In diffusionist accounts of the Northern Subject Rule (NSR), this subject-verb concord system spread from Scotland via Ulster to North America and elsewhere. Thus, the NSR in Mid-Ulster English dialects of districts originally settled from England is attributed to diffusion from Ulster-Scots. But the NSR was also a feature of dialects of the North and North Midlands, the regions that contributed most of the English settlers to the Ulster Plantation. Since English and Scottish settlement patterns established in the seventeenth century have been reflected in Ulster dialect boundaries since then, the founder principle provides an alternative account of the persistence of the NSR in Northern Irish English. Usage in nineteenth-century emigrant letters indicates that the NSR was as strong in English-influenced dialects of Mid-Ulster as in Ulster-Scots and suggests that the NSR in Ulster may be a direct import from England as well as Scotland. and Ireland. Areas settled mainly by Scots, Ulster-Scots from the North of Ireland (often Scotch-Irish in American usage), and English still differ in dialect lexicon and features of phonology, morphology, and syntax in ways that can be traced back to their regional roots across the Atlantic (see, e.g., Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 1998:102-107). As shown in the map in Figure 1, the boundaries between the major varieties of Northern Irish English (NIE) reflect the linguistic influence of English and Scottish founder populations, in that relatively English (Mid-Ulster) and Scottish (Ulster-Scots) dialects are found in parts of the province settled in the seventeenth century from England and Scotland, respectively (Barry

It has been suggested that use of the Northern Subject Rule (NSR) in Southern Irish English (SIrE) is the result of diffusion from Ulster-Scots dialects of the North of Ireland, where many Scots settled in the 17th century. 19th-century Irish-Australian emigrant letters show the main NSR constraint — which permits plural verbal-swith noun phrase subjects but prohibits it with an adjacent third plural pronoun — to have been as robust in varieties of SIrE as it was in Northern Irish English (NIrE) of the same period. Before British colonisation of Ireland, the NSR was present in dialects of Northern England and the North Midlands, regions which contributed substantially to English settlement in the South of Ireland. It is therefore suggested here that the NSR in SIrE might be a retention of a vernacular feature of NSR dialects that were taken to Ireland from the English North and North Midlands rather than a feature that diffused southwards in Ireland after 1600.

Thebe after V-inggram has been used in representations of Irish English since the seventeenth century. In early texts it often has future meanings that have been regarded as inauthentic because the Irish Gaelic construction that is the source of the gram is a perfect. This article accounts for the coexistence of future and perfect uses as an outcome of the interaction of two types of language transfer: the gram was ‘borrowed’ (‘pull transfer’) into English by English-speakers as well as being ‘imposed’ (‘push transfer’) on English by Gaelic-speakers. In borrowing the gram, English-speakers attributed toafterprospective senses that grammaticalise as futures, especially desire and goalward movement. In imposition, Gaelic-speakers and language-shifters usedbe after V-ingas a perfect, in line with retrospective meanings ofafterand the semantics of the Gaelic construction. Both transfer types occurred simultaneously, though future uses dominated the record until the mid-eighteenth century. This gave way to a century of change until mid-nineteenth century, and perfect senses have dominated since the 1850s. The timing coincides with the spread of bilingualism and language shift: as more Irish shifted to English, imposition became the dominant transfer type. Thus, future uses are an outcome of ‘negotiation’ in the contact between Gaelic and English: Gaelic contributed the structure and perfect semantics, English the future semantics. Comparison with a crosslinguistic model of future grammaticalisation shows future uses ofbe after V-ingto conform to the development typical of future grams.

No abstract

Part sociolinguistic, part ethnographic, this book takes up the neglected question of how ethnic division interacts with variation and change in Northern Irish English. It identifies an idealised folk model of harmonious communities, in spite of the social divide and open conflict that have long affected the region; this model affects daily life and sociolinguistic studies alike. A reading of sociolinguistic studies from the region reveals ethnolinguistic differentiation. Qualitative analysis of material from (London)Derry shows people often stressing tolerance in their community, while accounts of their activities contain evidence of ethnic division and strife. Quantitative analysis charts six changes in (London)Derry English. Variation correlates to varying degrees with age, ethnicity, class, sex and social network. The ethnic dimension, while not the most important parameter in all cases, plays a role in relation to all the changes examined.