The rise of Scots do - transfer or innovation?

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Do-support involves the mandatory inclusion of the auxiliary do, historically bleached of semantic meaning and now serving purely morpho-syntactic functions. While extensively researched in English since Ellegård (1953), its counterpart in Scots has received less attention (although see Meurman-Solin 1993; Gotthard 2019, 2024a). This article investigates whether early Scots do exhibited similar functions to English “intermediate do”, as analysed by Ecay (2015), before stabilising into its current role, as this would indicate that the emergence of do-support is more likely to be an independent development in Scots. This investigation aims to gauge the likelihood of Scots do-support resulting from contact with Southern English during anglicisation, the process which saw English forms favoured over Scots in Scottish writing. Proportions of affirmative and negative declarative do from the Parsed Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (1540–1750; Gotthard 2024b) are measured across various syntactic contexts, with results assessed against criteria for contact-induced change. The social context and timing of the rise of Scots do suggest do-support being a transfer from Southern English, but its intermediate do qualities compromises this analysis. However, the presence of an intermediate do in Scots might represent a northward diffusion of such a grammar from English into Scots.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEnglish Language and Linguistics
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 27 Sept 2024

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • do-support
  • parsed corpora
  • contact
  • Scots
  • English

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