Book Description

Excerpt from A Grammar of the Dialect of West Somerset: Descriptive and Historical The object of the present work has been explained in the Introduction. But I take this opportunity to correct a statement on p. 1. After the first sheets of this work had been printed my attention was drawn to a third historical grammar of an English dialect, The Dialect of Pewsey (Wiltshire) by Dr. John Kjederqvist' (1903). To an exhaustive description of the sounds Dr. Kjederqvist has, at the suggestion of Prof. Luick of Graz, added a complete history of the phonology of that dialect. I received this valuable book only when the ninth sheet was passing through the press, but have been able frequently to refer to it in the Additions. Prof. Luick's new book, Studien zur Englischen Lautgeschichte', treats of a problem also discussed here (Chapter IV). The study of his work, however, required more time than I could give to it while my book was being printed. But I hope to treat of the question of the lengthening of ME. i and u in another place soon. In judging the attempt made in the Glossary to distinguish what is genuinely dialectal and what is due to or influenced by standard speech it should be borne in mind that I have only marked those words which can with some degree of certainty be shown to owe their pronunciation to standard English, according to the criteria laid down in 563 ff. No doubt there are more, but we want proofs. A word like imitation, or vowel, or logic is probably not in dialectal use, but we cannot be sure of that; logic may for all we know be a genuine dialect-word. See also Glossary s. v. oration, pedigree; to rendez-vous Mr. Elworthy expressly adds: 'common'. In conclusion it is a pleasant duty to acknowledge my indebtedness to Prof. K. D. Bulbring, whose teaching has enabled me to make what I hope will be found a satisfactory use of the admirable materials which Mr. Elworthy has put at our disposal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."