4.2.1.1 Present-Tense Marking

There appear to be two main patterns of morphological variability in the marking of present tense: (a) a generalised ‑s pattern, found mostly in the North and South West of England, but also in the Midlands, where ‑s marking is found, variably, beyond (but including) third-person singular; and (b) a restricted ‑s pattern, found in East Anglia, where ‑s marking competes with no marking at all in third-person singular contexts and does not occur beyond.

Systems that show ‑s beyond third-person singular appear to be constrained in two ways. The first is by the so-called Northern Subject Rule, according to which ‑s is disfavoured after adjacent pronouns and favoured elsewhere (after NPs and non-adjacent pronouns), as in (1) and (2). This is the case, for example, in Maryport in Cumbria, where Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte2013:68) shows that ‑s marking on third-person plural subjects is more common after NPs than after pronouns. The second is what Cheshire and Ouhalla (Reference Cheshire and Ouhalla1997) in their analysis of the English of Reading call the ‘following clause constraint’. Here, -s is not found, if, firstly, the subject is not third-person singular, and, secondly, if the complement of the verb is a clause or a heavy NP, as in (3) and (4). Generalised ‑s marking appears to be levelling away (Cheshire Reference Cheshire1982; Clark and Asprey Reference Clark and Asprey2013; Godfrey and Tagliamonte Reference Godfrey and Tagliamonte1999), with ‑s marking in such varieties becoming more and more restricted to third singular contexts, showing a gradual shift to a standard-like system (Godfrey and Tagliamonte Reference Godfrey and Tagliamonte1999:106).

1. (1)

   The cattle all goes to to the big markets, these days…they go straight to the slaughterhouse (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:67, Tiverton, Devon)Footnote 1

1. (2)

   You go off for the day, and gives ’em fish and chips on the way home (Godfrey and Tagliamonte Reference Godfrey and Tagliamonte1999:109, Tiverton, Devon)

1. (3)

   I bet the wife enjoys it (cf. *I bets…) (Cheshire and Ouhalla Reference Cheshire and Ouhalla1997, Reading, Berkshire)

1. (4)

   And I hope he breaks his neck (cf. *I hopes…) (Cheshire and Ouhalla Reference Cheshire and Ouhalla1997, Reading, Berkshire)

The restricted ‑s pattern appears limited to East Anglia, where traditionally present-tense verbs lacked any verbal marking at all, as in (5) (Trudgill Reference Trudgill1974; Rupp and Britain Reference Rupp and Britain2019). Unlike in the generalised ‑s areas, in East Anglia, -s, when it does occur, is more common after pronouns than after NPs – what Rupp and Britain (Reference Rupp and Britain2019) label the East Anglian Subject Rule. This restricted ‑s system appears to be receding. Kingston (Reference Kingston2000), Spurling (Reference Spurling2004), Potter (Reference Potter2018) and Britain (Reference Britain2014) all find third-person zero to be on the decline in both Norfolk and Suffolk, but with the decline generally more marked in the rural areas that have experienced greater in-migration over the past half-century. The obsolescent nature of this feature is also confirmed in Britain et al.’s (Reference Britain, Blaxter and Leemann2020, Reference Britain, Blaxter, Leemann, Thibault, Avanzi, Lo Vecchio and Millour2021) English Dialects App investigations of East Anglian English.

1. (5)

   If he miss a week, he won’t make up the next week (Norwich, Norfolk)

Third-person present-tense zero is much more widespread in the negated form of the verb do, (6), however (e.g. Beal et al. Reference Beal, Burbano-Elizondo and Llamas2012; Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle1989), with Anderwald claiming that, in the British National Corpus, don’t is ‘present in practically every dialect area throughout Great Britain’ (Reference Anderwald, Rohdenburg and Mondorf2003:515).

1. (6)

   My dad don’t like it when he says that (Braber and Robinson Reference Braber and Robinson2018:98, Leicester)

4.2.1.2 Present Tense of BE

Edwards et al. (Reference Edwards, Trudgill and Weltens1984:19) claim that ‘virtually all dialects simplify the conjugation of to be’, but there are relatively few empirical reports of this beyond studies of existentials (see below). Non-first-person ’m cliticised to pronouns is reported for Somerset and Dorset by Ihalainen (Reference Ihalainen, Eaton, Fischer, Koopman and Van der Leek1985:65) and Piercy (Reference Piercy2010:235–6) respectively (e.g. (7)), while Clark and Asprey (Reference Clark and Asprey2013:93) report that the ‘I/we/you/they bin, thee bist, he/her/it is’ paradigm for the Black Country north-west of Birmingham in the Midlands is now highly recessive.

Piercy (Reference Piercy2010:239) reports invariant be from Dorset (as in (8)), and Britain (Reference Britain and Hickey2015:430) shows that bes can be used in the East Anglian Fens to denote habitual durative aspect, as in (9).

1. (7)

   You put a big notice on your door saying you’m [juːm] a blood donor (Piercy Reference Piercy2010:238, Dorset)

1. (8)

   And I be one of they that didn’t have no brains our side of the family (Piercy Reference Piercy2010:239, Dorset)

1. (9)

   He gets his secretary Delores what bes in there with him to answer the phone, don’t he? (Rupp and Britain Reference Rupp and Britain2019:107, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

Very common indeed is the use of is, or more commonly ’s, in plural existentials (see Rupp and Britain Reference Rupp and Britain2019 for a review). Hudson and Holmes (Reference Hudson and Holmes1995) find that this is the most common ‘non-standard’ grammatical form in their survey of formal classroom English (see (10)). Szmrecsanyi claims that this is somewhat more common in the North than in the South of England (Reference Szmrecsanyi2013:62).

