So, here's a funny one for the start of Tom's video. "Yes, It's" gets changed a bit for Gaelic / Northern accents to "Aye, Tis." Same letters, same meaning of the word... But entirely differently...
So, here's a funny one for the start of Tom's video.
"Yes, It's" gets changed a bit for Gaelic / Northern accents to "Aye, Tis." Same letters, same meaning of the word... But entirely differently said.
The absolute joy that is the English language, is that almost all contractions have an accental counterpoint.
I think this is also a good example of the stress rule Tom mentions in the video -- "Yes, it's" is bad because you're stressing "is" in that phrase so shortening it to 's feels wrong, but in 'tis...
I think this is also a good example of the stress rule Tom mentions in the video -- "Yes, it's" is bad because you're stressing "is" in that phrase so shortening it to 's feels wrong, but in 'tis it's the "it" that's shortened so the same issue isn't there.
I'm also not sure if the 'tis form involves cliticizing the way "it's" does. Can the 't appear in front of anything other than "is" in these dialects, something that demonstrates that it attaches to a phrase like 's does? Something like 'Tabsolutely is? Because if that's not the case it seems more likely that 'tis is a purely phonetic reduction rather than the more syntactically complex cliticization you see with contractions like 's
Yorkshire absolutely does this, the stereotype of "going down t' pit" is quite common. There's also a few local ones near my stomping grounds that have some extremely weird contractions of...
Yorkshire absolutely does this, the stereotype of "going down t' pit" is quite common. There's also a few local ones near my stomping grounds that have some extremely weird contractions of language. You know what they're saying... but it's uncomfortable to hear unless you're used to it.
Newfies (people from Newfoundland) and other maritimers here in Canada often use condensed pronunciations and contractions like that, along with some archaic language choices as well, which can be...
Newfies (people from Newfoundland) and other maritimers here in Canada often use condensed pronunciations and contractions like that, along with some archaic language choices as well, which can be hard to understand if you're not used to it. E.g.
Eh, b'y (also spelled 'Aye b'y' and 'ay b'y', and sometimes said as 'yes b'y): shortened form of "yes, boy." It's a term used to agree with what someone is saying.[28] Can be used sarcastically.
Yes, b'y: Yes boy. It is an expression of awe or disbelief. Also commonly used sarcastically to mean yeah right. It is similar to "eh, b'y."
Where ya at?: Where are you?
Stay where you're to/at till I comes where ya're at/to.: Wait there for me
Get on the go: Let's go. It is also a common euphemism for partying. on the go by itself can also refer to a relationship – similar to a dating stage, but more hazy. The term also refers to drinking ("gettin on the go tonight" – going out drinking tonight)
Havin' a time: having fun [29]
You knows yourself: Responding to statement in agreement.
What are ye at?, or Wadda ya'at b'y?: How are you doing, or sometimes What are you doing?
Wah?: what?
What's after happenin' now? : What happened? (used when someone seems distraught or emotional)
Havin' a yarn: Used to refer to a group telling a long story or having a long conversation.
Luh!: Look! (Also used the same way as "Lo", to draw attention to something or somewhere)
G'wan b'y!: Literally, "go on, b'y/boy?" Can be used as a term of disbelief or as sarcasm, like the term "No, really?"
Hows you gettin' on, cocky?: "How are you today?"
You're a nice kind young feller: "You are a nice young boy"
Me Son: a term of endearment, like "my friend" or "my bud."
Me ol' cock: another term of endearment like "my friend," "me son," or "my bud."
You're some crooked: You are grouchy
He[she/dey] just took off:, They left recently/quickly. Whether or not it denotes time depends on use of the word "just;" by not including "just" denotes speed, whereas using "just" denotes time.
Mudder or me mudder: mother
Fadder or me fadder: father
Contrary: Difficult to get along with.
After: "have." For example, "I'm after sitting down" for "I have sat down." it is also used like "trying" (i.e.: whaddya after doin' now?, "what have you done?")
