Editing Newfoundland English (section)

== Grammar ==
=== "After" past ===
In a move that was almost certainly taken from [[Hiberno-English]] and influenced by the [[Irish language]], Newfoundland English avoids using the verb "to have" in [[past participles]] and prefers formulations with "after" such as "I'm after telling him to stop" instead of "I have told him to stop." That is because Irish has no verb "to have" but more particularly has a construction using the words ''Tar éis'' (meaning "after") to convey the sense of having just done something: ''Táim tar éis é a dhéanamh'' means "I am just after doing it" or "I have just done it." Possession in Irish would be indicated by ''Ta ... agam'', literally "... is at me."

=== Northern Subject Rule ===
Newfoundland English often follows the [[Northern Subject Rule]], a legacy of settlement from southeastern Ireland, which in turn was influenced by the [[Anglo-Irish]] settlement from [[Northern England]] into Ireland.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/eww.25.1.04mcc/details |title=Mobile Menu |work=benjamins.com |access-date=26 January 2017}}</ref> For example, the verb "to fly" is conjugated for third-person plural as "the birds flies." According to a 2011 study by Philip Comeau,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Philip |first1=Comeau |title=Verbal -s in Vernacular Newfoundland English: A Combined Variationist and Formal Account of Grammatical ChangeVariationist and Formal Account of Grammatical Change |url=https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=pwpl}}</ref> that feature of Newfoundland English differs from the rule of dialects in Northern England because Newfoundland uses it as a marker of [[habitual aspect]] or verb [[stativity]].

=== Archaic pronouns ===
{{main|Ye (pronoun)}}
"Ye" is the plural form of "you" (singular) instead of ''you'' (plural), similar to how "you guys" is often used to replace "you" (plural) in [[Standard Canadian English]]. For example, when addressing two or more people, or when addressing one person but referring to everyone accompanying a person is, Newfoundland English uses "What do ye think?" instead of "What do you guys think?" Alternately, "What do you think?" is used to refer to a single person. That avoids the confusion of other English dialects in which a group of people would not know whether the speaker is inquiring about only the opinion of the person who is being speaking or the various opinions of the entire group. In most areas of Newfoundland that use the pronoun, such as the [[Avalon Peninsula]] outside [[St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador|St. John's]], "ye" mirrors the same variant in Hiberno-English in which "you" (singular), "you" (plural), and "they" correspond to "you," "ye," and "dey." The last arises simply from a change in pronunciation and so it is written "they," but the other words are pronounced as in Standard English. Variants of "ye" are also used such as "yeer" (your), "yeers" (yours), and "yeerselves" (yourselves).<ref>{{cite news |last=Hickey |first=Raymond |url=https://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/02_Remarks_on_Pronominal_Usage_in_Hiberno-English_%28Hickey%29.pdf |title=Remarks on pronominal usage in Hiberno-English |work=Studia Anglica Posnaniensia |publisher=[[University of Duisburg-Essen]] |date=1983 |pages=47–53 |access-date=11 November 2020}}</ref> In some communities on the Northeast Coast, "you" (singular), "you" (plural), and "they" correspond to "ye," "dee," and "dey," respectively.

=== Habitual aspect using "be" ===
The word "bes" {{IPA|[biːz]}} is sometimes used in place of the normally-conjugated forms of "to be" to describe continual actions or states of being, as in "that rock usually bes under water" for "that rock is usually under water," but the normal conjugation of "to be" is used in all other cases.

"Does be" is a [[calque]] of [[Irish grammar]] into English. Since there is no [[habitual aspect]] in English, Irish speakers learning English would say "does be" as a literal translation of ''bíonn mé'' "I (habitually) am".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/do-be-doing-bes-habitual-aspect-in-irish-english/ |title=Do be doing be's: habitual aspect in Irish English &#124; Sentence first |publisher=Stancarey.wordpress.com |date=13 March 2015 |access-date=12 November 2019}}</ref>

=== "Me" for "my" and "mine" ===
Use or ownership in Newfoundland English is characterized by pronouncing "my" as "me," which is common also in Ireland, Scotland, Northern and Western England, and some dialects in Australia. Before the [[Great Vowel Shift]], "my" was pronounced {{IPA|/miː/}}, "mine" as {{IPA|/miːn/}}, and "me" as {{IPA|/meː/}}. As with all other sound shifts, not all possible words have been changed in the other dialects that were noted. An example in Newfoundland is "Where's me hat?" for "Where's my hat?"<ref name="Great Vowel Shift">{{cite web |url=https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_early_modern.html |title=Great Vowel Shift |website=thehistoryofenglish.com |access-date=1 September 2018}}</ref>

=== Use of "to" for location ===
The use of "to" to denote location is common in Newfoundland English by using "where's that to?" Replacing the standard "where's that?" is a usage comes from the West Country and is still common in southwestern England, particularly in [[Bristol]].{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}