1. (10)

   If there’s things going on, they’ll give them the information (Brentwood, Essex)

4.2.1.3 Periphrastic do/did

Unstressed periphrastic do/did, as in (11) and (12), is found in South West England (e.g. Ihalainen Reference Ihalainen and Burchfield1994, Megan Jones Reference Jones2002; Piercy Reference Piercy2010; Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004). Klemola (Reference Klemola1994) shows that did is more geographically restricted than do.

1. (11)

   In autumn cider becomes too strong and that do wake ’ee up a bit (Megan Jones Reference Jones2002:120, Wincanton, Somerset)

1. (12)

   I did only fall off me bike once going to school (Megan Jones Reference Jones2002:121, Wincanton, Somerset)

4.2.1.4 Present Participles

The use of the preterite rather than the progressive in present participles, as in (13), is reported in a number of studies, especially from the Midlands and the North (Buchstaller and Corrigan Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015:71; Braber and Robinson Reference Braber and Robinson2018:93). Also especially common in the North of England is the use of the preterite after need and want, as in (14) (Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004). Strelluf’s (Reference Strelluf2020:126) analysis of tweets revealed that Newcastle used significantly more of the preterite in such contexts than anywhere else in England. Stevenson’s Twitter analysis shows very low levels of preterite forms being used outside of the North East, and then only in Lancashire, Yorkshire and London.Footnote ²

1. (13)

   I’d thirty-two cars stood in this yard (Braber and Robinson Reference Braber and Robinson2018:93, Kniveton, Derbyshire)

1. (14)

   My car needs cleaned! (Tweet in Stevenson, http://nwdialectatlas.uk/, Wigan, Greater Manchester)

4.2.1.5 Past-Tense Verbs: Non-Standard Preterites and Past Participles

Non-standard varieties of English in England differ widely from the standard paradigms of past-tense verbs. Many studies report these differences, but there are relatively few empirical corpus-driven surveys of such variability, beyond analyses of the past tense of come and be, below.

A number of common patterns can be identified:

1. 1. Present = Preterite = Past participle (e.g. I come, I come yesterday, I’ve come, I run, I run yesterday, I’ve run, I give, I give it yesterday, I’ve give)

Both Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2009:164) and Szmrecsanyi (Reference Szmrecsanyi2013) find non-standard preterite come, as in (15) and (16), to be more common in the South than the North of England. Levey, Fox and Kastronic (Reference Levey, Fox and Kastronic2017) found that come was used more than 50 per cent of the time among the London adolescents investigated in their survey. Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte2001) found overall lower levels in York, with the highest levels found among older speakers as well as the younger less well educated. For run, Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2009:168) finds preterite run, as in (17), is the majority form everywhere except the South West, while preterite give (as in (18)) was the overwhelming majority form in the South East, and very common elsewhere (Reference Anderwald2009:141).

1. (15)

   A man come out and split his head open (Guzzo Reference Guzzo2008, Bedford)

1. (16)

   Then I wanted to do something else, so I come here (Levey et al. Reference Levey, Fox and Kastronic2017:191, London)

1. (17)

   He run away from home when he were a young lad (Anderwald Reference Anderwald2009:168, Lancashire)

1. (18)

   He had dinner over there, they give him a dinner, but the pineapple he brought home in his sandwich tin (Colchester, Essex)

1. 2. Present ≠ Preterite = Past participle (e.g. I do, I done it yesterday, I’ve done it; I write, I writ it yesterday, I’ve writ it; I fall, I fell, I’ve fell; I take, I took, I’ve took; I see, I seen, I’ve seen, I speak, I spoke, I’ve spoke; I forget, I forgot, I’ve forgot; I drink, I drank/drunk, I’ve drank/drunk)

On the basis of the Freiburg English Dialect Corpus, largely of non-mobile, older speakers, Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2009) finds that done, for preterite do (as in (19)), was the majority form in the South, but not often used elsewhere, especially in the North. For preterite see, saw was the majority form, though seen is the dominant non-standard preterite form in the Midlands and South West (as in (20)) and see is the form used in the South East (as in (21)), which for this verb in this area, therefore, has a present = preterite ≠ past participle system. In the North, there were few non-standard tokens of any kind for see in Anderwald’s corpus. Stevenson (http://nwdialectatlas.uk/) finds, in his analysis of tweets, that spoke as the past participle of speak was found at low but not insignificant levels right across the country, with the highest rates found in Liverpool, Cumbria and the North East. Meanwhile, Willis et al.’s Tweetolectology project found that preterite I drunk is especially common in Essex, Kent and East London, while past participle I’ve drank is very common in the North and the Midlands. It also found that I’ve forgot was most frequently used in tweets originating from the North, especially the North East.Footnote ³

1. (19)

   It never done any real harm, did it? (Silver End, Essex)

1. (20)

   First thing I seen was a thing, a little bit bigger than a square (Anderwald Reference Anderwald2009:120, Somerset)

1. (21)

   I went round there Monday morning, I see it was slung out on the lawn (Parson Drove, Cambridgeshire)

1. 3. Preterite forms that are strong in the non-standard variety but weak in the standard (e.g. East Anglian owe, preterite /u:/, and snow, preterite /snu:/ (Trudgill Reference Trudgill2003:52–3)).

2. 4. Past-tense forms that are weak in the non-standard varieties but strong in the standard (e.g. I grow, I growed, I’ve growed; I draw, I drawed, I’ve drawed)

4.2.1.6 Past-Tense Verbs: Past BE

Rupp and Britain (Reference Rupp and Britain2019) provide a detailed summary of research on non-standard paradigms of past BE across England and beyond. Outside of England, the dominant non-standard past BE paradigm is levelling to was in both affirmative and negative clauses: I/you/he/she/it/we/they was(n’t). This is not so widely attested in England, however, where two other systems tend to prevail.

