How your idiolect differs from the standard language

[TaylorS]

In spoken American English, as opposed to the written standard, the Get-Passive seems to be overtaking the use of the Be-Passive in active verbs, but the Get-Passive is never used in stative verbs. Both constructions seem to be common with experiential verbs.

Is this a North American thing, or is it found in other English-speaking areas?

[Yng]

If by stative verbs you mean things like 'to be tired', 'get' is common with them here too. 'I'm getting tired'.

[Travis B.]

Speaking of syntax, one syntactic change I have noticed in at least North American English dialects is the tying of to in a quasimodal form to the other parts of the quasimodal form and not allowing it to be separated from it, including moving the position of not when such is negated from before the to to after it. The extent of such varies between dialects, as it seems from a discussion on another forum about this, with my dialect basically having taken this to its final conclusion while others have such for more common quasimodal forms but not less common ones.

Another related change is with regard to to-infinitives in general, where not is moved from before the to to after it. My dialect has this, and much of informal NAE seems to have this as well, but this seems to be not quite as developed in general as with quasimodals; for instance, in more formal speech I will at times place not before the to rather than after it.

[TaylorS]

If by stative verbs you mean things like 'to be tired', 'get' is common with them here too. 'I'm getting tired'.

Oh, good point.

[Boşkoventi]

If by stative verbs you mean things like 'to be tired', 'get' is common with them here too. 'I'm getting tired'.

But that's not a passive verb. An example of a passive stative verb would be "the window is being opened", or "the car is being washed". And no, using "get" in those sentences doesn't feel right to me.

[makvas]

If by stative verbs you mean things like 'to be tired', 'get' is common with them here too. 'I'm getting tired'.

That sounds like 'get' being used as 'become'.

Honestly the semantic meaning of 'get' is anywhere between 'become', 'receive', and 'have'.

[Yng]

If by stative verbs you mean things like 'to be tired', 'get' is common with them here too. 'I'm getting tired'.

But that's not a passive verb. An example of a passive stative verb would be "the window is being opened", or "the car is being washed". And no, using "get" in those sentences doesn't feel right to me.

You're right, in those contexts 'get' is ungrammatical for me too.

[äreo]

"Get" is perhaps even broader; "to get (insert participle here)" can imply the subject being agent or patient - a middle voice I guess.

[Hakaku]

If by stative verbs you mean things like 'to be tired', 'get' is common with them here too. 'I'm getting tired'.

But that's not a passive verb. An example of a passive stative verb would be "the window is being opened", or "the car is being washed". And no, using "get" in those sentences doesn't feel right to me.

So, if I understand correctly, then the following would constitute passive stative?

"The window is getting opened"
"The car is getting washed"
"My lawn is getting watered right now"

If so, then these sound perfectly grammatical to me. And then there's also, as aforementioned, 'getting' in terms of 'becoming', which seems to correlate with the above usage. "Getting cold," "getting wet," "I'm getting a little uneasy about the whole thing"...

[Yng]

'The car is getting washed' is slightly different, to me, from 'the car's being washed'. Don't ask me why - I think it's a matter of context. If somebody asked me 'where's the car', I'd say 'oh, it's getting washed', but in other contexts, I wouldn't use it. The other two sound tremendously awkward to me.

[Hakaku]

'The car is getting washed' is slightly different, to me, from 'the car's being washed'. Don't ask me why - I think it's a matter of context. If somebody asked me 'where's the car', I'd say 'oh, it's getting washed', but in other contexts, I wouldn't use it. The other two sound tremendously awkward to me.

Yeah, it feels like there's a slight difference between "being" and "getting", but I couldn't really pinpoint how. I'll agree that "The window is getting opened" sounds a little awkward, but then again, so does "The window is being opened" when you say it flat out like that. But when you add on to either of them, suddenly they become a little less iffy.

"The window is being forced open by the policemen."
"The window is being removed this summer"
"Can you check to see if the popup window is getting opened at all?"
"But the thing is, the window is getting opened, but its opening in front of the main window..."
"Quality Center window is getting closed abruptly."
"Popup window is getting minimized"

[Boşkoventi]

'The car is getting washed' is slightly different, to me, from 'the car's being washed'. Don't ask me why - I think it's a matter of context. If somebody asked me 'where's the car', I'd say 'oh, it's getting washed', but in other contexts, I wouldn't use it. The other two sound tremendously awkward to me.

