Date:  Tue, 4 Apr 1995 09:28:27 -0500

From:  "Timothy C. Frazer" <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

Subject: Re: need + past participle



On Tue, 4 Apr 1995, wachal robert s wrote:



> This originates, I believe, in pennsylvania and is confined to midland

> speech and perhaps to south midland since it is not heard in the southern

> half of Iowa (north midland).

> Someone who is better versed in regional dialectology than I can probably

> give a definitive answer. Am surprised that none such have appeared as yet.

>

> Bob Wachal



Tom Murray, Beth Simon and I have collected three kinds of data on this.

One was an informal query that went out over internet (ADS-L, LINGUIST

and others) about fourteen months ago. We got almost 20 responses, three

from Scotland, one from northern ireland, 6 from Pennsylvania, one from

upstate NY, 2 from Ohio, one each from w. New York, s. Indiana, c. Ill.,

c. Idaho, 2 from Utah.



I collected 200 evaluative responses (mostly students) in the n. half of

Ill.; the distribution pretty much reflects Roger Shuys old (PADS 1962)

northern-midland division.



Murray collected over 5000 evaluative reponses throughout LANCS and LAUM

territory,

plus Kansas and Missouri. His findings also tend to reinforce the old

northern-midland boundaries drawn from linguistic atlas data; the

"needs" construction with past participle distributes like tradtional

midland diagnostic items (e.g., "bucket" or _greasy_ as [grizi]).



Tom's data don't fit with your obersvationthat this does not occur in s.

Iowa. If your experience is mostly confined to Iowa city, that would be

one explanation; university towns, even those in a largely rural

settings, often do not reflect everything that is going on, even if you

begin to get the impression that you are hearing a lot of vernacular.

I lived in macomb for 30 years before I knew that some people in this

area used aspectual "done."



I think it also safe to say that the farther south in Iowa you go, the

morelikely you will be to hear it, if you make some allowances for the

uniqueness of some individual communities.



Tim Frazer