The origin of Definite Article Reduction in northern English dialects: evidence from dialect allomorphy

Abstract

The phenomenon of Definite Article Reduction (DAR) is the realization of the definite article in northern British English dialects in a range of vowel-less forms, usually written t' in literature. The origin of DAR is assumed to be the assimilation of the initial fricative of the Middle English definite article þe to produce a te form, a sound change recorded for many dialects of Middle English. This article examines the validity of this hypothesis by analysing the distribution of fricative allomorphs in the modern dialects in comparison with the details of the Middle English change. The predicted distribution of fricative forms is not found at most localities, indicating that the development hypothesis is incorrect, but the available data are too scanty to suggest an alternative model.

The New Cockney

“…As Jones (2002) points out, 'the reduced articles of DAR are always vowel-less' and so by dropping the vowel in the definite article, the pronunciation conforms to one of the strategies that Stene (1954) suggests speakers adopt when hiatus occurs. This is that when hiatus occurs, the language may react in one of two ways, one of which is to 'neglect the insufficiently marked syllable division and allow the two syllables to coalesce into one' (Stene 1954: 16).…”

“…Although Definite Article Reduction (DAR) is reported in some areas, mainly in the north of England ( Jones 2002;Rupp and Page-Verhoeff 2005), there has been no study which has investigated allomorphic variation where the full form the is said to occur in both pre-vocalic and pre-consonantal positions. Similarly, no study had previously investigated allomorphic variation of the indefinite article.…”

“…In areas of Yorkshire, for example, zero realisations of the definite article have been reported. In various northern dialects, across the counties of Lancashire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Cumbria, and parts of Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, the phenomenon of Definite Article Reduction (DAR) occurs, that is the realisation of the definite article in a range of vowelless forms ( Jones 2002;Rupp and Page-Verhoeff 2005). Jones describes the reduction of the definite article as being 'perhaps the most stereotypical feature of Northern British English dialects, especially those of Yorkshire and Lancashire' ( Jones 2002: 325).…”

Expressing local identity through radio discourse

“…Anderson (1987: 58, 62, 66, 68, 70, 100, 108, 111) compares his maps derived from the SED data with eight maps constructed from Ellis's data, and the two datasets show very close similarities indeed. Jones (2002) analyses the geographical distribution of phonetic variants of reduced forms of the definite article in northern England, and demonstrates the importance of Ellis's data for understanding the history of this phenomenon. Trudgill (2004) shows convincingly that Ellis's data is crucial for explaining the dialectal origins of New Zealand English in Britain.…”

“…Despite this, there has been very little in the way of detailed linguistic analysis, as opposed to brief statements of comparison in later studies, of Ellis's data (but see Kökeritz 1932, Jones 2002 and Maguire 2012 for notable exceptions), and no attempt has been made to construct a linguistic atlas from Ellis's survey, although several studies have included a few preliminary maps based on it (Dieth 1946, Anderson 1987and Trudgill 2004. Why is this so, and what might we discover if we did investigate this early survey of the dialects of English and Scots in more detail?…”