African-American English

Structure, History and Use

Guy Bailey, John Baugh, Salikoko S. Mufwene, John R. Rickford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135097639
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

African-American English: Structure, History and Use provides a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English. The main linguistic features are covered, in particular the grammar, phonology and lexicon. Further chapters explore the sociological, political and educational issues connected with African-American English.
The editors are the leading experts in the field and along with other key figures, notably William Labov, Geneva Smitherman and Walt Wolfram, they provide an authoritative, diverse guide to this topical subject area. Drawing on many contemporary references: the Oakland School controversy, the rap of Ice-T, the contributors reflect the state of current scholarship on African-American English, and actively dispel many misconceptions, address new questions and explore new approaches.
The book is designed to serve as a text for the increasing number of courses on African-American English and as a convenient reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Part I
Structure

1
The Sentence in African-American Vernacular English

Stefan Martin and Walt Wolfram

1.1 Introduction

Speakers of other English dialects sometimes view the sentence structure of African-American vernacular English (AAVE) as distinct from the many varieties of English spoken in the United States and elsewhere. African Americans who speak AAVE may feel the same way, and some may even make this distinctiveness a point of ethnic pride. In the sense that each dialect of English is unique, those who believe that AAVE is sui generis are right. But the distinctiveness of AAVE does not particularly reside in the structure of its sentences. Basic utterance types - e.g., declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences - are all formed in essentially the same way as they are in other dialects. Even where its sentence structure is notably different from most other dialects, AAVE is generally not unique: those syntactic structures purportedly found only in AAVE are in fact part of dialects spoken by other groups, especially but not limited to Anglo-American vernacular English speakers who live in the southern United States. Therefore, except where warranted, we will examine AAVE sentence structures without making any claims for their uniqueness.

When we say that AAVE shares its fundamental sentence structure with other varieties of English, we mean that the essential clause and phrase constituents within the sentence are the same. For example, the word order for AAVE canonical sentences (i.e., the most basic sentences) is subject-verb-object (SVO), just as it is in other varieties of English. Other languages use SVO too, but some use SOV or VSO word order part or all of the time.

As in other dialects of English, we also find that AAVE embeds or incorporates finite clauses, usually complementizer phrases (CP) in the main or matrix clause, as in (1a). AAVE also allows embedding of infinitival (untensed) clauses like (1b), and small (verbless) clauses (1c, d).¹

1. 1. I think [_CP (that) the dog ate the meal]
   2. He told [_IP the students to be quiet]
   3. She saw [_XP the students working/alive/on the job]
   4. He called [_XP Bill a fool]

Although all embedded clause types are represented in AAVE syntax, some are not used as frequently as in other varieties. For example, a sentence with a clause structure, such as I judge them to be the winners, would not be found very frequently in AAVE or other vernaculars which typically use more informal language registers.

Finally, as in other varieties of English, the fundamental structure of AAVE phrases is head-first rather than head-last. That is, the central element or head of phrases is almost always on the left (in written English, or first in spoken language) rather than the right, like the verb miss in the verb phrase (VP) [[_V miss] [_NP the class]] or the preposition by in the preposition phrase (PP) [[_P by] [_NP the garden]].

1.2 Some conspicuous differences

Non-specialists and specialists alike have cited a number of AAVE features as evidence for the distinctiveness of AAVE sentence structure. But some of the most obvious traits do not involve differences in syntax but rather the lexical peculiarities of certain AAVE verbs. For example, consider the sentence in (2a).

• (2)
  • a. [_IP There [_VP go the pencil]]
  • a'. [_IP There [_VP is the pencil]]

The structure of (2a), which is usually associated with younger AAVE speakers, is no different from Standard English (SE) (2a'), but the use of go is distinctive. In AAVE, it can denote the static location of an object. In other varieties of English, go is limited to objects which are beginning to move or act (e.g., There goes the car, There goes Bill again). Although this difference may be striking to speakers of other dialects because of its unfamiliarity, it is no more noteworthy than other semantic-lexical dialect differences observed in English. For example, the noun soda, depending on the regional variety, may or may not denote a drink which contains ice cream, but the word will almost always occupy the head position of a noun phrase (NP).

Sentence (3a) demonstrates another AAVE peculiarity, this one concerning the complementation of the verb beat.

• (3)
  1. [_IP The team [_VP beat]]
  2. [_IP The team [_VP won easily]]
  3. [_IP Alta Vista [_VP rules]]

In many varieties of English, beat is always transitive - that is, it requires an overt direct object. However, in AAVE the object complement is not required in all uses. In its intransitive form beat is comparable to SE verb-adverb combinations like win easily (3b). This tendency to detransitivize verbs is not productive in AAVE, and it warrants no more comment than, for example, the appearance of intransitive verb rule in the current use of Anglo-American teenagers and young adults (3c). Certainly, AAVE has many verb forms that require overt objects, and the vast majority of verbs in AAVE match other English varieties in verb complement selection. Nonetheless, there are a limited number of cases in which the lexical verbs of AAVE may differ from other varieties.

The use of ruded in (4a) involves a functional shift peculiar to this item. This process transforms an adjective into a verb which takes an NP direct object and a locational prepositional phrase.

• (4)
  1. The students [_VP ruded them in line]
  2. Kim's lies [_VP soured Stacey on the idea of a joint venture]

This use of rude, observed among young AAVE speakers in Baltimore, Maryland, is more regionally restricted than the uses of go and beat. We should expect this sort of regional lexical variation in AAVE, just as we do in other varieties which have wide geographic distribution. Moreover, as sentence (4b) shows, the shift of adjectives into verbs is a known tendency in other varieties of English.

1.3 Subtlety in patterning

While some conspicuous features have been used to argue for the syntactic distinctiveness of AAVE, these sometimes turn out to be isolated and unproductive lexical peculiarities, with little or no significance for the syntax of this variety. However, there are AAVE structures which at first look similar or identical to those in other varieties of English, but which in fact mask underlying differences. One of these is AAVE béen (5a), in which the form is stressed.

• (5)
  1. The man béen married
  2. The man has béen married
  3. The man's béen married

At first glance, (5a) appears to be derived from the present perfect form of be, has been. We might assume that has, the full auxiliary verb (5b), is first contracted to 's (5c), then deleted (5a) through a phonological process common to vernacular varieties of English - e.g., have/has → 've/s —> Θ; is —> 's → Θ, etc. (cf. Labov 1969). But this analysis cannot account for all instances of béen (Rickford 1975, 1977, as well as Chapters 2 and 5 of this volume). For example, béen can also occur in transitive VP constructions, e.g., (6a). If we reconstruct (6a) as we did (5a), the result is the ill-formed, or "ungrammatical" sentence (6b). Apparently, (6b) is not the underlying sentence for (6a). Instead, béen seems to be a distinct aspectual marker in the AAVE auxiliary paradigm denoting non-recent or 'remote past' time.

• (6)
  1. The man [_VP béeen married [_NP the woman]]
  2. * The man [_Infl has [_VP béen married [_NP the woman]]]
  3. The woman béen married

The case for a distinct, AAVE-particular béen is further supported by differing interpretations which AAVE and Anglo-American English speakers assign to sentences like (6c) (Rickford 1975). The latter group typically understands that the sentence predicates something of a woman who was married but no longer is. AAVE speakers typically infer that the woman has been married a long time and still is - hardly a minor difference. Several other unique auxiliaries distinguish AAVE from mainstream varieties of English. Some of these are discussed in Chapters 2 and 5 of this volume. Another, double modals, will be discussed later in this chapter.

In the literature on AAVE, structures like (5a, 6a) are cited as examples of camouflaging, the phenomenon in which a vernacular form closely resembles a standard form while being different in structure or meaning (Spears 1982; Baugh 1984; Wolfram 1995). Sentence (7a) demonstrates another instance. "Indignant" come - called this because the come V +ing construction is used in AAVE solely to express speaker indignation - appears at first to behave like the come V+ing structures in other varieties, where it is used with verb combinations ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Structure
• Part II History
• Part III Use
• Subject Index
• Name Index