lexical and primary verbs

A widespread NEE pattern sees the past tense and past participle forms coincide, usually with a past tense form extended to the participle function. Evidence for this can be found in RTG.

(1) I’ve just spoke to Wes (2012)

(2) He must’ve knew man (2019)

(3) Wish I’d took my kids when they were littler (2019)

(4) Should have gave up then (2019)

(5) what I’ve saw has not impressed me at all (2019)

Sometimes, the participle form is extended to the past tense function.

(6) First time I seen him I presumed he was that mortal that he couldn’t walk (2017)

(7) I done it last year and loved every minute (2019)

Examples 1-8 show partial analogical levelling in which one irregular pattern has shifted to another irregular pattern, making the paradigm more uniform.

Full analogical levelling is to be found in verbs which are irregular in SE having regular past tense and participle forms in NEE, making the paradigm more uniform still.

(8) It slightly bended the truth (2019)

(9) That was the great thing that I clinged to when I came in (2012)

(10) the prices have creeped up quite a lot recently (2011)

Such patterns can be found in all NS varieties (SED findings are synthesized in Upton et al. 1994: 490-491). However, there is some evidence to suggest that in Britain the pattern illustrated by examples 1-6 is particularly associated with northern varieties of English, especially in NEE and Sc., where they can appear in the speech and writing of people from a wider social class range than in the rest of England, as in these examples from PhD theses archived at Sunderland and Durham universities respectively: Since then I have wrote a number of successful textbooks; I would have went out and managed it and made decisions.

In examples 1-8 all the cited forms are present in SE. However, sometimes a verb has forms in NEE that are not present or are rare in SE, as for example in the case of tell, treat, get, forget, and break.

(11) I telt the wife it would be a piece of piss so we did jungle trial (2018)

(12) His lass had telt him she was leaving him for his best friend (2014)

(13) Think he was having a go at di canio who tret him like shit (2013)

(14) He’s been tret like shit tbf (2014)

(15) Weve getten our wish, now it’s a fresh start for SAFC (2011)

(16) My hope is they’ve gotten the picture after yesterday’s shit show (2019)

(17) I honestly think SAFC fans had forgetten what a good left-back was supposed to be like (2012)

(18) I brock me ankle (2014)

(19) You’ve just brock yer leg man (2013)

(20) “Fucking hell, Bally’s just brocken that lad’s foot” (2019)

Historically, telt (or <tellt>) may show continuation of the Old English (chiefly Anglian) past tense telede (OED). Gotten and getten can be found in northern versions of the Middle English (c.1300) encyclopaedic verse history of the world Cursor Mundi: ‘Hu he wald lere vs her vr lai, / þat ebber þat in sine was gotin!’; ‘Bot crist has nu vs getten þar, / vs getun in hali gast has he’. The forms tret and brock(en) are both recorded in NW (1892-3), with the former illustrated with a line from 'Battle on the Shields Railway', a dialect poem published in Bards of the Tyne (1849).

“They’ll myek the cheps ‘mends for the way they been tret”.

While some of the lexical verb forms discussed so far are quite widely found, there are four irregular lexical verbs – go, know, take and make – which have particular salience in NEE for a variety of reasons.

As Beal points out, in North East England the verb go ‘may be substituted by the lexically distinct verb gan, which is obsolete in standard English’ (1993: 192). Gan is recorded for Nb and Du in the Survey of English Dialects, but not as a separate verb from go, whereas the English Dialect Dictionary has gan and gang as headwords, with both attested for Northumbria as synonyms of go. We should also note that the earliest forms of OE go are in -a, as illustrated in this gloss of the Latin ire trans fretum (‘go across the strait/channel’) from the Lindisfarne Gospels: gaa ofer luh (‘go over the lough’). Gaa is echoed in NEE, which has orthographic renderings of something like [ga(z)] or [ga:(z)] in speech. SED records ga – transcribed as [ga] and [ga:] – in Nb and Du as a third person plural form expressing habitual action, but RTG also has examples of ga (spelled <gar>) as a base, a second person form, and a present participle (spelled <gaan>).