1. 1. Were~weren’t: In the Midlands and the North West we find variable levelling to were: I/you/he/she/it/we/they were(n’t) (as in (22)) (e.g. Anderwald Reference Anderwald2002, Reference Anderwald, Rohdenburg and Mondorf2003; Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Braber and Robinson Reference Braber and Robinson2018; Moore Reference Moore2010; Petyt Reference Petyt1985; Richards Reference Richards2010). Moore (Reference Moore2010) finds were most common in tags, and Britain (Reference Britain2002) and Vasko (Reference Vasko, Heselwood and Upton2011) both find affirmative were levelling in Cambridgeshire and the Fens, among non-mobile, older rural males (NORMs), but it is now obsolescent among young speakers.

2. 2. Was~weren’t: More common in the South are paradigms in which there is levelling to was in positive clauses and to weren’t in the negative (as in (23) and (24)) (Anderwald Reference Anderwald2002; Britain Reference Britain2002; Cheshire Reference Cheshire1982; Cheshire and Fox Reference Cheshire and Fox2009; Levey Reference Levey2007; Vasko Reference Vasko, Heselwood and Upton2011). Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte1998), Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2002) and Cheshire and Fox (Reference Cheshire and Fox2009) all find that weren’t levelling is more common in tags, as in (25), than in main clauses.

The use of was with plural existentials, as in (26), is widely reported (see Rupp and Britain (Reference Rupp and Britain2019) for a summary).

1. (22)

   I were left in charge when I were eighteen (Braber and Robinson Reference Braber and Robinson2018:85, Kimberley, Nottinghamshire)

1. (23)

   We was underneath the stairs and he wanted to go and see his mother (Ipswich, Suffolk)

1. (24)

   He weren’t really my doctor but he looked after me (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

1. (25)

   Bit before our time, weren’t it? (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte1998:164, York)

1. (26)

   There was about six schools in the area that volunteer projects supported (Holbrook, Suffolk)

Recent research on non-standard forms of past BE in tweets has provided hitherto unknown information about the geographical distribution of this variability. Willis et al.’s Tweetolectology project – http://tweetolectology.com/ – found that you was was more common than we was and they was, matching Rupp and Britain’s (Reference Rupp and Britain2019:203) findings for Brentwood and Basildon in Essex. All three non-standard forms in the Twitter survey were more widely found in and around Liverpool, Lancashire, Humberside, Lincolnshire, East London and Essex, but were largely absent in the North East and South West. Similarly, you wasn’t was more common than we wasn’t, with they wasn’t much more regionally restricted. These forms were mostly found in Humberside and Lincolnshire, as well as East London and Essex. I/he/she/it were, meanwhile, were more common around the border of Lancashire and West Yorkshire, as well as around Bolton and Sheffield. I/he/she/it weren’t, on the other hand, were, as the literature suggests, much more common in the South than positive were, with hotspots of use in London, Essex, Suffolk, Leicester and Birmingham, as well as Lincolnshire and Lancashire.

4.2.1.7 Perfective Aspect

While Standard English uses auxiliary have to construct the perfect tense, in the East Midlands and the Fens, although highly recessive, forms with be as the auxiliary can still be heard (Britain Reference Britain, Britain and Cheshire2003:205, Reference Britain and Hickey2015:431; Ojanen Reference Ojanen1982:118–19, 143, 164; Peitsara and Vasko Reference Peitsara and Vasko2002), as in (27) and (28).

1. (27)

   I said ‘you don’t know what buggering money I’m got’ (Britain Reference Britain and Hickey2015:431, Turves, Cambridgeshire)

1. (28)

   But it een’t a shovel, is it, what I’m described (Peitsara and Vasko Reference Peitsara and Vasko2002:6, Willingham, Cambridgeshire)

4.2.1.8 Future Tense

Across the English-speaking world, there is variability between will and be going to to mark future tense (29). Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte2013) found be going to more advanced in York than in the other rural locations she sampled, but it was nevertheless used less than will everywhere. Both she and Fehringer and Corrigan (Reference Fehringer and Corrigan2015a) found be going to increasing over time, however, in York and Newcastle respectively.

1. (29)

   I don’t think I’ll get taken on there…my odds are that I’m not going to get taken on there (Fehringer and Corrigan Reference Fehringer and Corrigan2015a:8, Newcastle)

4.2.1.9 Imperatives

Little research reports variability in imperative forms. Trudgill (Reference Trudgill, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004, Reference Trudgill2021:95) shows that in East Anglia, the second-person pronoun is often explicit (as in (30)), even when it is reinforced by the verb do (as in (31)).

1. (30)

   Go you on! (Trudgill Reference Trudgill2021:95, Norwich)

1. (31)

   Do you sit down! (Trudgill Reference Trudgill2021:95, Norwich)

4.2.1.10 Verbs of Possession: have vs. have got

There are a number of ways to verbally encode possession in English, including, most commonly, have (as in (32)) and have got (33). Lone got (as in (34)) is a more recent addition to this pair.

