Grammar. · Several features affect verbal aspect, such as a wider use of the progressive form (Who is this car belonging to?

· Several features affect verbal aspect, such as a wider use of the progressive form (Who is this car belonging to? Who is it you’re wanting?) and the use of the present tense instead of the perfect (She’s dead these ten years, i.e. has been dead). One of the most distinctive features of Hiberno-English is the use of after to express such meanings as recency and completed event: They’re after leaving (They’ve just left), They were after leaving (They had just left).

· Copula and auxiliary be are used in distinctive ways, chiefly expressing contrasts of habitual action and continuity: be is found with forms of do (It does be colder at nights) and also, especially in the north, with an -s ending (I be walking, She bees walking).

· Auxiliary usages often vary: will for shall, used be for used to be, amn’t for aren’t. Forms of be may replace have with verbs of motion in past-time context (He is gone up for He has gone up).

· There are some distinctive imperative constructions: Let you stay here a while, Let you be coming up to see me. The progressive form is common with negatives: Don’t be troubling yourself.

· Definite article: That's the grand morning, I had a few jars over the Christmas, The wife (my wife) wi1l be expecting me.

· Certain constructions show a Gaelic influence on word order. Cleft sentences of the following kind are typical: It’s meseff was the brave singer, Is it out of your mind you are? There is an interesting double example in It’s thinking am that it’s unyoke him we’d better do (1 think that we had better unyoke him).

· Some plural pronouns or demonstratives are followed by is: Youse is very funny, Them cars is great, Our’ns is fit for anything.

· And is used as a subordinate clause marker, as in It only struck me and (when, while) you going out of the door.

Vocabulary

· There is a huge regional lexicon, which includes such items as blather (talk nonsense); bold (naughty); cog (cheat), freet (superstition); garda (police), glit (slime), handsel (New Year's gift); hogo (bad smell), mannerly (well-mannered), widow-woman (widow).

· The suffix – een is used as a diminutive form, expressing smallness or familiarity, as in childreen, girleen.

· Gaelic influence can be seen in such words as backy (lame); bosthoon (clown); cleeve (basket); glow (noise); keerogue (cockroach); kyoch (diseased); prockus (mixture).

· Several Scots words are found in Ulster, such as clarty (dirty); greet (weep); wee (small).