A common root and many centuries of close contact between Scots and English have ensured that the grammars of the two tongues are broadly similar. This is good news for an (Engish speaking) learner, but care still has to be taken as there are many traps for the unwary. The grammar if Scots, like its orthography and vocabulary is still somewhat fluid, so this section will only outline some of the main points of difference with English. The information is 'byled doun' from David Murison's The Guid Scots Tongue, AUSLQ's 'Innin ti the Scots Leid and some detective work with The Concise English-Scots Dictionary. Some 'grammatical' terminology has been inevitable to give this section some structure, but I've tried to keep it to a minimum and explain what the terms mean. A new Scots grammar is due to be published this year, so keep an eye on this section.

Regular Scots verbs have five forms:

• the root eg ken (when ti is added ie ti ken, this is the infinitive).
• the simple present tense, formed (in singular and plural) by adding -s to the root eg kens.
• the simple past tense of regular verbs, formed by adding -it, t or ed to the root eg kent.
• the past participle in regular verbs is the same as the simple past tense eg kent.
• the present participle is formed by adding -in to the root eg kennin. (Except for gang/gae which has the irreguar form gaun eg Ar ye gaun tae the gemm the morn?)

(b.1) The present tense: verbs after a plural subject
Unlike English, there is no change in verbs following a plural subject:
the gless wis clairtie, the glesses wis clairtie
the lassie aets a fush supper, the lassies aets fush suppers.
However, many speakers use the English-like plural form (ie they drop the -s), so this rule can be regarded as optional for the moment.

(b.2) The past tense of regular verbs
There are three classes of regular ('weak') Scots verbs the past tense and past participle end in -t, -it or -ed depending on the verb ending.

Verbs ending with	Past tense ending	Examples
-b, -d, -g, -k, -p, -t, -te	-it	big, biggit, howk (dig), howkit
-ch, -f, -l, -le, -n, -r (sometimes), -s, -se (with s sound), -sh, -ss, -th	-t add apostrophe after silent e -le becomes -ilt	ken, kent; birl, birlt; speir, speirt; lauch, laucht; fash, fasht; hirple (limp), hirpilt
-e(except those above), -m, -oo, -r (sometimes), -se (with z sound), -w, -x, -y, -z	--ed (displaces e) Add apostraphe for verbs ending -ee	daur, daured; luve, luved, caw, cawed, cry, cried
[frae AUSLQ (1995)]

(b.3) The past tenses of irregular verbs
As in all Anglo-Saxon languages, many common Scots verbs are irregular (strong). There are considerable differences between Scots and English in this respect. Verbs which are irregular in English may be regular in their Scots equivalents: catch, catched; ken, kent; sell, sellt; tell, tellt; while several verbs which are regular in English are irregular in Scots. Here are the most common examples.

present	simple past	past participle	English equivalent
aet	ett	etten	eat
be	wis (pl) wur	bin/been	be
bide	bitit, bad	bidit, bidden	live (reside)
brek	brak	brukken	break
bring	brocht	brocht	bring
come	cam	cam	come
dae	done	duin	do
fecht	focht	focht(en)	fight
fesh	fuish	fuishen	fetch
fin	fun	fun	find
gang/gae	gaed	gane	go
gie	gied	gied/gien	give
git	gat	gotten	get
greet	grat	grutten	cry
hae	hid/hed	haen	have
haud	held	hauden	hold
hit	hut	hut(ten)	hit
lowp	lowpit	lowpen	jump,leap
mak	makkit/made	makkit/made	make
pit	pit/pat	pit(ten)	put
rin	rin/run	rin/run	run
see	seed/seen	seed/seen	see
say	sed	sed	say
sit	sat	sutten	sit
speak	spak	spak/spoken	speak
staun	stuid	stuiden	stand
tak	teuk/taen	taen	take
think	thocht	thocht	think
wash	wuish	washen/wuishen	wash

Note the unusual use of the past participle of aw (owe) in the expression 'Wha's aucht this?' meaning 'Who does this belong to?'

(b.4) Forming the negative
Scots 'no' is used generally in the same ways as English not eg A'm no tha fou . 'Nae' carries out this function in the North East dialect, otherwise 'nae' before nouns is the the equivalent to English 'no' eg Thare nae luck about the houss. Note however the auxilliary verbs (see next section) have particular negative forms.

(b.5) Auxilliary Verbs (Be, have, will etc)
These are verbs used together with a main verb to expand meaning and expression. Scots usage is almost the same as English, but the forms are quite distinct. Be and hae are the primary auxilliaries used to build compound tenses, be is used to make the present and past progressive tenses and hae the present and past perfect tenses. Dae is the supporting auxilliary used for negatives, questions etc wull, maun and micht are the modal auxilliaries which form the future and tenses which express uncertainty. Auxilliary verbs have distinct negative forms in Scots and several also have emphatic forms.

