рi-ki:/ as a pronoun, although as an adjective it almost outnumbers /рi:z/ and /рat/ together, so it seems to belong primarily to the adjectival system. The normal singular pronouns are either the simple forms or the ‘second compounds’, the ‘first compounds’ being most unusual.

In the plural of the adjective, the simple forms are much more frequent than their equivalent ‘first compounds’, whereas in the plural of the pronoun, there is apparently only the one form /рej/. The status of this form is discussed below.

The following are examples of those demonstatives which are not further discussed below. The uses of /рat/ as a singular adjective, of /рi- ki:/ as a singular or plural adjective, and of all the pronouns are fully exemplified in the syntactic section, and thus no examples are given here.

/рi:z/

I come down “here to live in this little old “street.

Well; “this year, I done a bit “lighter.

Now “this season, tis “over.

This was coming “this way.

/рis ji:r/

There’s all this here sort of “jobs going on to “day.

I was down “there where this here “plough was up “here.

Iрejzl

These places be alright if you know where you’m “going to.

They got to pay the “wages to these people.

I do a bit of “gardening . . . and likes of all these things.

/рej/

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