A Phonology of the Dialect of Merriott in Somerset

Description

A study of the dialect spoken in Merriott in Somerset, based on the collector's fieldwork interviews with one male informant in September 1958 and January 1959, the written field recordings made by John Wright for his 1957 M.A. study, 'Studies in the Linguistic Geography of Somerset', and an audiotape recording of Hamper's chosen Somerset speaker, made by Stanley Ellis in July 1956 (one of thirteen recordings made in Somerset, all of which were analysed by Wright in his thesis). An introduction to the village and the informant is followed by five chapters which present a descriptive account of the sounds of the dialect recorded in 1956-1959, describe the development of Middle English sounds in the living dialect (vowels of stressed and unstressed syllables, development of the Middle English consonantal system), and present a tabular summary of Old English, Middle English, Scandinavian and Old French equivalents of stressed vowels in the living dialect. The first of two appendices contains phonetic and orthographic transcriptions of an extract from Stanley Ellis' tape-recorded interview with Hamper's informant (an orthographic transcription is also included in John Wright's study). The second appendix contains a complete set of phonetically transcribed answers to Book I (The Farm) from the Dieth-Orton Questionnaire, recorded in September 1958 on printed Questionnaire Response Book leaves.

Metadata

Identifier xk6zs99x
IRN 410269
Class Mark LAVC/SRP/2/233
Level File
Type of Record Archives - ISAD(G)
Peristent Link http://prototype1.library.leeds.ac.uk/xk6zs99x
Collection(s) Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
Category Archive
Parent Record Undergraduate Dissertations
Creator(s) Hamper, H Victor
Date 1959
Size and Medium x, 86, [8] bound ms. leaves.

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