THE DIALECT VOCCABULARY OF ULSTER

Abstract

This article provides a lexicological analysis of the dialect vocabulary of the English of Ulster. Although primarily based on a comprehensive analysis of the entries in the “Concise Ulster Dictionary”, it provides quantitative findings as well as other illustrative examples from the entire dictionary. The article deals with the subject matter denoted or expressed by the dialect vocabulary, with the notion of “Ulsterisms”, with parts of speech distribution, with marked stylistic or colloquial usage, with donor and etymological sources, and with regionality within the province. It also deals with onomasiological variation an the issue of heteronymic sets of both lexical items and exponential forms of particular items. The article shows that although many words came in Ulster dialect through the English and Scots dialects of seventeenth-century settlers or under influence from Irish Gaelic, many words were derived from earlier words in Old English, Old Norse or Old French.