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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006'but', 'then', 'so' in sentence-final positions
Hello I am currently working on non-standard positions of discourse connectives, esp. sentence-final positions of 'but', 'then', and 'so'. I have used the spoken part of the British National Corpus, the spoken part of the Scottish English corpus, and the Newcastle English corpus to find occurrences. My question concerns the semantic value of these adverbs in final positions. -when 'but' is not preceded by a comma in the text (ie a pause in speech), does it mean 'though' as in Australian English f.i.? -when 'but' is preceded by a comma, has it got a contrastive/adversative value or is it just like a particle like 'huh', 'what' in final position? Tell me about the meaning it conveys. -when 'so' is preceded by a comma, does it mean 'in that way' or is it just an intensifier meaning 'yes, indeed'? - same question when 'so' is not preceded by a comma? - I have the same questions for 'then'. Thanks for your feedback. Please remember to tell me about the dialect you are using. sylh > Hello > I am currently working on non-standard positions of discourse [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > sylh "Is that your flobber but?" dialect: Oddle Poddle > "Is that your flobber but?" > dialect: Oddle Poddle What does 'but' mean here? sylh Here are a few examples that I found. Can you help me paraphrase the meaning of the adverbs in final positions when they are preceded or not by a comma. -I went and looked in the dustbin to see if he was back in there but. -He would have stayed and while I did it but. -Er, in those days women didn't work, but. - it is classified as being part of Glasgow, but. - she doesn't like particularly her job so. She's about my size so. I'm going out tomorrow so. -You probably weren't very buoyant, so. - I will do now, so. -What vessel did you go on then ? - Well I 'll have an ox tail then. - that 's Saturday , then. - And money wise she 's alright , then. >-What vessel did you go on then ? > - Well I 'll have an ox tail then. I don't think this is dialect at all. Of course, it's possible it's a bit of dialect that's got into my normal speech, but I don't think so. A: I was going to take the hydrofoil but it was broken B: What vessel did you go on then ? C: Three pounds of sausages and a pound of back bacon please D: We don't have any sausages C: Well I 'll have an ox tail then. I can imagine those conversations taking place between people of almost any dialect. Both "then"s mean "in that case" - in the second example the "well" serves almost the same purpose and, in fact, that sentence could be: "Then I'll have an ox tail" but this somehow feels slightly more brusk to me.  SignatureOn-line canal route planner: http://www.canalplan.org.uk (Waterways World site of the month, April 2001) My Reply-To address *is* valid, though likely to die soon > Here are a few examples that I found. Can you help me paraphrase the > meaning of the adverbs in final positions when they are preceded or not [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > -Er, in those days women didn't work, but. > - it is classified as being part of Glasgow, but. Reply from a Glasgow speaker: I don't recognise the final "but" in the first two. - But, er, in those days women didn't work. - But it is classified as being part of Glasgow. The transposition of "but" from the start to the end is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is seldom in as refined terms as your examples. - He went tae the match efter a', then? - Aye, he didnae get a seat, but. - Ye've got a hole in yer jumper. - Aw, it's only a wee yin, but. -- > The transposition of "but" from the start to the end > is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > - Ye've got a hole in yer jumper. > - Aw, it's only a wee yin, but. This was once quite common in Australia too. It seems to be dying out, but. SignatureRob Bannister > > The transposition of "but" from the start to the end > > is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > This was once quite common in Australia too. It seems to be dying out, but. That's a pity, so. For some reason my child mind always rebelled against it, though it was commonplace. There are very few Australianisms I'm actually glad I've lost; it would be among them if I'd ever had it, but. SignatureMike. >>>The transposition of "but" from the start to the end >>>is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Australianisms I'm actually glad I've lost; it would be among them if > I'd ever had it, but. Another one that seems to have died out completely is the tag "well", which one of my surfie mates used to use a lot: "Let's be going, well." SignatureRob Bannister >> The transposition of "but" from the start to the end >> is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> - Ye've got a hole in yer jumper. >> - Aw, it's only a wee yin, but. > This was once quite common in Australia too. It seems to be dying out, but. Was it widespread in Australia? It seemed to me that it was more common in Queensland. Perce (dual-citizen OzBrit, aka "whingeing Pommie bastard") Just a small recap: Final-sentence 'but' occurs in Scottish English and has the following meanings: - constrastive meaning ('though') - intensive meaning ('really') - in most of the cases, a particle used for interactive reasons to show the other speaker he/she can speak. My question is: does the presence of a comma (ie a pause in speech) change the meaning? sylh sylh: > My question is: does the presence of a comma (ie a pause in speech) > change the meaning? Any audio examples? I ask because an utterance that superficially ends with Pause+'but' might be elliptic rather than an example of the phenomenon that you are interested in. I overheard this, with no significant pause between 'car' and 'but', on Guy Fawkes Night at Glasgow Green: (1) It's my car but, so it is. You can listen to Radio Scotland at the BBC Website - the Englishes of the presenters are more or less homogeneous, but you'll hear a melting pot of Scottish Englishes from the callers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/radioscotland/ SignatureJock > sylh: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > ends with Pause+'but' might be elliptic rather than an example of the > phenomenon that you are interested in. Here are examples from the spoken part of the Scottish corpus: the pause in speech before final 'but' is linguistically marked by a comma before final 'but'. Tell me how you would paraphrase it: Conversation 30 F958 It's like where the Hibs stadium is. M959 Oh right. F958 [?]Leith town's[/?] the Easter Road bit, but . M959 Yeah, I should have clicked on that. // [throat] // Conversation 33 F1038 // Well no, it is // city, it's a suburb. // I mean it's not // F1037 // Yeah. // F1038 classified as being part of Glasgow, but. F1037 That's quite interesting Conversation 37 M1070 // What? // Scrat? Na I think that was Ice Age, wasn't it? What does he do but ? F1071 Ehm well, ehm M1070 What does Scrat do? F1071 He wriggles about and he jumps about and then with his acorn. // Yeah. // Interview 16 F1039 just no long after we were married away in nineteen fifty-three F606 mmhm F1039 eh hooses were hard tae come by then, but // F606 // Aye. // sylh: > Here are examples from the spoken part of the Scottish corpus: Sorry, by audio I meant something you could hear, so that you could examine those properties of speech that don't carry over to writing. I think you're right in that you need to know how long the pause is compared to the speed of delivery of the rest of the utterance and the length of 'but' itself. You need to _hear_ the conversation, in other words. The surrounding text does help though. > the pause in speech before final 'but' is linguistically marked by a > comma before final 'but'. > Tell me how you would paraphrase it: [...] > Conversation 37 > M1070 [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > He wriggles about and he jumps about and then with his acorn. // Yeah. > // I think the others could be elliptic, but this one I'm quite sure of. 