Oh me nerves: an expression of annoyance
Ducky: female friend or relative, used affectionately. This is commonly used in the English Midlands but is used for both genders.
My love: female friend or relative
Batter: Leave/begone. Typically used in the form of the phrase "Batter to Jesus." It can also be used as "Take that (object) away from here", in the form of "Batter that"
My treasure: female friend or relative. These three terms are used platonically.
Rimmed/Warped: to be deformed or distorted in an unusable fashion. Often used to describe someone who is seen upon as weird or an outcast (i.e., She's rimmed, b'y).
Right: synonym for "very;" i.e.: "She's right pretty."
Scrob/Scrawb: a scratch on one's skin, likely from the Irish "scríob" (i.e.: "The cat gave me some scrob, b'y" falling into disuse in lieu of "scratch")
Gets on/Getting on, used to refer to how a person or group behaves (i.e. "You knows how da b'ys gets on" / "How's she getting on?")
On the go, To have something processing ("I've got an application on the go") or be in a relationship ("He's got some missus on the go")
Can't do 'ar ting when ya got nar ting ta do 'ar ting wit. – "You can't do anything when you have nothing to do anything with." ['ar – any, opposite of nar (from nary, as in "nary a one" – not a one)]
Hah, glad to be of service! We have a few newfies in our extended family, and they're a hoot, lemme tells ya. When they get hammered they can get prit' near impossible to understand though. This...
Hah, glad to be of service! We have a few newfies in our extended family, and they're a hoot, lemme tells ya. When they get hammered they can get prit' near impossible to understand though. This sketch is surprisingly accurate. :P
Although a bunch of my American friends have said the same of me when I get wasted too, since that's when my Ontarian accent (another example) apparently comes on pretty strong. ;)
p.s. And just in case you were wondering what they were singing at the end of the first video: I's the B'y. And here's the iconic Canadian band Great Big Sea's version.
"t'" here is an abbreviation of "the", not "it" (t' versus 't). And the abbreviated "the" isn't joined with the noun following it. Therefore, it's not a clitic as described in the video.
the stereotype of "going down t' pit" is quite common.
"t'" here is an abbreviation of "the", not "it" (t' versus 't). And the abbreviated "the" isn't joined with the noun following it. Therefore, it's not a clitic as described in the video.
AFAIK the t' in that sentence represents "to" (or "to the") not "the", since I've heard Yorkshiremen say "going t' pub" too. And according to Merriam-Webster, "t" representing "to" before another...
AFAIK the t' in that sentence represents "to" (or "to the") not "the", since I've heard Yorkshiremen say "going t' pub" too. And according to Merriam-Webster, "t" representing "to" before another word still counts as a clitic:
For example, the sentence "They love to dance" is typically pronounced with the to truncated to a "t" that gets tacked onto the front of dance.
And according to Wikipedia, it would be a proclitic (appearing before its host), whereas all the examples Scott gave were enclitics (appearing after its host).
Apparently there are also endoclitics (appearing inside its host) too, although I can't think of any example in English. In-fucking-credible or un-fucking-believable are the closest I can think of, but they don't use a shortening of "fucking" so don't count as clitics. In-f'n-credible or un-f'n-believable might count as an endoclitic though, maybe?
Even if t' ("the") is a clitic, it's a different clitic to 't ("it"). So, when someone asks "can the 't appear in front of anything other than 'is' in these dialects", using "into t' pit" to prove...
Even if t' ("the") is a clitic, it's a different clitic to 't ("it"). So, when someone asks "can the 't appear in front of anything other than 'is' in these dialects", using "into t' pit" to prove that it does isn't the right approach.
Tom Scott did another video about words like "abso-fucking-lutely", and described these as infixes (as opposed to prefixes and suffixes).
I wonder if an endoclitic would be something like the "n" in "fish'n'chips" or "rock'n'roll". Or maybe endoclitics don't occur in English.
I think you may have come away from this video with a misconception. Being a shortening is not what makes something a clitic. A clitic is something that behaves like an affix (prefix, suffix,...
