Do you want to come with?: A cross -dialectal, multi -field, variationist investigation of with as particle selected by motion verbs in the Minnesota dialect of English

John M Spartz, Purdue University



Abstract

Do you want to come with? is a standard and grammatical utterance in the Upper Midwest dialect of American English, and more specifically, in the state of Minnesota. But, for American English speakers from other dialect areas, it is an aberrant construction mandating an object—either realized or implied—that directly follows with, an apparent preposition for those speakers. This dissertation, in employing a comprehensive and multi-field, sociolinguistic, cross-dialectal investigation of the X with construction, posits and defends the categoriality of with in Minnesota as a particle, as selected by deictic verbs of motion (Levin, 1993) come, go, bring and take with. Ultimately, through an historical, syntactic, and prosodic analysis—which draws upon and juxtaposes the results of grammaticality judgment surveys and recorded, spoken data gathered from speakers of both the Minnesota dialect region and those from several other dialects—this dissertation establishes with's syntactic categoriality as a particle. Further, in so doing, it employs unconventional methodological techniques for further dialect study, which diverge from traditional dialectology approaches in both objective and approach.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Raskin, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Linguistics