I feel like using "get" implies some sort of agency, like it's a person or something.

[Yng]

I would probably say 'the window's being opened'.

I feel like using "get" implies some sort of agency, like it's a person or something.

Yeah, it's kind of like you're making it clear that somebody else is washing the car...

[Nortaneous]

"The window is being forced open by the policemen."
"The window is being removed this summer"

I could have "get" in both of those, I think. Definitely the second one.

[rotting bones]

I was tired of writing "O unhappy ones, cursed with the appellation moros in bygone eras", and so I created the vocative plural tardë for use in my diary. My diary jargon doesn't qualify as a real language anymore.

[Yng]

ROFL.

I've noticed a number of things about my region's dialect, some of which are shared by my idiolect (the amount goes up as I go further down the register although depending on the people I'm with, my language is weirdly high-register even colloquially):

Glottal-stopping. Common amongst all young people regardless of region these days I think.
The strut-book split.
Certain weak scouse features, particularly the use of [ɛ] in hurt and the whole grass/heart split (that DEFINITELY ISN'T the right name): basically, generally where Southern dialects have [ɑ] in monosyllables, I have [a] except in rhotic vowels, although my dialect is non-rhotic. This is a common British thing.
Non rhotic, trailing r.
Certain colloquial lexis: 'ring' for 'call' (pretty common probably pan-Britishly, to the degree that 'call' actually made my friend go 'what?'), 'paned' for 'cuppa' ('panad'/'paned' are both used across NW), in fact a generic random use of Welsh words in colloquial speech as well as Welsh phrases, generally by younger people
The word 'skiv', meaning 'somebody who skivs off other people', skiv meaning to borrow constantly without paying back (the Denbighshire equivalent being 'scav')
The alveolar tap for /r/
Some monosyllables are realised as disyllables thanks to various historical glides, particularly floor [flɔ:wə] and similar words.

I had lots more, but I can't bring them to mind at the moment.

[Alces]

the whole grass/heart split (that DEFINITELY ISN'T the right name)

That's the trap-bath split, according to Wikipedia.

[Yng]

I pronounce trap and bath both with an [a], but heart with an [ɑ], so it's not. I think what it probably is is that I have the trap-bath merger, pronouncing both with an [a], but [a] was allophonically [ɑ] before [r]. The loss of [r] led to the appearance of [ɑ] as a separate phoneme.

[Colonel Cathcart]

Iˈm sure I've mentioned this before, but my idiolect is kind of a blend of Canadian and General American.

- My diphthong raising is kind of spotty. "House" and "about" are [haʊs] and [əbaʊt̚] when stressed and revert to [hʌʊs] and [əbʌʊt̚] when unstressed, but "light" is always [ɫəɪt̚] while it seems to me GenAm has something slightly lower like [ɫʌɪt̚].
- "Sorry," "tomorrow," and "borrow" are usually [sɑɹi], [tʰəmɑɹoʊ], and [bɑɹoʊ], but they'll slip back to [sɔɹi], [tʰəmɔɹoʊ], and [bɔɹoʊ] if I'm not paying attention.
- Most of my older relatives (as in older than my parents) have [bin], [əgeɪn], and [əgeɪnst] for "been," "again," and "against," but I've always had [bɪn], [əgɛn], and [əgɛnst].
- I still think of <z> as zed, but I always pronounce it zee because Americans either don't know what zed means or they make fun of you for saying it. (An odd exception, ZBB is [zibibi] even in my head.)
- My mother is my [mʌm]. [mɑːm] strikes me as a particularly obnoxious Americanism that I still cannot get used to.

Of course when I'm talking to other Canadians, the accent I worked so hard to suppress in my early teens comes back out full-force.

Also, I can't tell whether this stuff is my idiolect or my dia-/sociolect or just the fact that I talk kind of fast, but I have:
- [ɪni], [mɪni], and [kʰɛtʃ] instead of [æni]/[ɛni], [mæni]/[mɛni], and [kʰætʃ].
- [aɪv], [juv], [wiv], [ðeɪv] for "I have," "you have," "we have," "they have," even where I'd never write them as contractions (eg. "you have a visitor").
- [hiəz], [ʃiəz] [ɨhæz] as contractions for "he has," "she has," and "it has," which are distinct from [hiz ʃiz ɪts] "he's, she's, it's."