Be has eight different forms: be, am, ur, wis/wes, wur, bin/been which correspond to the English cognates. As Scots has survived as a spoken language, elision (missing out letters) is normal in many auxilliary verbs (and indeed throughout the language) where there are two adjacent vowels. The present tense of tae be is therefore:
A'm, ye'r, he/she/it's, we'r, ye'r, thay/thai'r
The negative of most auxilliaries is form by adding -na, to the unelided form: A'm, A amna; ye wis, ye wisna etc
Note that the English 'there is/are' is translated by 'therr' or 'there' eg therr yer tea.

Hae has the forms: hae, his, haein, hid/hed, haen (see irregular verb table) as well as the emphatic form hiv. A common alternative elided form to A hae is A'v. Negatives: hinna (hae), hidna etc.

Dae has forms dae, dis, did, duin (see irregular verb table) as well as the emphatic form div. Elided form of past -'d. Irregular negative of dae is dinna, otherwise disna, didna. 'To do' is often written 'adae'

Modal Verbs are used in a similar way to English. Wull is generally used in place of English shall, although there is a Scots form sall. It has the short form 'll as in English. Negative forms wull, winna; maun, maunna; micht, michtna, daur, daurna, need, needna (daur and need not really modals).

Can, cud, shid, wid/wad all have -na negative eg canna, shuidna, cuidna. Wad has the elided form -'d.

As English, with plurals in -(e)s. Scots irregulars: ee, een (eyes); shae, shuin (shoes); wumman, weemen; coo, ky(e) (cows); year, year. Posessives as in English with -'s or -s' or alternatively with o eg the convener o the curn.
Scots compound nouns may be hyphenated to clarify meaning or pronunctiation eg weik-en, post-caird.
The diminutive suffix -ie is commonly used to indicate smallness as an alternative to the adjectives wee or smaw eg lass, lassie; kist, kistie; cheet, cheetie; hoose, hoosie.

Used to specify the distance or location of something in relation to the speaker. This and tha are used as in English and Scots has two extra forms to refer to things more distant. That one is tha(t) ane/yin/wan depending on dialect.

singular	this lad	tha(t) lad	thon lad	yon lad
plural	thir lads	thae lads	thon lads	yon lads

Note the related: Here, hereawa (hereabouts), therr (there), therrawa (thereabouts), yonderaboots (there or thereabouts).

(e.1) Personal pronouns Scots has both unemphatic forms and emphatic forms. The emphatic forms are given in square brackets and often correspond to the English equivalent.

Subject (nominative):
A [Ah/I], ye [you], he/she/it [he/she/hit], we [we], ye [you], they [they]
In Glaswegian dialects ye has a very useful plural yiz [youse]
eg Whit'r yez daein the nicht?
The familiar form of you - tou - survived on the mainland until this century, but is now only used in Shetland in the form du.

Object (accusative):
me [me], ye [you], him/hir or hur/it [him/hir/hit], us [hiz], ye [you], thaim [thaim]

Posessive:
ma [ma], yer [your], his/hir or hur/its [his/hir or hur/hits], wur [our], yer [your], thir [thair]
Note that in Scots (as in French, for example) 'the' is often used where English would use the possessive pronoun eg the wife, the brither, the fit, the haun, to keep/loss the heid.
('The' is generally used more often in Scots than in English eg the yeir (this year), awa tae the kirk, at the scuil, aff tae the jile, doon the toon, up the stair, whit'v ye got in fur the denner?, She's guid at the Inglish etc.)

Indefinite pronoun:
English 'one' is 'a bodie' eg Gin a bodie meet a bodie...

(e.2) Reflexive pronouns
hissel, hursel, thaimsel or -sels. English 'alone' is translated as his/hur/thair etc lane.

(e.3) Relative pronouns
The relative pronoun (English which, who etc) is simply tha or at, depending on the dialect. 'Scots wha hae' is a bit literary!

(e.4) Interrrogative pronouns
The interrogative pronouns are all different from English.
hoo (how or why), wha (who), whan (when), whase (whose), whaur (where), whatna (which), whit (what), whit wey or hoo (why)

(e.5) Indefinite pronouns
In Scots these are: a bodie (someone, somebody), naebodie (no one, nobody), oniebodie (anyone, anybodie), awbodie (everyone, everybody), sumhin/sumthin (something), naethin (nothing), oniethin (anything), awthin (everything).

