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noticeable in the field of phonetics. However these distinctions are
confined to the articulatory-acoustic characteristics of some
phonemes, to some differences in the use of others and to the
differences in the rhythm and intonation of speech. The few
phonemes characteristic of American pronunciation and alien to
British literary norms can as a rule be observed in British dialects.
The variations in vocabulary, to be considered below, are not
very numerous. Most of them are divergences in the semantic
structure of words and in their usage.
The dissimilarities in grammar like AE gotten, proven for
BE got, proved are scarce. For the most part these dissimilarities
consist in the preference of this or that grammatical category or
form to some others. For example, the preference of Past Indefinite
to Present Prefect, the formation of the Future Tense with will as
the only auxiliary verb for all persons, and some others. Recent
investigations have also shown that the Present Continuous form in
the meaning of Future is used twice as frequently in BE as in the
American, Canadian and Australian variants; infinitive
constructions are used more rarely in AE than in BE and AuE and
passive constructions are, on the contrary, more frequent in
America than in Britain and in Australia.
Since BE, AE and AuE have essentially the same grammar
system, phonetic system and vocabulary, they cannot be regarded
as different languages. Nor can they be referred to local dialects;
because they serve all spheres of verbal communication in society,
within their territorial area they have dialectal differences of their
own; besides they differ far less than local dialects. Another
consideration is that AE has its own literary norm and AuE is
developing one. Thus we must speak of three variants of the
English national language having different accepted literary
standards, one spoken in the British Isles, another spoken in the
USA, the third in Australia.
Nowadays Ukrainian dialects are classified into two basic
groups—the northern (Polisian) and the southern dialects—

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