[AnTeallach]

The strut-book split.

By this, do you mean that book has the GOOSE vowel (so foot, put , strut and luck have one vowel and book and goose have another - I think of this as the "Stoke" pattern), or that you have the RP pattern with the foot-strut split (so that foot and put have a different vowel from luck and strut, and book goes with the former group)?

Some monosyllables are realised as disyllables thanks to various historical glides, particularly floor [flɔ:wə] and similar words.

Do "similar words" include, potentially all words ending in RP /ɔ:/, or are they restricted to certain words with historic /r/, e.g. which of law, nor, four and more can it happen to?

Also, can it happen in closed syllables, e.g. court?

I pronounce trap and bath both with an [a], but heart with an [ɑ], so it's not. I think what it probably is is that I have the trap-bath merger, pronouncing both with an [a], but [a] was allophonically [ɑ] before [r]. The loss of [r] led to the appearance of [ɑ] as a separate phoneme.

I'd just say that you don't have the trap-bath split. But what about words like father, palm and spa?

[Yng]

By this, do you mean that book has the GOOSE vowel (so foot, put , strut and luck have one vowel and book and goose have another - I think of this as the "Stoke" pattern), or that you have the RP pattern with the foot-strut split (so that foot and put have a different vowel from luck and strut, and book goes with the former group)?

The RP-esque version for me, but for some people around here, it's a mix of the two, I think - book and goose both have [u], whilst put and putt contrast with [ʌ] and [ʊ] (or the other way around, but the sounds are definitely different).

Do "similar words" include, potentially all words ending in RP /ɔ:/, or are they restricted to certain words with historic /r/, e.g. which of law, nor, four and more can it happen to?

Hmm, I think it's restricted to open syllables with historic /r/.

[Alces]

I pronounce trap and bath both with an [a], but heart with an [ɑ], so it's not. I think what it probably is is that I have the trap-bath merger, pronouncing both with an [a], but [a] was allophonically [ɑ] before [r]. The loss of [r] led to the appearance of [ɑ] as a separate phoneme.

Oh, yeah; I misunderstood slightly, or didn't phrase myself properly. In that case you probably have the same [a] vs. [ɑ] distribution as me, which is basically the normal RP distribution but with the trap-bath merger.

[Yng]

I pronounce trap and bath both with an [a], but heart with an [ɑ], so it's not. I think what it probably is is that I have the trap-bath merger, pronouncing both with an [a], but [a] was allophonically [ɑ] before [r]. The loss of [r] led to the appearance of [ɑ] as a separate phoneme.

Oh, yeah; I misunderstood slightly, or didn't phrase myself properly. In that case you probably have the same [a] vs. [ɑ] distribution as me, which is basically the normal RP distribution but with the trap-bath merger.

Probably. It's pretty standard north of the Home Counties, I think.

[finlay]

I pronounce trap and bath both with an [a], but heart with an [ɑ], so it's not. I think what it probably is is that I have the trap-bath merger, pronouncing both with an [a], but [a] was allophonically [ɑ] before [r]. The loss of [r] led to the appearance of [ɑ] as a separate phoneme.

Oh, yeah; I misunderstood slightly, or didn't phrase myself properly. In that case you probably have the same [a] vs. [ɑ] distribution as me, which is basically the normal RP distribution but with the trap-bath merger.

Technically it's a lack of a split rather than a merger, but yeah, that.

[Nortaneous]

- [ɪni], [mɪni], and [kʰɛtʃ] instead of [æni]/[ɛni], [mæni]/[mɛni], and [kʰætʃ].

I've never heard /{/ in "any" or "many". I have /E/ in "catch" and modal "can". (but "soda can" is /sod@ k_h{n/) What vowel do you have in modal "can"?

- [aɪv], [juv], [wiv], [ðeɪv] for "I have," "you have," "we have," "they have," even where I'd never write them as contractions (eg. "you have a visitor").

The only contraction I have is /j{v/ for "you have". But I'd probably avoid those constructions almost entirely, in favor of something like "there's a visitor for you".