(1) Do the usual places in Roker still have the match on or do I have to gar ower the town? (2016)

(2) Cannit gar wrang (2017)

(3) here lasso will ya gar out with is (2012)

(4) are yer gaan to the match? (2011)

In SED, gan/ga is categorical for ‘go’ in Nb and Du. For example, when prompted with ‘what do good people do on Sunday?’ 13 of the 15 informants use gan, while the remaining two use ga in responses such as ‘they gan to church’ and ‘they ga to church’ (Orton and Halliday 1963: 924). Gans, gannen and [ga:z] are also present (937). In RTG go and gan are broadly interchangeable.

(5a) Fitness levels would go through the roof (2016)

(5b) The price of bacon would gan through the roof (2011)

(6a) If I go out with the other half the cost trebles (2019)

(6b) if I gan out with them somewhere I’ll forget something (2012)

(7a) so I goes into the doctors (2012)

(7b) So I gans into reception to complain (2018)

(8a) if you go by train (2019)

(8b) If you gan by road with the tunnels then aye (2016)

(9a) Chaplins will be fine if yous go early enough for a seat (2016)

(9b) if yous gan down and we stop up (2013)

(10a) the wife goes in on Wednesday to get it done (2015)

(10b) My wife gans there (2013)

(11a) we all went up Barley Mow with bats and golf clubs (2019)

(11b) All ganned up Hylton Road bout 1:30 today stinking of wee (2011)

(12a) You’ve gone down in my estimation Chubs (2014)

(12b) You’ve gan down in my estimations (2019)

(13a) I won’t be going back (2017)

(13b) I won’t be ganning to the final if we get there anarl (2019)

(13c) Sat watching the cricket before gan to graft (2019)

(13d) I’m gannen down to Southampton setting off tomorrow morning (2012)

(14a) I’m gonna go and gloat (2011)

(14b) Ganna go grab a takeaway (2010)

(14c) I’m ganna gan mental and hoy beer (2014)

(14d) I think we’re ganner lose (2012)

Etymologically, the relation between go and gan(g) is uncertain (ODEE). The OED entry for go lists a number of historical forms which resemble those found in RTG, including the Old English base forms gaa (found, as we have seen, in the Northumbrian Lindisfarne Gospels) and gan (in Beowulf). By the ME period such forms were becoming more associated with northern varieties. This can be seen when versions of the encyclopaedic poem Cursor Mundi (c.1300) are compared. According to Hogg (2006: 365) the Göttingen MS is believed to represent a ‘Northeast’ dialect, while the Trinity MS is 'midland'.

He bad eft ga (Göttingen) He bad him efte go (Trinity)

Four skor and sex ȝer ouer gan (Göttingen) Foure skore & six ȝere ouer gon (Trinity)

The northern associations of gan/ga are well established by the nineteenth century, with Heslop providing an extensive entry for gan in NW (1893: 315) and examples of most of the forms attested in RTG to be found amongst the dictionary’s citations.

It’s time to gan hyem

Aa’ll gan an fish for mesel

Aa gans up tiv him

He gans skittling aboot

He waaks backwards like an aad twiney gan doon the grund

Gannen down here

Wor aad wife’s ganna mask the tye

W’or ganna hae rain

Gae doon the toon an’ seek the milk

Gan, it seems, has particular longevity and saliency in NEE. Ruano-García et al. (2015) in a study of the lexis of ‘Northern texts’ from the Salamanca Corpus list gang/gan amongst their ‘top ten northern words’ in both the Early (1500–1700) and Late Modern English (1800–1900) sub-corpora. Ruano-García et al. describe such items as ‘lexical pan-northernisms’ and stress that because the corpus texts are ‘representative of literary dialects’ they ‘were not necessarily written for a regional audience’, concluding that ‘writers balanced the number of dialectalisms used so as not to interfere with the readers’ understanding of their literary message, and very likely selected terms that readers might have been familiar with’ (2015: 145). It would seem then, that as early as the sixteenth century gan was undergoing enregisterment and has therefore long held special status in the region. It is certainly present in the vernacular linguistic landscape (see Pearce 2017).

