zompist bboard

I have commented on this before, but I have noticed a pattern where a past participle in English will have the suffix -/ən/ attached if it is being used as part of phrasal verb. From talking to people about it, people who normally would not use this affix in places still in many cases find its use natural when the verb is part of a phrasal verb. E.g. *"I have broughten the ketchup." but "I was broughten up as a Catholic" or *"Have you dranken your milk today" but "I have already dranken up my milk". The thing is, I have no idea what this affix is actually marking here; these are already past participles (and drank used as a past participle is obvious as such from context), and the affix is not used with past participles in general by most people. (I use them more generally, but that is probably an idiosyncrasy of my speech.)

I have never heard of such a thing, but it sounds like just double-marking to me. Like how children has what are historically two plural markers instead of just one (both the <r> and the <en>).

My grandparents (rural southwestern New York) regularly use "boughten" as the past participle of "buy" and it irks me incredibly. When my mom spends a lot of time around them, she picks it up as well, but loses it when she hasn't been around them in a while. I can't say I've heard it attached to other words, however.

Vijay wrote:I have never heard of such a thing, but it sounds like just double-marking to me. Like how children has what are historically two plural markers instead of just one (both the <r> and the <en>).

I was thinking thinking the same thing, double marking.

That being said, Travis B., this is recognizable enough to me to make me believe I've heard it (most likely with bought/brought) but is strange enough on the tongue to make me think I've never used it. Speaking as a Central Californian here.

It obviously is double marking (since -/ən/ is already a past participle ending), but my question is why, in most peoples' speech here, would only past participles in phrasal verbs be so double-marked?

Because they don't (intuitively) realize that those are already past participles?

My guess: leakage from "gotten", which also adds a distinction on top of the past participle. ("I've got money" means I have money; "I've gotten money" means I recently acquired it.)

(Perhaps a different distinction than the one in your examples, but still a good model.)

zompist wrote:My guess: leakage from "gotten", which also adds a distinction on top of the past participle. ("I've got money" means I have money; "I've gotten money" means I recently acquired it.)

(Perhaps a different distinction than the one in your examples, but still a good model.)

My guess offhand is that there may be something going on with telicity with the -/ən/, because for me ate (pp.) feels different from aten, and drank (pp.) feels different from dranken in a way that is hard for me to express in any way other than with regard to telicity. And if it were telicity at work, that such marking derives from the -/ən/ ending of gotten makes sense (and this goes along with that all the stem I can find that receive this extra -/ən/ end in /t/, which would make sense if this were analogy with gotten, or otherwise have related forms that do end in -/ən/, (e.g. aten, drunken, dranken, tooken).

But the thing is that in my idiolect I have generalized these so they do not require being part of phrasal verbs, and this is not typical of most people here. Most other people I have heard use them or who I have asked about this only use this with phrasal verbs. So why would telicity marking only be found on phrasal verbs? My guess is that the particle component of the phrasal verb already implies telicity, and the -/ən/ ending serves to reinforce this.

So is this mostly a US phenomenon? What's the geographic distribution of this? I can't say I've noticed this but I will for sure now. (I never noticed "youse" until I read an article about it).

I live in southeastern WIsconsin, and the only other places I have lived are Madison, Wisconsin and Maryland (DC area). Madison gets too many transplants from southeastern Wisconsin to be easily able to tell it apart, while on the other hand I do not remember ever hearing this out in Maryland.

Travis B. wrote:while on the other hand I do not remember ever hearing this out in Maryland.

My father's a native of Maryland, and I don't recall ever hearing this feature in his speech. I also can't recall anyone in Chicago who has it as consistently as you do.

I personally use "boughten", but only adjectivally, e.g. "I didn't have time to make anything so those cookies are boughten". (Cf. "have drunk" but "drunken stupor".) Not sure where in the Midwest I picked that up from.

linguoboy wrote:

Travis B. wrote:while on the other hand I do not remember ever hearing this out in Maryland.

My father's a native of Maryland, and I don't recall ever hearing this feature in his speech. I also can't recall anyone in Chicago who has it as consistently as you do.

I personally use "boughten", but only adjectivally, e.g. "I didn't have time to make anything so those cookies are boughten". (Cf. "have drunk" but "drunken stupor".) Not sure where in the Midwest I picked that up from.

That's the manner in which my grandparents use it as well.