I think you may have come away from this video with a misconception. Being a shortening is not what makes something a clitic. A clitic is something that behaves like an affix (prefix, suffix, infix depending on where it attaches) but attaches to an entire phrase rather than a single word. Something cannot be both an affix and a clitic at the same time because their definitions are mutually exclusive.
Tom uses shortenings of longer words as examples in this video, but this is merely an example of some clitics in English. The fact that they're contractions isn't what makes them clitics. English doesn't have many clitics but there are other languages that have many more clitics than English, and they aren't always (or even most often) contractions of existing words. What makes them clitics is how they behave, needing to attach to something else but attaching to a whole phrase, not a word.
I'm not familiar enough with endoclitics to know how they typically appear, wince they're on the rarer end. I would not define something like the n' in "rock'n'roll" as one, though, at least not without more evidence that it has some specific characteristics that illustrate it behaving in a clitic-y way. I think it's far more likely merely a phonetic shortening of "and".
That t' is contracting a different word in a different context though -- contacting "the" is very different from contracting "it" when it's the subject of the sentence. I'm more interested in...
That t' is contracting a different word in a different context though -- contacting "the" is very different from contracting "it" when it's the subject of the sentence. I'm more interested in specific behavior of a certain version of the contraction to see if it's equivalent to 's in its becoming a clitic.
I've seen and heard 'tain't in use: "'Tain't my job to do that." I've even heard something like "'T's none of your business what I do in my free time." The Aussie dialect of English is great at...
I've seen and heard 'tain't in use: "'Tain't my job to do that." I've even heard something like "'T's none of your business what I do in my free time."
The Aussie dialect of English is great at abbreviating, shortening, and eliding anything.
The issue here is that we always simply have a shortening of "it" coming right before forms of "to be", which seems to indicate that it might be just a phonetic shortening. By contrast, the 's...
The issue here is that we always simply have a shortening of "it" coming right before forms of "to be", which seems to indicate that it might be just a phonetic shortening. By contrast, the 's shortening of is/has is a clitic because it attaches to the end of a whole noun phrase. That's why my example inserted an adverb to try -- if the t' also showed up before things that aren't forms of "to be" but also part of the verb phrase, it would potentially be a clitic like 's rather than just a phonetic shortening.
I feel like there's maybe even more examples that disprove this 'syntactic gap' than prove it. 'Yes, let's.' 'No, it isn't/hasn't.' 'You shouldn't/wouldn't/couldn't/needn't.' 'You...
I feel like there's maybe even more examples that disprove this 'syntactic gap' than prove it.
'Yes, let's.'
'No, it isn't/hasn't.'
'You shouldn't/wouldn't/couldn't/needn't.'
'You could've/should've/would've.'
The first two of these are not examples of clitics like the 's in "it's": "Let's" is merely a contraction of "let us". The 's here is not the same 's in "it's", and it does not behave the same...
The first two of these are not examples of clitics like the 's in "it's":
"Let's" is merely a contraction of "let us". The 's here is not the same 's in "it's", and it does not behave the same way. The interesting thing about the 's in "it's" is specifically that it doesn't behave like a mere contraction like this.
n't definitely doesn't behave the same way as 's in "it's". You cant attach it to anything but a set of specific modals/auxiliaries. You can't say "You should reallyn't" or something.
The 've is more interesting, because it might behave more like "n't" but might behave more like 's. Consider the following exchange:
A: Have you done it?
B: I've!
Clearly there is a restriction here similar to the one with "it's", but that restriction doesn't occur when 've attaches to the end of modal auxiliaries like "could". But ofc this is true without the contractions for these sentences -- "I could" is well-formed on its own, but just "I" isn't.
In any case, these examples don't "disprove" the existence of syntactic gaps (which are a very complex but well-documented syntax thing). A syntactic gap is a term for certain behavior around certain kinds of ways material is omitted from a sentence. It's not an inherent property of all contractions or even all clitics, so there's no reason to expect a syntactic gap here. Syntactic gaps appear in certain positions when there's "necessary" material missing, and that depends a ton on very specifically where they are and what kind of material is "missing".