1. (32)

   We’re not very keen on neighbours, not that we have anything against them, you know, personally (Norwich, Norfolk)

1. (33)

   I waddle like a duck because I’ve got these terrible knees (Fehringer and Corrigan Reference Fehringer and Corrigan2015b:40, Newcastle)

1. (34)

   She got a son at Hull (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

Variability across these choices differs across the Anglophone world, with have got more common in England than in the US and Canada. Furthermore, have got appears, for the most part, to be on the rise in England. Evidence for this comes from multilocality studies across England, as well as apparent and real-time studies of individual locations. In an investigation of a range of mostly rural sites across England, Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte2013:149) shows that while have is favoured in York and in Maryport in Cumbria, have got and got are favoured not only in Wheatley Hill in the North East, but also Henfield, Tiverton and Wincanton in the South. In both Wheatley Hill and York, the youngest speakers sampled had more have got than the oldest (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:150), while Buchstaller and Mearns (Reference Buchstaller, Mearns, Braber and Jansen2018:224–5) found, in a real-time study of Newcastle, that have got accounted for less than half of all tokens in 1970, but over 60 per cent in 2007 (but see Fehringer and Corrigan Reference Fehringer and Corrigan2015b). There is evidence from the South East of England, however, that have got is already solidly entrenched, with the diachronic trajectory now stable: Fanger (Reference Fanger2013) for Colchester in Essex, for example, found no significant age differences in her corpus, with young and old alike having levels of have got above 80 per cent. In contrast with the evidence from the vernacular varieties of South East England, Graf (Reference Graf2015) finds that have is used 58 per cent of the time, and have got only 37 per cent among the young upper-class participants of the London-based ‘structured reality’ TV series Made in Chelsea, suggesting a perhaps not unexpected conservatism on the part of the upper classes for this variable.

4.2.1.11 Verbs of Obligation: must, have to, have got to

Here, English varieties evidence three main competing forms: must, as in (35), have to, as in (36) and (have) got to, as in (37) and (38):

1. (35)

   I’m not too keen on fish, I must agree there (Nordelph, Norfolk)

1. (36)

   You have to have eyes in t’back of your head (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:142, Maryport, Cumbria)

1. (37)

   When you’ve got a man suddenly plunged into your life, you’ve got to feed him, haven’t you? (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:136, Henfield, West Sussex)

1. (38)

   they only got to let some ballast out and they go straight up, you see (Long Sutton, Lincolnshire)

As with verbs of possession, have got to is more common in England than in North America. For Newcastle, Fehringer and Corrigan (Reference Fehringer and Corrigan2015c:365) find have to and have got to in roughly equal proportions in data collected in 2010, as does Tagliamonte for York (Reference Tagliamonte, Lindquist and Mair2004:41) and for Maryport (Cumbria) and Henfield (West Sussex) (Reference Tagliamonte2013:139). In Tiverton in the South West, however, have got to, and especially got to dominate, together accounting for over 80 per cent of all tokens. Must appears to be in decline everywhere (e.g. Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte, Lindquist and Mair2004:41, Reference Tagliamonte2013:139) and, in most places studied, accounts for less than 10 per cent of all examples.

4.2.2.1 Negation of Auxiliaries and Modals

This is a site of considerable variation in the dialect grammar of England. Three variant systems co-exist:

1. 1. The contraction of the auxiliary (AUX contraction) (as in (39));

2. 2. The contraction of the negator (NEG contraction) (as in (40));

3. 3. Secondary contraction, whereby NEG contracted forms are further contracted, as in (41) and (42).

AUX contraction with negated BE appears to be substantially more common than NEG contraction across the country (Amos et al. Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007; Cheshire Reference Cheshire1982:52; Hughes and Trudgill Reference Hughes and Trudgill1979; Tagliamonte and Smith Reference Tagliamonte and Smith2002:270), though with lower levels than elsewhere in the Midlands (Anderwald Reference Anderwald2002:78; Tagliamonte and Smith Reference Tagliamonte and Smith2002:272).

Meanwhile, AUX contraction with negated HAVE is rare (Tagliamonte and Smith Reference Tagliamonte and Smith2002:268; Amos et al. Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007). Across England, then, BE and HAVE appear to be negated differently, NEG contraction with HAVE, AUX contraction with BE.

1. (39)

   there’s not many party frocks in my wardrobe, is there? (Amos et al. Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007, Redditch, Worcestershire)

1. (40)

   I hope this isn’t going to be sent back (Amos et al. Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007, Burntwood, Staffordshire)

1. (41)

   That’s against the law, you ain’t supposed to keep pigs (Amos et al. Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007, Dorset)

1. (42)

   I in’t had my hair done since afore Christmas! (Amos et al. Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

The greatest geographical variability appears to be found for the negation of WILL, where AUX contraction is either negligible, or, in the North East, very high (see (43)). Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte2013:89) shows, for example, that AUX contraction with WILL is totally absent in her southern sites of Henfield and Tiverton, very low in York and Maryport, but very high in her north-eastern site of Wheatley Hill near Durham (see also Buchstaller and Corrigan Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015:80).

1. (43)

   I’ll not say why (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:89, Maryport, Cumbria)

There exists a wide range of different forms of secondary contraction, which can be used for both BE and HAVE. These include ain’t [æɪnʔ – ɐɪnʔ], in’t [ɪnʔ], een’t [iːnʔ], hin’t [hɪnʔ], en’t [ɛnʔ]. They are extremely widely reported, though Tagliamonte and Smith (Reference Tagliamonte and Smith2002) find few examples in their northern and southern and south-western sites, and Buchstaller and Corrigan (Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015) state that they are rare in the North. Amos et al. (Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007), however, found East Anglia to be a hotspot for high levels of secondary contractions, where they represented over 20 per cent of tokens of HAVE and over 15 per cent of BE in Ipswich (Suffolk) and Mersea (near Colchester in Essex), and over 90 per cent of tokens in Wisbech in Cambridgeshire. East Anglia also houses a wide range of different phonetic forms of secondary contractions. Amos et al. (Reference Amos, Brana-Straw, Britain, Grainger, Piercy, Rigby, Ryfa and Tipton2007) (see also Trudgill Reference Trudgill, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004) find that in’t is dominant, but they also find en’t, heen’t, een’t (see also Viereck Reference Viereck, Hickey and Puppel1997:251; Ojanen Reference Ojanen1982). Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2002) also reports in’t to be common in London, the Midlands and the North West.

