The Dialect of Holy Island

A phonological analysis of a modern English dialect based on the transformational generative theory. Using the theoretical framework of generative phonology as put forth by Chomsky and Halle, discussed in the introduction, this book contains a detailed description of the sound segments of the present day dialect of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. It then attempts to analyse the underlying sound segments and to provide the set of ordered rules that generate the surface structure. It also gives evidence that the underlying sound segments are remarkably stable, both through time and space, and that the differences of the surface structures are due to strikingly minimal changes in the ordering of the set of phonological rules.