Aw (all), a wheen o (some), onie (any), eneuch (enough), hauf (half), baith (both) are used as in English. Baith and maist (see below) are usually used with the eg the baith/maist o yiz.
Monie, mair, maist are the forms for countable nouns, muckle, mair, maist for uncountable nouns. English 'few' is translated as 'nae monie', both fewer and less as 'less'. 'A few' is 'a whein', 'twa-three/three-fower' etc.

Cardinal numbers are all different to English in spelling and/or pronunctiation.

1 ane/wan/yin (ae - adjective)
2 twa
3 three
4 fower
5 five
6 sax
7 seeven
8 echt/aucht
9 nine
10 ten


11 aleeven
12 twal
13 therteen
14 fowerteen/foreteen
15 feifteen/fifteen
16 saxteen
17 seiventeen
18 echteen/auchteen
19 ninteen
20 twintie


30 thertie
40 fowertie
50 fuftie
60 saxtie
70 seeventie
80 echtie/auchtie
90 nintie
100 hunner
1,000 a thoosan(d)
1,000,000 a million

Ordinal numbers all end in -t ie first, saicant, third (irr.), fowert, fift, saxt, seevent, ect/aucht, nint, tent. Add -t to the cardinal numbers for subsequent forms.
Nixt/neist is used differently for days of the week. 'Seturday first' is the equivalent of English next Saturday, while 'Seturday nixt' is next Saturday but one.
Laist, referring to time, is used like English last (but 'last year' is 'fernyeir'). When it refers to position, use hin(ner) or hinnermaist.

Each and every are both usually translated as ilka, though there is a form 'ivverie'. Aither (either) and naither are used as in English. Each one is ilk ane and each other is ilk ither.

Scots often use -lik(e)/lyk added to simple adjectives for English -ish eg blecklik, doucelik
Comparatives are formed in the same way as English, by adding -er or -est eg bonnie, bonnier, bonniest or using mair, the maist.
When there is a second part to the comparison, use nor eg tha laddie is mair glaikit nor thon ane. Note irregulars; guid, better, best; baud/ill, waur, warst; faur, forder, fordest.

Most adverbs are formed by adding -lie to the end of the related adjective eg slaw, slawlie; saft, saftlie. Some have an optional extra -s: aiblins (perhaps), mebbies, geylies (pretty much), brawlies.
However, when the adverb is positioned next to the verb, it takes the same form as the adjective eg He cam in quaet athoot oniebidie twiggin. When more emphasis is needed, -lik(e)/lyk can be added eg Rin, quick-like!
Note the common adverb 'awa' which appears in several idioms eg A'm awa (I am going), cum awa (come here), awa (wi ye)! (expression of disbelief), awa (an) byle yer heid! (get lost!), A'm fair awa wi the Haunbuik (happy/proud).

Many can also be used as adverbs. Some of the most common are:
ablo(w) below, aboot about, abuin above, aff off, afore before, prior to, agin against, ahint behind, alang along, amang among, aneith beneath, anent alongside, regarding, aroon around, as as, aside beside, at at, athort across, athout without, atween between, ayont beyond, ben within a house, bi wey o via, bi/be/by by, past, doon down, efter after, fornent opposite, frae/fae from, fur for, furth out of a town, country etc, in in, in aneith under, underneath, in maugre/spite o despite, in o inside, inby within, inbye inside a building , intil into, nar near, o of, on on, onti onto, or until, outbi out-of-doors, outwi outside, ower over, roun round, syne since, throu through, during, tae/till to , till till, taeward toward, up up, upon upon, wantin without, wi with, wi-in, within.
Many of these can be used as compunds eg intil, inower (in), outower (ouside), in o, aff o etc.
Use is broadly similar to English although there are some variations eg think on (think about), merrit on/wi (married to), beilin at (angry with), ower the windae (out of the window), in a praisent (as a present), wyte on (wait for), cry on (call to), feart fur (afraid of), mind o (remember), lippen tae (depend on), speir at (ask, request)

Note the phrases: Fower o' clock, the back o fower, a quarter efter fower, hauf past fower*, a quarter ti five. *Warning: In Scots 'hauf fower' really means 3.30 (as in German), but nowadays it is usually used (incorrectly, if you are a purist) to mean 4.30.
Twalours/nuin (midday) and midnicht (midnight) are supplemented by weeours (early morning), keek o day (sunrise), morn(in) (morning), efternuin (afternoon), sundoon (sunset), gloamin (just after sunset) eenin/fornicht (evening) and, of course, nicht (night).
The days of the week are:

Monanday
Tyseday
Wadensday
Thursday
Friday
Seturday
Sunday/Sawbath

The months of the year are:
Januar, Februar, Mairch, Aprile, Mey, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

And the Fower Saisons: Spring/Ware, Simmer, Hairst, Winter