Dialects are Fun! (2)

Dialects are Fun! (2)

聞いたこと：
One of my friends in Yamagata once told me that some Yamagataites say, when answering the phone,「はいはい、高橋でした」(Hello, this is Takahashi speaking) ‘at the outset’, not ‘when hanging up the phone’! I was a bit surprised to hear that for the first time. He added that he does not talk like that, but some older adults indeed do so.

思ったこと：
We should not regard this way of giving their name on the phone as ‘mistaken’ or ‘wrong.’ The fact that there ARE a certain number of people who talk like that, not feeling uncomfortable with it at all, possibly shows a specific principle behind their language behavior. So then, the next logical question is: what is the guide like, specifically?

In my opinion, the prejudiced reaction stems from the unconscious belief that「（でし）た」unquestionably denotes ‘past tense（過去時制）.’ There are, however, other possibilities as well. Besides the already mentioned possibility that「た」in such contexts as above is ‘wrong,’ another option that comes to my mind is this:「た」in such cases is not simply ‘tense（時制）’ but rather ‘(some sort of) aspect（相）,’ say, ‘confirmation aspect（確認相）.’ That is, those who say「はいはい、高橋でした」at the beginning of telephone conversations might be using this as a ‘confirmation’—‘Yes, it is surely Takahashi who’s speaking.’

In this connection, for those who still have some doubt about the hypothesis, consider the expression「あっ、そういえば、明日会議があった」, which is typically used in to-do list checking and is NOT a dialectal form at all. This standard form of「た」in this context does not refer to a past time. So, the hypothesis that「た」in「はいはい、高橋でした」in the Yamagata dialect might not be ‘tense（時制）’ but ‘aspect（相）’ is not necessarily totally out of the question. Just another assumption that might be needed is to posit that the ‘confirmation aspect’「た」is applicable more widely in the Yamagata dialect than in the Standard dialect.

What’s your opinion of this? Pro? or Con?