Elements of AAE

from Lisa Green, AAE: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge UP, 2002)

Grammatical features

No -s at the third singular:

he go

it come

she like Or reduplicated -s:

you is

> also in Caribbean creoles and British English dialects of East Anglia

Grammatical features

Auxiliaries can appear in a contracted, reduced or zero form

They walking too fast

The teacher got all the papers

Bruce'a study when he get home

you know her name?

He sleeping in the car?

Grammatical features

Absence of the copula in the present tense:

She real nice

They out there

He not American

(when the copula is exposed, it is always present: I know what it is)

> also in English creoles of the Carribean

Grammar & syntax Invariant be to indicate habitual aspect :he be around (=it is usually the case that he is around)

When we play school, he be the teacher (=when we play school, he usually plays the role of the teacher)

Bruce be running when I leave for work (=it is usually the case that Bruce's running when I leave for work)

'You don't get tired o' Momma beatin' you?' Jerry asked him one day.

'She don't really be mad,' Enoch explained lovingly. 'Dat's jes what she suppose to do. Sometime she be laughin' as she be beatin' me.'

(Daniel Black, The Sacred Place. St. Martin's Press, 2007)

AAE:

1) He busy right now

2) He be busy

3) They be waking up too early

Standard English:

1) He's busy right now

2) Sometimes he's busy

3) They usually wake up to early

Ungrammatical:

* She be busy right now

* He be my father

* They be wake up too early

Translate into St. Eng.

Half of them things that be showed on TV don't be happening

Those shoes be too expensive I be in my office by 7:30 No, that's how they be Johnny be good

Habitual BE

Aspectual marker that is different from the copula be

It indicates an event that occurs over and over

It occurs before verbs in -ing, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, done and at the end of the sentences

In Caribbean creoles the distribution of an event through time (repeated, continuous, completed, etc.) is of greater importance than tense

Also in the dialect of Dorset, UK:

he beat her [once]

he did beat her [he had the habit]

Grammar & syntax

Perfective done to indicate a completed activity (either in the recent past or long time ago):

I done talked

He done read all the Little Bill books

The verbal marker done is pronounced with a weak vowel (schwa), distinguished from the pronunciation of done in which the vowel is stressed : The food is done

I told him you done changed I done done all you told me! I done wanted to do that for five years They be done left when I get there They done left

*They done leaving (=ungrammatical)

A: Push your seat

B: I done pushed it

A: Push it again

A: You through with the magazine I bought you?

B: I done already finished that

done

A tense/aspect marker Pronunciation property: unstressed It usually indicates a completed activity and an

event that is a resultant state Usually before verbs in the simple past

Grammar & syntax Remotive BIN (or stressed been): an event

started in the past and continues up to the moment of utterance OR it ended a long time ago

You BIN paid your dues a long time ago

I BIN called him

She BIN a teacher

“The police going bad” - “They ain't going bad. They BIN bad”

I BIN give Brenda and John they books (=I gave Brenda and John their books a long time ago)

That's where I BIN putting my glasses (=that's where I started putting my glasses some time ago and I still put them there)

I BIN knowing he died (=I have known for a long time that he died)

They BIN running ≠ She been running

John BIN running for ten minutes (=John started to run for ten-minute stretches a long time ago and he still runs for ten-minute stretches)

BIN

Tense/aspect marker It is stressed It situates a state in the past: the event has

ended or it continues up to the present; the remote past is relative: it can refer to 15 minutes ago or 15 years ago. BIN is used to indicate that the time period referred to is longer than normal

It occurs before verbs, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, adverbs, done

Grammar & syntax

Existential it (=there is/are, there was/were):

it's a boy in my class named Joy

It got some coffee in the kitchen

It's some coffee in the kitchen

It ain't no heaven for you to go to

it be too many cars in the parking lot

it was a lot of things going on in this lesson

[It's] is pronounced [is]

Grammar & syntax

Double negative:

Can't nobody do nothing about it

Sometimes it didn't have no chalk, no books, no teacher

Bruce don't want no teacher telling him nothing about no books

Don't nobody want to go to the movies (≠ Do anybody want to go to the movies?)

Grammar & syntax

Question inversion in indirect questions:

I asked May where did she go

I want to know did he come last night

Tell me do it make any sense

I wanted to see was it the one we bought

I meant to ask her did she want it

Phonology

Stress and absence of stress affect meaning (BIN, done)

Reduction of final consonant sounds: Pos < 'post'

Mas < 'mask' /r/ is non vocalized Voiceless /th/ is realized as /f/ >baf (but: think) Voiced /th/ is realized as /d/ or /v/ > diz, smuv -ing sound is realized as n

Lexicon

AAE ≠ slang (though slang plays a major role) Associated to teenagers and young adults

culture (but there's more than that) English words that occur in St. Am. Eng. But

they have different meanings and might be used in different environments : Kitchen = hair at the nape of the neck which is

inclined to be very kinky

Lexicon

Different attitude:

- call oneself: making an attempt to do something but not quite doing it as the observer think it should be done

She call herself a queen (=she is not so special)

He call hisself cooking (=he cannot cook)

They call theyselves friendly, and they won't speak to people

Lexicon

Come: expresses the speaker's indignation

He come talking in here like he owned the damn place

Don't come telling me all those lies

She come coming in here, raising all kind of hell

Lexicon

Some: it indicates the extremity of an action

Kareem is some tall (=Kareem is very tall)

She can cook some good (=She is an excellent cook)

Steady: it indicates that action or process specified by the verb is carried out in an intense, consistent and continuous manner

Her mouth is steady runnin'

He steady be tellin' 'em how to run they lives

Speech events Signifying: the verbal art of insult in which a

speaker humorously puts down the listener Playing the dozens: “the dozen is a mean game

because what you try to do is to totally destroy somebody else with words...signifying is more humane”. […] “set responses in versified form, usually rhymed couples” + “'yo mamma'”

Call and response: “As a communicative strategy this call and response is the manifestation of the cultural dynamic which finds audience and listener or leader and background to be a unified whole.

again on origins

1980s: Africanist position Later: revision > there are retentions of British

isles dialects, for ex.:

Dat's a thing dat's got to be handled just so, do [=otherwise] it'll kill you

(Z.N.Hurston)

do: otherwise > East Anglia

First Blacks in America spoke an English Creole

origins

Today: theory of a mix of the 3 possibilities:

African matrix + creole background + British dialect influence

It is clear that the oral tradition plays a major role