Re: My version

At 6:20:14 AM on Saturday, February 21, 2009, Francesco
Brighenti wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 7:43:34 PM on Friday, February 20, 2009, Francesco
>> Brighenti wrote:

[...]

> In order to reach some more solid conclusions as to
> whether or not the varieties of European-American English
> you refer to can be termed as 'dialects' by full right,

I don't think that 'dialect by full right' is a particularly
meaningful expression. If you want to say 'dialect by my
[FB's] standards/definition', that's fine, but 'right' has
nothing to do with it.

> See again Chambers and Trudgill's definitions and
> discussion in paras 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 of their book
> _Dialectology_, available in (limited) preview at

> http://tinyurl.com/bu24hs

Note the example:

If two speakers say, respectively, <I done it last night>
and <I did it last night>, we can say that they are
speaking different dialects.

By that standard there is certainly more than one U.S.
dialect, even in their terms. They also acknowledge that
even in their terms the distinction between accent and
dialect is fuzzy. (Nor am I under any particular obligation
to accept their definition.)

>>> And, in addition to that, their formation is so
>>> 'ridiculously' RECENT!

>> Must have been true of every dialect at some point.

> The problem with all American varieties of English is that
> they are soon doomed to death due to the rapid and
> inexorable diffusion of a de-individualized standard form
> of American English vectored all over the country by the
> all-conditioning television, movie industry, press etc.

I suggest that you look at the work of William Labov; what's
actually happening is rather more complicated (and more
interesting).

Brian