QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:
Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents

This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by MONTGOMERY, M. Search for Related Content

NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXISTENTIAL THEY

University of South Carolina

This paper examines expletive they, a form occasionally noted in the literature (especially on Appalachian English) but heretofore not analyzed. It examines phonological and syntactic patterns in which the form occurs and explores four hypotheses for its development. Two of these posit that expletive they reflects a phonological process of postvocalic /r/ loss from expletive there and a third that it is derived from pronominal they, which has an identical phonological shape. Historical citations support only a fourth possibility, which argues that expletive they can be traced to Ulster and ultimately to Scotland in the seventeenth century and has been in variation with expletive there for 400 years. The form is thus seen to have had a long and complex history in both the United States and the British Isles.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. Hazen and S. Hamilton A Dialect Turned Inside Out: Migration and the Appalachian Diaspora Journal of English Linguistics, June 1, 2008; 36(2): 105 - 128. [Abstract] [PDF]