Pittsburgh English - Grammar

Grammar

• "positive" anymore adv. these days; nowadays (Montgomery 1989; McElhinny 1999; Montgomery 1999)

Example: "It seems I always wear these shoes anymore."

Further explanation: While in Standard English anymore must be used as a negative polarity item (NPI), some speakers in Pittsburgh and throughout the Midland area do not have this restriction. When not used as an NPI, anymore means something like "these days."

Geographic Distribution: the Midland (Montgomery 1989).

Origins: Likely Scots-Irish (Montgomery 1999).

• Reversed leave~let usage (Maxfield 1931; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006).

Examples: "Leave him go outside"; "Let the book on the table."

Further explanation: Leave is used in some contexts in which, in standard English, let would be used; and vice versa.

Geographical distribution: Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere (see above citations).

Origins: Either Pennsylvania German or Scots-Irish.

• need, want, or like + past participle (Murray, Frazer and Simon 1996; Tenny 1998; McElhinny 1999; Murray and Simon 1999; Montgomery 2001; Murray and Simon 2002; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006).

Examples: "The car needs washed"; "The cat wants petted"; "Babies like cuddled".

Further explanation: More common constructions are "Babies like cuddling" or "Babies like to be cuddled"; "The car needs washing" or "The car needs to be washed"; and "The cat wants petting" or "The cat wants to be petted."

Geographic distribution: Found predominantly in the North Midland region, but especially in southwestern Pennsylvania (Murray, Frazer and Simon 1996; Murray and Simon 1999; Murray and Simon 2002). Need + past participle is the most common construction, followed by want + past participle, and then like + past participle. The forms are "implicationally related" to one another (Murray and Simon 2002). This means the existence of one construction in a given location entails the existence (or not) of another in that location. Here’s the implicational breakdown: where we find like + past participle, we will also necessarily find want and need + past participle; where we find want + past participle, we will also find need + past participle, but we may or may not find like + past participle; where we find need + past participle, we may or may not find want + past participle and like + past participle. Put another way, the existence of the least common construction implies the necessary existence of the two more common constructions, but the existence of the most common construction does not necessarily entail existence of the two less common constructions.

Origins: like + past participle is Scots-Irish (Murray and Simon 2002). need + past participle is Scots-Irish (Murray, Frazer, and Simon 1996; Murray and Simon 1999; Montgomery 2001; Murray and Simon 2002). While Adams argues that want + past participle could be from Scots-Irish or German, it seems likely that this construction is Scots-Irish, as Murray and Simon (1999 and 2002) claim. like and need + past participle are Scots-Irish, the distributions of all three constructions are implicationally related, the area where they are predominantly found is most heavily influenced by Scots-Irish, and a related construction, want + directional adverb, as in "The cat wants out," is Scots-Irish.

• yins, yinz, yunz, you'uns, or youns pr. Second person plural personal pronoun. (McElhinny 1999; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006).

Geographic distribution: Southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Appalachia (see above citations).

Further explanation: See yinz article. Yinz is a particularly salient feature of Pittsburgh speech, possibly because it has no equivalent in Standard American English, though other second-person plural pronouns, such as "y'all" in Southern American English, do exist.

Origins: Along with the yous of New Jersey and the y'all of the South, yinz is Scots-Irish (Montgomery 2001).