A number of other regional negated forms are attested. In Berwick in the far North East, Scottish-type ‑nae forms are reported, such as cannae for cannot and dinnae for don’t, and divven’t and dinnet are found in Newcastle and Sunderland respectively (Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Beal et al. Reference Beal, Burbano-Elizondo and Llamas2012; Buchstaller and Corrigan Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015:78–9; Pichler and Watt Reference Pichler and Watt2004; Rowe Reference Rowe2007). Viereck (Reference Viereck, Hickey and Puppel1997:761, 763) finds ‑na (e.g. canna for cannot in the west and north-west Midlands), day is reported for negated do in the West Midlands (Clark and Asprey Reference Clark and Asprey2013:98), and Braber and Robinson (Reference Braber and Robinson2018:95) report many more for the East Midlands.

4.2.2.2 Negative Concord

Negative concord is the use of two or more negatives in a clause where Standard English only permits one, as in (44), and it is often claimed to be ‘one of the most widespread and common features of non-standard varieties of English worldwide’ (Childs Reference Childs2017:67). It is, furthermore, widely reported as present in varieties spoken across the country (Anderwald Reference Anderwald2002; Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Cheshire Reference Cheshire1982; Hughes and Trudgill Reference Hughes and Trudgill1979, etc.). In their SBDG, Cheshire et al. (Reference Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle1989:205) found it reported more in the South than the North, and this is confirmed by Buchstaller and Corrigan (Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015: 78), Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2002:105) and Szmrecsanyi (Reference Szmrecsanyi2013:152). There have been few corpus-based empirical analyses of multiple negation, however. Childs (Reference Childs2017) examines it in Salford and Newcastle, and finds it only at low levels – 12 per cent for Salford, 5.5 per cent for Tyneside.

1. (44)

   You won’t get nothing this month (Childs Reference Childs2017:80, Salford, Greater Manchester)

4.2.2.3 Never as a Negator

A number of studies report never being used as a non-quantificational negator equivalent to didn’t (cf. (45) and (46)) (Anderwald Reference Anderwald, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Cheshire Reference Cheshire1982; Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle1989, Reference Cheshire, Edwards, Whittle, Milroy and Milroy1993; Hudson and Holmes Reference Hudson and Holmes1995, etc.). Childs (Reference Childs2017:146) is careful to distinguish between, on the one hand, standard uses of non-quantificational never, as in (45), where there existed a temporal window of opportunity for something to occur but it did not, and, on the other hand, punctual non-quantificational never, where the event had a single moment in time in the past to occur, but did not, as in (46), (47) and (48). Childs (Reference Childs2017:146) finds, however, that like negative concord, the use of never in such non-standard punctual contexts as (46–48) is infrequent – less than 5 per cent of all cases in both Salford and Newcastle.

1. (45)

   Nadine never got my message (Childs Reference Childs2017:120)

1. (46)

   I never watched that last night (Childs Reference Childs2017:121)

1. (47)

   A: Alice did it. B: No she never! (Childs Reference Childs2017:121)

1. (48)

   That night he never got no sleep, he said ‘I shalln’t come here no more’ (Little Downham, Cambridgeshire)

4.2.6.1 Pronoun Choice

Variability in pronoun choice takes a number of forms in varieties of English in England:

1. 1. The use of distinct second-person plural subject pronouns, such as yous and you…together, as in (65) and (66). Yous is reported in a number of parts of the North of England (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Edwards, Whittle, Milroy and Milroy1993:81; Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:118; Buchstaller and Corrigan Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015:85–6), the Midlands (Clark and Asprey Reference Clark and Asprey2013) and London (Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002), with speculation that it may have Irish origins. You…together is East Anglian (Trudgill Reference Trudgill2003).

2. 2. The emergence, in Multicultural London English, of man as a personal pronoun, as in (67) (Cheshire Reference Cheshire2013:609). Cheshire argues that although rare in her corpus, man ‘allows speakers to present themselves as a member of a contextually defined group, and … adds to the communicative force of what they are saying’ (Reference Cheshire2013:621).

3. 3. The retention, in some parts of the North, of traditional second-person singular pronouns thou and thee (Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004).

4. 4. The use of dummy that rather than it, as in (68), an East Anglianism (Trudgill Reference Trudgill2003, Reference Trudgill, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Ayers Reference Ayers2000; Peitsara Reference Peitsara, Klemola, Kytö and Rissanen1996).

5. 5. The use of object pronouns as possessive determiners, as in (69), found by Hernández y Siebold (Reference Hernández y Siebold2010:249) in the Midlands, Lancashire, and South and West Yorkshire.

6. 6. The use of gender-marked pronouns to refer to inanimate count nouns, as in (70) and (71). These are largely reported for the South West (Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Piercy Reference Piercy2010; Ihalainen Reference Ihalainen and Burchfield1994), where they are now rare, but they are also found in the South East, according to Hernández y Siebold (Reference Hernández y Siebold2010:98).

