Different ways of saying the past tense in North East England

What is it about?

When talking about past events, many English speakers can use the past participle (i.e., come or seen) rather than the simple past (i.e., came or saw). We examined the patterns of variation between these two forms in a set of interviews with people from North East England. We found that this variation is only possible for certain words, and that for the most common of these words it is disappearing over time.

Featured Image

Photo by Boris YUE on Unsplash

Photo by Boris YUE on Unsplash

Why is it important?

How the simple past and past participle relate to each other is an interesting question for theoretical linguistics. This study helps us by understand this relation better by providing empirical data about which contexts the two can be used in the same way, and by which people.