It can be used for "it has" as well, but that's not so much my point. It's not the entire thing, it's the apostrophe-s part. The video itself shows examples that contracting "is" or "has" like...
It can be used for "it has" as well, but that's not so much my point. It's not the entire thing, it's the apostrophe-s part. The video itself shows examples that contracting "is" or "has" like this and attaching it to whole phrases. For some added examples of my own, something like "The pizza's here" shows it can attach to more than just pronouns, and some like "The pizza I ordered's here" shows that it attaches to the end of the whole noun phrase rather than just to the end of noun.
The apostrophe-s contraction of "us" in "Let's" doesn't behave the same way, since afaik it basically only occurs in combination with that one word specifically and doesn't attach to a whole phrase like the is/has one does.
So, here's a funny one for the start of Tom's video.
"Yes, It's" gets changed a bit for Gaelic / Northern accents to "Aye, Tis." Same letters, same meaning of the word... But entirely differently said.
The absolute joy that is the English language, is that almost all contractions have an accental counterpoint.
I think this is also a good example of the stress rule Tom mentions in the video -- "Yes, it's" is bad because you're stressing "is" in that phrase so shortening it to 's feels wrong, but in 'tis it's the "it" that's shortened so the same issue isn't there.
I'm also not sure if the 'tis form involves cliticizing the way "it's" does. Can the 't appear in front of anything other than "is" in these dialects, something that demonstrates that it attaches to a phrase like 's does? Something like 'Tabsolutely is? Because if that's not the case it seems more likely that 'tis is a purely phonetic reduction rather than the more syntactically complex cliticization you see with contractions like 's
Yorkshire absolutely does this, the stereotype of "going down t' pit" is quite common. There's also a few local ones near my stomping grounds that have some extremely weird contractions of language. You know what they're saying... but it's uncomfortable to hear unless you're used to it.
Newfies (people from Newfoundland) and other maritimers here in Canada often use condensed pronunciations and contractions like that, along with some archaic language choices as well, which can be hard to understand if you're not used to it. E.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_English
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Canadian_English
(both articles are worth a read, if you're interested in unique dialects)
Well. You've just given me a fantastic rabbit hole for my commute tomorrow!
Hah, glad to be of service! We have a few newfies in our extended family, and they're a hoot, lemme tells ya. When they get hammered they can get prit' near impossible to understand though. This sketch is surprisingly accurate. :P
Although a bunch of my American friends have said the same of me when I get wasted too, since that's when my Ontarian accent (another example) apparently comes on pretty strong. ;)
p.s. And just in case you were wondering what they were singing at the end of the first video: I's the B'y. And here's the iconic Canadian band Great Big Sea's version.
"t'" here is an abbreviation of "the", not "it" (t' versus 't). And the abbreviated "the" isn't joined with the noun following it. Therefore, it's not a clitic as described in the video.
AFAIK the t' in that sentence represents "to" (or "to the") not "the", since I've heard Yorkshiremen say "going t' pub" too. And according to Merriam-Webster, "t" representing "to" before another word still counts as a clitic:
And according to Wikipedia, it would be a proclitic (appearing before its host), whereas all the examples Scott gave were enclitics (appearing after its host).
Apparently there are also endoclitics (appearing inside its host) too, although I can't think of any example in English. In-fucking-credible or un-fucking-believable are the closest I can think of, but they don't use a shortening of "fucking" so don't count as clitics. In-f'n-credible or un-f'n-believable might count as an endoclitic though, maybe?
Even if t' ("the") is a clitic, it's a different clitic to 't ("it"). So, when someone asks "can the 't appear in front of anything other than 'is' in these dialects", using "into t' pit" to prove that it does isn't the right approach.
Tom Scott did another video about words like "abso-fucking-lutely", and described these as infixes (as opposed to prefixes and suffixes).
I wonder if an endoclitic would be something like the "n" in "fish'n'chips" or "rock'n'roll". Or maybe endoclitics don't occur in English.