7. 7. ‘Pronoun exchange’ – by which subject personal pronouns are used in non-subject positions and vice versa, as in (72) and (73). This is widely reported as being a traditional dialect form of the South West (Ihalainen Reference Ihalainen and Burchfield1994; Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Piercy Reference Piercy2010; Hernández y Siebold Reference Hernández y Siebold2010), where Wagner reports it to be ‘all but dead’ (Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:159), but it is also found in the Midlands. Trudgill (Reference Trudgill2003, Reference Trudgill, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004) and Beal (Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:117–18) report the use of subject pronouns in non-subject positions as being present in traditional Essex and Tyneside respectively.

1. (65)

   When the coals come down the conveyor belts, yous had to watch them (Buchstaller and Corrigan Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015:74, Gateshead, Tyneside)

1. (66)

   Come you on together! (Trudgill Reference Trudgill2021:101, Norwich, Norfolk)

1. (67)

   I got arrested, man paid for my own ticket to go Jamaica, you know, but I’ve never paid to go on no holiday before this time I paid (Cheshire Reference Cheshire2013:609, London).

1. (68)

   That’s five years since I was here (Norwich, Norfolk)

1. (69)

   We used to go in and have us food with his parents (Hernández y Siebold Reference Hernández y Siebold2010:248, Yorkshire)

1. (70)

   It used to be awkward to keep the butter to his shape, he would, you know, go soft (Hernández y Siebold Reference Hernández y Siebold2010:88, Cornwall)

1. (71)

   A little cottage up here, he’s semi-detached, and he was put on the market for three hundred and fifty thousand (Piercy Reference Piercy2010:239, Dorset)

1. (72)

   He wanted he to go on milking the cows (Piercy Reference Piercy2010:239, Dorset)

1. (73)

   We had to march up through the field, didn’t us (Piercy Reference Piercy2010:239, Dorset)

4.2.6.2 Possessive Pronouns

Standard English has an irregular system for the construction of possessive pronouns (e.g. this cake is mine – no, it’s not, it’s hers), sometimes taking the possessive determiner and adding ‑n, as in (74), and sometimes adding -s (if the determiner doesn’t already end in -s), as in (75):

1. (74)

   my → mine

1. (75)

   her → hers

   your → yours

   our → ours

   their → theirs

   cf. his → his

Some non-standard varieties traditionally regularised this redundant complexity and used the strategy in (74) above, that is, the addition of ‑n throughout: mine, hern, hissen, yourn, ourn, theirn, as in (76). These forms appear now to be highly recessive, however. In the Survey of English Dialects from the mid twentieth century, hern, for example, was found across the centre and south of England – though was largely absent from East Anglia, the North, the South-Western peninsula, and London. A number of recent internet-based analyses (see Britain et al. Reference Britain, Blaxter, Leemann, Thibault, Avanzi, Lo Vecchio and Millour2021 for results from the smartphone-based English Dialects App, Katz Reference Katz2019 for an internet-based survey) concur in demonstrating how this is now much more geographically restricted to central Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, predominantly around the town of Mansfield, and around Wolverhampton in the West Midlands.

The use of [mi] as the first-person singular possessive pronoun is widely reported (Hollmann and Siewierska Reference Hollmann and Siewierska2007; Snell Reference Snell2010), as in (77). It is not clear, however, if this form is, indeed, the first-person object pronoun me, or simply one of a number of distinct phonetic realisations of my, along with [mə] and [ma], for instance.

Petyt (Reference Petyt1985:190) and Beal (Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004) report the use in West Yorkshire of us as a possessive pronoun, as in (78), and Trudgill (Reference Trudgill2003) and Peitsara (Reference Peitsara, Klemola, Kytö and Rissanen1996:293) point to East Anglian English’s use of possessive pronouns to refer to being at someone’s house, as in (79).

1. (76)

   A girl what worked with me got hern done like that (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

1. (77)

   A hundred bolts going through [mi] finger (Snell Reference Snell2010:643, Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham)

1. (78)

   We all take us cars to work nowadays (Petyt Reference Petyt1985:190, West Yorkshire)

1. (79)

   they said we’ll see what wants doing, they come to mine and Harry said to them ‘this blooming door don’t shut very well’ (West Walton, Norfolk)

4.2.6.3 Reflexive Pronouns

As in the case of the possessive pronouns, Standard English also has an irregular mixed system for reflexive pronouns, which are formed by preceding ‑self/‑selves with either a possessive or an object pronoun. Traditionally some non-standard varieties have used possessive pronouns throughout, as in (80) and (81), a routinely cited widespread feature of the non-standard Englishes of England (e.g. Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle1989; Anderwald Reference Anderwald, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004; Hudson and Holmes Reference Hudson and Holmes1995; Trudgill Reference Trudgill2003; Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004). The Survey of English Dialects showed that such non-standard reflexive pronouns were found right across the country, except in and around London and the Midlands. The English Dialects App (Britain et al. Reference Britain, Blaxter, Leemann, Thibault, Avanzi, Lo Vecchio and Millour2021) showed that today they are much more geographically restricted to the North East and Cumbria, as well as West and South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and are not infrequent right across the rest of the North. Elsewhere they are present, but at very low levels not exceeding 10 per cent. Katz’s (Reference Katz2019) internet-based survey confirms this geographical pattern.

1. (80)

   they did it theirsel (Shorrocks Reference Shorrocks1999:91–4, Bolton, Greater Manchester)

1. (81)

   he just stopped making them but he used to make them hisself (Turves, Cambridgeshire)

4.2.6.4 Relative Pronouns

The restrictive relativisation system is highly variable, both in standardised and non-standard varieties. The pronouns used in standard and non-standard varieties overlap (e.g. which, who, that, Ø) but both have forms not, or barely used in the other (e.g. what, as, whom). Especially important in determining relativiser choice is whether the antecedent noun is human/animate/inanimate, and whether it serves a subject or non-subject role in the relative clause. Examples can be found in (82–87).