'Though'. SignatureJock > sylh: > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > (1) It's my car but, so it is. The way I've heard in Australia also had no pause, but compare "though" as a sentence ending: my impression is that a comma is inserted more as a grammatical device than as a speech pause. SignatureRob Bannister >>> The transposition of "but" from the start to the end >>> is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Was it widespread in Australia? It seemed to me that it was more common > in Queensland. I read somewhere that it was a Queensland thing, but I heard it a lot in the 70s in WA. SignatureRob Bannister W Australia > >>> The transposition of "but" from the start to the end > >>> is as far as I recall confined to dialogue, which is [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > I read somewhere that it was a Queensland thing, but I heard it a lot in > the 70s in WA. My Q father did it, but I don't think my Vic mother has ever been an exponent. SignatureMike > Hello > I am currently working on non-standard positions of discourse [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Thanks for your feedback. Please remember to tell me about the dialect > you are using. I'm not sure I completely follow what you're asking, but I do have a report about a very common use of "so" which seems to occur in the speech of Standard American English as well as, I suspect, several dialects. It's "so" as a kind of placeholder. It ends a spoken sentence but, because it's a conjunction, leaves open the possibility of further speech. The speaker may remain silent for several seconds and resume, or the conversation may simply move on. This "so" is especially common in the speech of athletes being interviewed on radio or television, but it also appears in ordinary conversation. Thus, a baseball player being asked about a home run he hit might say something like this: "I was expecting a fastball, and that's what the pitcher threw, and I took a really hard swing, so ..." And after a brief pause either the player or the interviewer will say something, and the conversation will move on. This is common enough that I've stopped remarking on it when it occurs, so ... I've never seen it in print (until just now). It's purely an artifact of speech. SignatureBob Lieblich So ... >This is common enough that I've stopped remarking on it when it >occurs, so ... > >I've never seen it in print (until just now). It's purely an artifact >of speech. The ending of a sentence with ",so" is very frequently heard in Ireland. You might hear "It's a common thing in Ireland, so." It's even used in questions like "Is it a common thing in Ireland, so? Some seem to tack it on to any construction. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>This is common enough that I've stopped remarking on it when it >>occurs, so ... [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >The ending of a sentence with ",so" is very frequently heard in >Ireland. You might hear "It's a common thing in Ireland, so." At times, you will. In place of "so", "it is" is far more prevalent, in my experience. >It's >even used in questions like "Is it a common thing in Ireland, so? >Some seem to tack it on to any construction. SignatureCharles Riggs >> Hello >> I am currently working on non-standard positions of discourse [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > I've never seen it in print (until just now). It's purely an artifact > of speech. My first mother-in-law had a habit of ending almost all of her sentences with "so ...". SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/ sylh: > -when 'but' is not preceded by a comma in the text (ie a pause in > speech), does it mean 'though' as in Australian English f.i.? Not having studied this phenomenon myself, I would urge you to take what I say here with a pinch of salt. I do hear this every day but, in the Englishes of Glasgow and West Central Scotland in general, and - watch out, introspection ahead - it even crops up in my own speech. 'But' _can_ be synonymous, as far as synonymy goes, with 'though', borne out by the possibility of substituting 'though' for 'but' without changing the sense. /The Scots Dialect Dictionary/, compiled by Alexander Warrack, in its fourth entry for 'but' says 'adv. 1 verily, certainly. 2 used redundantly for emphasis', but he does not furnish us with any examples. Somewhat contradictingly, another observer says that '/like/ and /but/ are used in Scots to ameliorate the force of a statement, the latter perhaps more commonly in the West of Scotland'.* Taking both observers at their word leaves us with a 'but' for emphasis vis-à-vis a 'but' for watering down. * http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~enl038/grammar.htm sec. 13.4 SignatureJock > sylh: > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > * http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~enl038/grammar.htm sec. 13.4 So is the Irish "so" a watered-down version of the same thing as the Scottish "so I did", "so it is", etc? That seems to me to have started life as an intensifier and to have degenerated, much of the time, into little more than a sentence-lengthener or even a tic. South of the Border, something similar is done without the "so". I suppose the non-interrogative use of question-tags like "innit" is the next step, innit. SignatureMike. Mike Lyle: > So is the Irish "so" a watered-down version of the same thing as the > Scottish "so I did", "so it is", etc? That seems to me to have started > life as an intensifier and to have degenerated, much of the time, into > little more than a sentence-lengthener or even a tic. The 'so'+Pronoun+Operator construct is 'used to reinforce a positive statement'.* For negative statements 'so' is replaced by 'neither'. I would tend to agree that the force of this construct has diminished over time, and I would find it difficult to characterise its function now. http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~enl038/grammar.htm sec. 13.3 SignatureJock |
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