In RTG, know is sometimes spelled <kna, knaa, knar, nar, naa> to reflect a vowel in the region of [a:], which is occasionally heard in speech in some words in the GOAT lexical set (words in this set have considerable variability in vowel quality in the North East). Know is the most commonly occurring of these words, which include cold, old, hold, snow and no. All of these appear re-spelled on RTG: hoping itl not be so caard; He is a aad sack as a footballer; Haad on – you drive a transit van?; my audi is dreadful in the snaa; Naa they’re not like.

(1) Nice to kna some are concerned about me on here (2014)

(2) As far as I kna yes (2016)

(3) aye, a knar (2019)

(4) I nar who you are anarl (2012)

(5) you naa who i mean (2012)

(6) Every poster knas on here I’ve had battles with the booze (2014)

(7) I hope Juan knars his PIN number (2018)

(8) You may mock, but he knarred about the computer lad weeks ago (2019)

(9) Knaing my luck I'll get the sack (2016)

Kna(r) also occurs in ‘the/tha/thee kna(r)s’ – a popular tag, roughly equivalent to SE ‘you know’:

(10) The world will keep turning the knars (2011)

(11) ah’s not daft tha knas (2015)

In SED, when prompted to produce ‘I don’t know’, most of the Nb and Du informants favoured [na: ~ na] rather than [nø: ~ nø ~ nɔ: ~ nɔ] for ‘know’ (Orton and Halliday 1963: 806-807).

PDE know derives from OE (ᵹe)cnáwan. DSL describes forms in -a- as ‘northern’ and forms in -o- as midlands and the south. SE adopts the southern form while the archaic form is preserved in Sc. and NEE. By Heslop’s time it had become a well-known feature of the dialect (1893: 428).

KNAA, KNAW, to know. “Thoo knaas aa like te he’ thee near.” Ken means to be acquainted with a person or thing from observation or from outside view. Knaa refers to mental perception.

For many people, the cognate ken in the sense alluded to by Heslop is distinctly Scottish. But it was recorded for Nb and Du in SED and it does occasionally appear on RTG.

(12) awld tommy smith at number 6, did you ken him??? (2012)

Traditional North East pronunciations of make and take – still quite widely heard – are [mak] and [tak]. According to Kerswill (1987) this is the result of lexical variation, with [e:] (the mainstream northern English vowel for words in the FACE lexical set) used in formal situations, and [a] in more informal contexts. SED records [mak] and (more rarely) [tak] for Nb and Du. Interestingly, both are regarded as ‘older’ by an informant from Durham (Orton and Halliday 1963: 1009, 1011). This variation has become lexicalized, and captured in spellings such as <mack> and <tack>. In RTG other orthographic variants are also evident (esp. <mak> and <tak>).

These [a] variants are generally base, present tense and -ing participle forms.

(1) Mack ya mind up (2011)

(2) Macks sense really (2017)

(3) i think they just mak it up as they gan along (2011)

(4) our lass maks it toppa (2011)

(5) just been mackin’ a cup of tea and a glass of juice at the same time (2013)

(6) Don’t tack too long to make up your mind mate (2015)

(7) Roy Wood tacks some beating like (2014)

(8) I says come in, tak a seat (2014)

(9) Anybody whee taks Dross Barkley to an international fixture wants reviewing like (2019)

(10) Can someone calmly and without tacking the piss explain this one to me? (2013)

Forms in -a- preserve a pre-GVS pronunciation, echoing the OE verbs macan and tacan. The historical association with the north are strong: as McColl Millar points out ‘in all of the dialects’ of northern and insular Scots, make and take are [mak] and [tak] (2007: 34). EDD records forms in -a- widely across the north, providing a parental admonishment from Durham as evidence for [mak] and a line from a Northumberland song for [tak].

A’ll mak tha’ behave thysell

Sae don your plaid an’ tak your gad

Culturally, [mak] for make is of significance because it is widely regarded as the origin of the ethnonym Mackem for people of the city of Sunderland.

The 'primary' verbs (be, have, do) can function as main verbs; they also have an auxiliary function. In both roles, we see some difference between NEE and SE.