1. (82)

   A particularly virulent one which we seemed to be passing backwards and forwards (Peterborough, Cambridgeshire)

1. (83)

   You used to know people who lived opposite you (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:94, Maryport, Cumbria)

1. (84)

   I’ve got two other sisters that are both working (Beal and Corrigan Reference Beal, Corrigan, Filppula, Klemola, Palander and Penttilä2005:223, Sheffield)

1. (85)

   Have you seen that protein drink Ø you can get like (Cheshire, Adger and Fox Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:55, London)

1. (86)

   We used to make duffle coats and like the safari suits what they used to have (Coggeshall, Essex)

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   The same old man as hit the horse behind the ear once shod two hundred donkeys in one day (Turves, Cambridgeshire)

Subject relatives: that now appears to be the dominant form across the country (see, for example, Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte and Poussa2002:156, Reference Tagliamonte2013:100; Levey Reference Levey2006; Levey and Pichler Reference Levey, Pichler and Asahi2020; Beal and Corrigan Reference Beal, Corrigan, Filppula, Klemola, Palander and Penttilä2005; Britain Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020), and appears to be increasing its dominance in many places, including London (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:58), East Anglia (Britain Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:109), and Salford (Levey and Pichler Reference Levey, Pichler and Asahi2020). Who, used with +human subject antecedents, appears in general to be relatively stable in the South of the country (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:58), but has a variable fate elsewhere – Levey and Pichler (Reference Levey, Pichler and Asahi2020) report it to be on the rise in Berwick, but falling in Salford, and stable in Tyneside. The use of which is negligible in the South of England, found at levels of less than 10 per cent in London, East Anglia and the South West (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:58; Britain Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:104; Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte and Poussa2002:157), and found at only slightly higher levels in the North of England. The null relativiser, Ø, a once commonly reported non-standard variant, especially in existentials, possessives and clefts (see 88–90), has undergone sharp decline in Berwick, Tyneside, London (Levey and Pichler Reference Levey, Pichler and Asahi2020; Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:58) and East Anglia (Britain Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:104), and is found at low levels also in the South West and the North of England (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte and Poussa2002:157). Non-standard what (as in (86)), which was the dominant form in Cheshire’s (Reference Cheshire1982) research in Reading, used heavily in East Anglia (Ojanen Reference Ojanen1982; Peitsara Reference Peitsara and Poussa2002; Poussa Reference Poussa and Viereck1994), and accounted for more than 10 per cent of relativisers in the South West and East Anglia in Herrmann’s (Reference Herrmann2003) corpora of NORMs, now appears to be undergoing rapid attrition in the South and East of England. Cheshire et al. (Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:58–9) find it to be virtually absent in subject relatives in inner and outer London, Piercy et al. (Reference Piercy, Rickford, Wasow, Jaeger and Thomas2011) find it only used among the oldest speakers in their corpus from Dorset, and Britain (Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:104) shows attrition across a number of East Anglian sites.

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   There’s a little alleyway Ø go up that side there (Coggeshall, Essex)

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   She’s got a daughter Ø live down there (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

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   It was Barry’s Ø built that place, weren’t it (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire)

Non-subject relatives: that is very common also in non-subject relatives, but not as dominant as it is in subject forms. It is the major variant in inner and outer London (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013: 58–9), and has become so across much but not all of East Anglia among younger speakers (Britain Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:104–8). In many other locations it competes with Ø, which is also very common in non-subject position. Both Cheshire et al. (Reference Cheshire, Adger and Fox2013:58–9) and Britain (Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:104) find Ø declining in London and East Anglia respectively, however. What, although slightly healthier in non-subject positions, has again almost disappeared from London and is declining in East Anglia.

Relativiser as, (e.g. (87)), once dominant across the Midlands (see Britain Reference Britain, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2020:97), the lower North of England and parts of the South West, appears to be on the wane in most places today. Although Peitsara (Reference Peitsara and Poussa2002:180) found it to be quite common among NORMs in the South West, Van den Eynden Morpeth (Reference Van den Eynden Morpeth and Poussa2002:182) found as at very low levels. Buchstaller and Corrigan (Reference Buchstaller, Corrigan and Hickey2015:89–90) lack optimism about its vitality in the North (though see Shorrocks Reference Shorrocks1999:98).

The fate of what seems bleak in the South and East, as we have seen, but Herrmann (Reference Herrmann2003:138) claimed that it ‘has been radiating out through the … Midlands and the Home Counties, especially London, to the South-West and, eventually, to the North’. There is some evidence that it is gaining ground in the North and Midlands (but not yet the South West – Piercy et al. Reference Piercy, Rickford, Wasow, Jaeger and Thomas2011). Braber and Robinson (Reference Braber and Robinson2018:85) suggests that what is more common in the East Midlands than it used to be, and Beal and Corrigan (Reference Beal, Corrigan, Filppula, Klemola, Palander and Penttilä2005) find it to be common in Sheffield, though Tagliamonte (Reference Tagliamonte and Poussa2002:154) finds it ‘virtually non-existent’ in York. MacKenzie et al. (Reference MacKenzie, Bailey and Turton2014) in an internet survey of ‘acceptability’ found it to be more acceptable in the North, and least in and around London. Overall, this evidence points to a geographical reorientation of the distribution of what from the South and East to the North.

4.2.6.5 Pronominal Word Order

In clauses with both a direct and indirect object pronoun, geographically marked word order variability exists, with (91), (92) and (93) all widely attested.