So In-f'n-credible may be an infix endoclitic then. :P
And as for rock'n'roll, it looks like you're not the only one wondering about that:
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/proclitic-enclitic.680815/
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/example-of-mesoclitic-in-proclitic-mesoclitic-enclitic.680817/
p.s. mesoclitic is just a synonym for endoclitic, according to Wiktionary
I think you may have come away from this video with a misconception. Being a shortening is not what makes something a clitic. A clitic is something that behaves like an affix (prefix, suffix, infix depending on where it attaches) but attaches to an entire phrase rather than a single word. Something cannot be both an affix and a clitic at the same time because their definitions are mutually exclusive.
Tom uses shortenings of longer words as examples in this video, but this is merely an example of some clitics in English. The fact that they're contractions isn't what makes them clitics. English doesn't have many clitics but there are other languages that have many more clitics than English, and they aren't always (or even most often) contractions of existing words. What makes them clitics is how they behave, needing to attach to something else but attaching to a whole phrase, not a word.
I'm not familiar enough with endoclitics to know how they typically appear, wince they're on the rarer end. I would not define something like the n' in "rock'n'roll" as one, though, at least not without more evidence that it has some specific characteristics that illustrate it behaving in a clitic-y way. I think it's far more likely merely a phonetic shortening of "and".
That t' is contracting a different word in a different context though -- contacting "the" is very different from contracting "it" when it's the subject of the sentence. I'm more interested in specific behavior of a certain version of the contraction to see if it's equivalent to 's in its becoming a clitic.
I've seen and heard 'tain't in use: "'Tain't my job to do that." I've even heard something like "'T's none of your business what I do in my free time."
The Aussie dialect of English is great at abbreviating, shortening, and eliding anything.
The issue here is that we always simply have a shortening of "it" coming right before forms of "to be", which seems to indicate that it might be just a phonetic shortening. By contrast, the 's shortening of is/has is a clitic because it attaches to the end of a whole noun phrase. That's why my example inserted an adverb to try -- if the t' also showed up before things that aren't forms of "to be" but also part of the verb phrase, it would potentially be a clitic like 's rather than just a phonetic shortening.
Tom Scott returned to language topic. Nice to see.
I feel like there's maybe even more examples that disprove this 'syntactic gap' than prove it.
'Yes, let's.'
'No, it isn't/hasn't.'
'You shouldn't/wouldn't/couldn't/needn't.'
'You could've/should've/would've.'
The first two of these are not examples of clitics like the 's in "it's":
The 've is more interesting, because it might behave more like "n't" but might behave more like 's. Consider the following exchange:
Clearly there is a restriction here similar to the one with "it's", but that restriction doesn't occur when 've attaches to the end of modal auxiliaries like "could". But ofc this is true without the contractions for these sentences -- "I could" is well-formed on its own, but just "I" isn't.
In any case, these examples don't "disprove" the existence of syntactic gaps (which are a very complex but well-documented syntax thing). A syntactic gap is a term for certain behavior around certain kinds of ways material is omitted from a sentence. It's not an inherent property of all contractions or even all clitics, so there's no reason to expect a syntactic gap here. Syntactic gaps appear in certain positions when there's "necessary" material missing, and that depends a ton on very specifically where they are and what kind of material is "missing".
Interesting, thanks!
I might be misunderstanding, but are there examples where 'it's' means or is used for something other than 'it is'?
It can be used for "it has" as well, but that's not so much my point. It's not the entire thing, it's the apostrophe-s part. The video itself shows examples that contracting "is" or "has" like this and attaching it to whole phrases. For some added examples of my own, something like "The pizza's here" shows it can attach to more than just pronouns, and some like "The pizza I ordered's here" shows that it attaches to the end of the whole noun phrase rather than just to the end of noun.
The apostrophe-s contraction of "us" in "Let's" doesn't behave the same way, since afaik it basically only occurs in combination with that one word specifically and doesn't attach to a whole phrase like the is/has one does.
I'm a child, I can't get past clitic.