Be

The differences between NEE and SE in relation to be are largely syntactical, and are dealt with in the section on number agreement.

Have

Formally, NEE and SE mainly coincide in relation to have. However, the SED does record ha as a first person singular present tense form in Nb, and this is evident in RTG (with both positive and negative polarity).

(1) i ha absolutely no faith he will learn from his mistakes (2019)

(2) since then i hant looked back (2012)

Ha probably reflects a ME development where in weak-stress conditions the [v] was lost (ODEE). It is also widespread in Scottish English/Scots.

When have occurs in constructions with modal verbs in colloquial English it is frequently reduced to [ə] and represented orthographically with <-a>, as in shoulda, coulda, etc. These geographically widespread features are also evident in RTG.

Do

Orthographic representations of do in RTG reflecting non-standard forms are exemplified below. Most of them are in three main categories.

• • Forms in [di:] and [dɪ] which are orthographically represented with <dee> or <di>

  • Forms in [dɛɪ] which are orthographically represented with <dey> or <dae>

  • Forms in [dɪv] which are orthographically represented with <div> (these are rare in positive contexts, but more frequent with negative polarity)

All of these are recorded in SED for both Nb and Du (Upton et al. 1994: 497) as illustrated in the following examples from Northumbrian locations, showing positive and negative polarity: I div; he disno’; he disn’t; they dinnot; they divvent; they dunnot.

Rowe (2007: 365) points out that an 'o/u-form realised as an /i/-form suggests an unrounding with fronting'. This probably arose as a consequence of the raising of the vowel in the GOOSE lexical set (which includes do) in Scotland and the northern counties of England in the early Modern English period, sometimes referred to as 'Northern Fronting'.

In forms in [dɪv], the consonant [v] likely reflects a fortition of the hiatus-breaker [w] (Rowe 2007). For more on this phonological process in the context of the preposition to → tiv, go to this section.

The examples below give a flavour of the range of non-standard do in RTG.

Positive polarity

Infinitive

(3) Things to dee in Madrid (2014)

(4) needs to dae more squat thrusts and star jumps on the touchline (2018)

Imperative

(5) dee it yersel (2017)

(6) just dae it (2019)

First-person singular

(7) Aye, I dee (2016)

(8) Only dae aboot 10k a year (2019)

(9) He divs. I div. We all div. Whoever says we divvent understand is clearly a div (2015)

First-person plural

(10) I’ve followed safc long enough to kna we dee things the hard way (2014)

Second-person singular

(11) Breathe in before you dee yasel a mischief(2019)

Second-person plural

(12) Yaz dee undastand(2014)

(13) I once asked one "Why do youse actually say it?" and his reply was "Cos vats what yaz all dey, eat cheeeezy chips" (2016)

Third-person singular

(14) She diz nowt for me like (2012)

(15) be class if he diz mate (2018)

(16) Mind, it’ll be chuffing ‘ellish if it diz, like (2019)

Third-person plural

(17) There’s only one reason they dee it (2018)

(18) "AYE BUT A BET WA STILL GET HIGHYA CROODZ THEN THA MACKAMZ DEY" (2016)

Past tense

(19) I done it last year (2019)

-ed/-en participle

(20) they could have did it in half a day (2017)

-ing participle

(21) Fucking hell man what was he deeing? (2018)

(22) Clatts is daeing the business noo (2018)

Negative polarity

In negative clauses a number of predictable constructions emerge according to whether forms in [di:] or [dɪ]; [dɛɪ] or [dɪv] are being used.

[di:] + negator

(23) Ah deent nar if she’s any good at cooking and cleaning like (2018)

[dɪ] + negator

(24) Ah dinna think Pugwesh is gannin like (2016)

(25) This marriage disnt last long neither (2012)

(26) Sunlun has a wonderful coastline, Newcastle disnae (2018)

(27) Kids these days dinnat nar they’re born (2013)

[dɛɪ] + negator

(28) Gotta say a daint see what the attraction is with harry potter like (2010)

[dɪv] + negator

(29) waste of time slapping a smack head cos they divvent feel it (2011)

(30) Ya divna understand, man! (2014)

There is more on negation in NEE here.