1. (91)

   She gave it to me

   Verb + Direct Object (DO) to Indirect Object (IO)

1. (92)

   She gave me it

   Verb + IO + DO

1. (93)

   She gave it me

   Verb + DO + IO

Drawing from data in the Survey of English Dialects, Kirk (Reference Kirk, Kirk, Sanderson and Widdowson1985:135) shows that Verb + DO to IO (as in (91)) was reported as the majority form only in the English South West, whereas Verb+DO+IO (as in (93)) was dominant in the Midlands and Lancashire and Verb + IO + DO (as in (92)) most common in the far North and North East, London and East Anglia.

There has been considerable exploration of this geographical variability using internet and social media platformed surveys. Figure 4.1 shows the geographical reach and use of Verb+DO+IO in the results of the 2016 smartphone-based English Dialects App (EDA) survey of over 50,000 users (Leemann et al. Reference Leemann, Kolly and Britain2018). The EDA found this to be the majority form in East Lancashire, Blackpool, Blackburn, Bolton, St Helens, South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire, Derby, West Nottinghamshire, North Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent and parts of the Black Country (especially Dudley and Walsall). Verb+IO+DO was the majority form in Liverpool, West Yorkshire, especially Leeds, and the East coast from Northumberland down to North Lincolnshire. While this form was common in East Anglia at the time of the Survey of English Dialects, it was not reported at high levels from there in the 2016 survey. Elsewhere Verb+DO to IO was reported as the majority form.

Figure 4.1 The distribution of ‘give it me’ (Verb+DO+IO) in the English Dialects App.

MacKenzie et al. (Reference MacKenzie, Bailey and Turton2014) examined variability through an internet survey of over 8,000 responses, which asked users the extent to which they find the Verb+DO+IO – give it me – form ‘acceptable’. The area of acceptability is extremely similar to the pattern found in the EDA. The same pattern is also found in Stevenson’s (Reference Stevenson2016) investigations of this feature in Twitter feed. The geographical spread of this form, then, appears relatively resilient, despite it being the formally non-standard variant of the three (see also Siewierska and Hollmann Reference Siewierska, Hollmann, Hannay and Steen2007). The Verb+IO+DO form, on the other hand, appears to have undergone some geographical shrinkage since the Survey of English Dialects. Stevenson’s Twitter analysis (http://nwdialectatlas.uk/) matches that of the EDA and shows that it remains the majority form in Liverpool, Leeds and the far North and North East, but is only now found at modest levels – 15–30 per cent – in the South and South East.

4.2.6.6 Human Pronominal Quantifiers

Across the English-speaking world there is variability between ‑one and ‑body as suffixes for any-/every-/no-/some- to form human pronominal quantifiers, as in (94–97). D’Arcy et al. (Reference D’Arcy, Haddican, Richards, Tagliamonte and Taylor2013) investigate this variability in spoken corpora from Newcastle, York and Derby, and compare it with written and spoken evidence from the British National Corpus (BNC). They show that ‑body is preferred in the spoken and ‑one in the written components of the BNC, and that there is an apparent time trend towards ‑one in the regional northern spoken corpora, even though ‑body is still the preferred form. Britain and Büchler (Reference Britain, Büchler, Braun and Scherr2023) investigated 100 years of Norwich English, by comparing data from Trudgill’s (Reference Trudgill1974) corpus collected in 1968 with a new corpus of twenty-two speakers collected in 2015. They found that the shift to ‑one was extremely well advanced. While the oldest speakers in the 1968 Trudgill corpus used ‑body in 56 per cent of cases, the 2015 speakers only used it 11 per cent of the time. These data tentatively suggest the progression to ‑one is much more advanced in the South than the North of England.

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   I should probably drink it as everybody else drinks it, black with sugar (Britain and Büchler (Reference Britain, Büchler, Braun and Scherr2023), Norwich, Norfolk)

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   He’s always been on telly but nobody has ever liked him (Britain and Büchler (Reference Britain, Büchler, Braun and Scherr2023), Norwich, Norfolk)

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   Really I’d rather have someone I could’ve seen a lot of over the weekend (Colchester, Essex)

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   they all go to him if anyone wants a house or anything, don’t they? (Parson Drove, Cambridgeshire)

4.2.6.7 Demonstratives

The use of them as a distal plural demonstrative, as in (98), is reported as being very widespread, with both Cheshire et al. (Reference Cheshire, Edwards and Whittle1989:194) and Hudson and Holmes (Reference Hudson and Holmes1995:14) suggesting it is one of the most commonly found non-standard grammatical features in England. MacKenzie et al.’s (Reference MacKenzie, Bailey and Turton2014) online survey finds that this feature is deemed more acceptable by users in the North than the South. There are few empirical analyses of it, however, to pinpoint just how frequently it is indeed used today, or what the linguistic and social constraints on variability are.

1. (98)

   he couldn’t have gone far, he never went up them steps (Ipswich, Suffolk)

A number of varieties also use this here, these here, that there and them there as demonstratives, as in (99) (e.g. Shorrocks Reference Shorrocks1999:51 for Bolton, Trudgill Reference Trudgill2003:62 for Norfolk, Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:164 for the South West, and Rupp and Tagliamonte Reference Rupp and Tagliamonte2019b for York).

1. (99)

   they had this here place on the racecourse (Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:164, Devon)

A number of obsolescing demonstratives are also reported from the South West, including thik [ðɪk] and they, as in (100) and (101). Piercy (Reference Piercy2010:229) and Wagner (Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:164) report these as rare and only found among NORMs.

1. (100)

   well, like, thik one what’s in there now (Wagner Reference Wagner, Kortmann, Burridge, Mesthrie, Schneider and Upton2004:164, Devon)

1. (101)

   the one thing about it in they days (Piercy Reference Piercy2010:238, Dorset)