African American Vernacular English: Encyclopedia II - African American Vernacular English - Grammatical features

African American Vernacular English - Grammatical features

African American Vernacular English - Phonological features

• Reduction of certain diphthong forms to monophthongs, in particular, [aɪ] to [a] and [ɔɪ] to [oː]. For example, "boy" pronounced as [boː].
• Pronunciation of the dental fricatives voiceless dental fricative [θ] (as in SE thing) and voiced dental fricative [ð] (as in SE then) changes depending on position in a word. Word-initially, they become alveolar stops [t] and [d] and elsewhere they become labiodental fricatives [f] and [v]. Examples: then [ðɛn] is pronounced den [dɛn], smooth [smuːð] is pronounced smoov [smuːv], thin [θɪn] is pronounced tin [tɪn], and tooth [tuːθ] is pronounced toof [tuːf]. This contrasts with West African-based English creoles and pidgins where [d] instead of the SE "th" occurs regardless of placement, e.g., "brudda" for "brother." The rule for AAVE can be expressed in standard phonological rule notation:

• AAVE is non-rhotic, so the alveolar approximant [ɹ] is usually dropped if not followed by a vowel. However, intervocalic [ɹ] may also be dropped e.g. "story" realized as "sto'y" i.e. [stɔʔi]. A number of rhotic AAVE speakers do exist, however.
• Realization of final ng [ŋ], the velar nasal, as the alveolar nasal [n] in function morphemes and content morphemes with two syllables like -ing, e.g. "tripping" as "trippin". This change does not occur in one-syllable content morphemes, that is sing is sing [sɪŋ] and not sin [sɪn], but singing is singin [sɪŋɪn] wedding can be weddin [wɛdɪn], morning is often mornin [mɔɹnɪn], something is somefin [sʌmfɪn], nothing is nufin [nʌfɪn].
• More generally, reduction of vocally homogeneous final consonant clusters. That is, test becomes tes (they are both voiceless), hand becomes han (they are both voiced), but pant is unchanged, as it contains both a voiced and an voiceless consonant in the cluster (Rickford, 1997).
• In certain cases, transposition of adjacent consonants, particularly when the first is [s]. For instance "ask" realized as "aks" or "gasp" as "gaps".
• Pronunciation of /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ both as /ɪ/ before nasal consonants, making pen and pin homonyms.
• Pronunciation of /ɪ/ and /iː/ both as /ɪ/ before 'l', making feel and fill homonyms.
• Dropping of /t/ at the end of contractions i.e. the pronunciation of don't and ain't as /doʊn/ and /eɪn/.
• Dropping of word initial /d/, /b/, and /g/ in tense-aspect markers i.e. the pronunciation of don't like own.
• Lowering of /ɪ/ to /ɛ/ or /æ/ before /ŋ/ causing pronunciations such as theng/thang for thing, thenk/thank for think, reng/rang for ring etc.

African American Vernacular English - Aspect marking

The most distinguishing feature of AAVE is the use of forms of be to mark aspect in verb phrases. The use or lack of a form of be can indicate whether the performance of the verb is of a habitual nature. In SAE, this can be expressed only using adverbs such as usually. It is disputed whether the use of the verb "to be" to indicate a habitual status or action in AAVE has its roots in various West African languages.

The aspect marked by stressed 'been' has been given many names, including Perfect Phase, Remote Past, Remote Phase (Fickett 1970, Fasold and Wolfram 1970, Rickford 1999, respectively). This article uses the third.

With non-stative verbs, the role of been is simple: it places the action in the distant past, or represents total completion of the action. A Standard English equivalent is to add "a long time ago". For example, She been tell me that translates as, "She told me that a long time ago".

However, when been is used with stative verbs or gerund forms, been shows that the action began in the distant past and that it is continuing now. Rickford (1999) suggests that a better translation when used with stative verbs is "for a long time". For instance, in response to "I like your new dress", one might hear Oh, I been had this dress, meaning that the speaker has had the dress for a long time and that it isn't new.

