Linguistics - English relative clauses in dialects of the GB isles Essay

Linguistics - English relative clauses in dialects of the GB isles - Essay Example Herrmann builds her theory will be examined. In part two, I will examine the basic premise upon which Mr. Sag builds his theories. Part three will examine Ms. Herrmanns theory of grammatical construction and part four will examine the commonalities that the two theories have, by paying special attention to the concept of pied-piping. To begin, one must examine the basic premise upon which Ms. Herrmann built her grammatical constructs. In the â€Å"Relative Clauses in Dialects of English,† the author describes an extensive study of the British Isles. She divided the Isles into six broad sections - Central Midland, Central north, Central Southwest, East Anglia, Northern Ireland and Scotland. She concentrated on the prototypical relative clauses, or adnominal clauses, and she compared these clauses across the different dialects of the sections listed above, with an eye towards identifying the features that have become commonplace across different dialects, and also identified how the commonalities and differences across different dialects identified certain dialects as more closely related to Standard English than other dialects. Her study also can identify where different dialects intersect, which is known as dialectical levelling. (Herrmann 22). In the process, she also identified broad characteristics of the various dialects she studied. Central southwest, Central North and Northern Ireland have broad dialectical speech, ie, the speakers in these regions tend to speak in one dialect, while the speakers in East Anglia, Central Midland and Scotland have more heterogenous speech. (Herrmann 24). Central Southwest and Northern Ireland are almost entirely broad speakers. Broad speakers tend towards more non-standard features, which is gradually transforming into traditional features, and these are influencing Standard English as a whole. (Herrmann 22). The basic findings of the study were that the relative particles (zero, that, what