To see the difference between the simple past and the gerund when used with been, consider the utterances:

African American Vernacular English - Negation

In addition, negatives are formed differently from standard American English:

• Use of ain't as a general negative indicator. It is used in place of SE "am not", "isn't", and "aren't".
• Negation agreement, as in I didn't go nowhere, such that if the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated. This can be traced to West African languages, but is usually stigmatized in Standard English (although this wasn't always so; see double negative).
• If the subject is indefinite (e.g. nobody instead of Sally or he), it can be inverted with the negative qualifier (turning Nobody knows the answer to Don't nobody know the answer, also adding multiple negation). This emphasizes the negative, and is not interrogative, as it would be in SAE.

African American Vernacular English - Lexical features

For the most part, AAVE uses the lexicon of SAE, particularly informal and southern dialects. There are some notable differences, however. It has been suggested that some of this vocabulary has its origin in West African languages, but etymology is often difficult to trace and without a trail of recorded usage the suggestions below cannot be considered proven. In fact, several have other more widely accepted etymologies.

• bogus from Hausa boko, meaning deceit or fraud.
• cat from the Wolof suffix -kat, which denotes a person.
• dig from Wolof dëgg or dëgga, meaning "to understand/appreciate".
• hip from Wolof hipi, meaning "to be aware of what is going on".
• honky, a derogatory term for a white person, may come from Wolof xonq, meaning red or pink.

AAVE also has a separate vocabulary of words that have no Standard English-language equivalent, or with strikingly different meanings from their common usage in SAE. For example, there are several words in AAVE referring to white people which are not part of mainstream SAE and may be little known outside the black community. A "gray dude" is a white male, as is a "paddy boy", the latter likely derived from "paddyroller", a corruption of "patroller", who were vigilantes who caught runaway slaves and kidnapped free blacks and made a living collecting bounties or selling them into bondage. "Ofay" is another general term for a white. "Kitchen" refers to the particularly curly or kinky hair at the nape of the neck, "siditty" means snobbish or bourgeois, and "roach-in-the-corner killers" are pointy-toed shoes.

African American Vernacular English - Other grammatical characteristics

Some of these characteristics, notably double negatives and the use of been for "has been", are also characteristic of general colloquial American English.

Linguist William Labov carried out and published the first thorough grammatical study of African American Vernacular English in 1965.

• Perhaps most strikingly, the copula is often dropped, as in Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew, and Arabic. For example: You crazy! ("You are crazy") or She my sister ("She is my sister"). The phenomenon is also observed in questions: Who you? ("Who are you?") and Where you at? ("Where are you?"). As in Russian and Arabic, the copula is omitted only in the present tense, and is usually specified in the past tense (with some exceptions. For example: Where she go? ("Where did she go?"))
• Present-tense verbs are uninflected for person: there is no -s ending in the present tense third person singular. Example: She write poetry ("She writes poetry")
• There is no -s ending indicating possession—the genitive relies on adjacency. This is similar to many creoles throughout the Caribbean. Many languages forms through the world use an unmarked possessive; it may, here, result from a simplification of grammatical structures and tendency to eschew particle usage. Example: my mama sister ("my mama's sister")
• The word it denotes the existence of something, equivalent to Standard English there in "there is", or "there are". This usage is also found in the English of the US South. Examples It's a doughnut in the cabinet ("There's a doughnut in the cabinet") and It ain't no spoon ("There is no spoon").
• Altered syntax in questions: She signifyin' all hankty (snobbish). Who duh hell she think she is? ("She's acting like a snob. Who the hell does she think she is?") Note also the use of "all" as an adverb of manner or degree, as well as the omission of the dummy verb "do" (does). How you tole him I'm try'na see her? ("Why did you tell him I want to see her?") Normal clause inversion of the past tense verb in forming questions is not practised.
• Use of say to introduce quotations, actual or otherwise. For example, "I thought, say, 'Why don't he just rap wit' her?'" Say is also used to introduce sounds where a SAE speaker might use go: He say, boom! ("It went, boom!").

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Grammatical features", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki