The Historical Evolution of Earlier African American English

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ISBN: 9783110173017 | 3110173018
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 8/1/2002

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Based on a 500,000 word corpus of early sources collected from ex-slave narratives, ex-slave recordings, and interviews with hoodoo priests, this book reconstructs the English spoken by African Americans between 1830 and 1920. By means of detailed quantitative analyses, three linguistic features (negation patterns, copula usage, and relative marker choice) are interpreted along the lines of temporal change, regional diversity, and variation across gender. Additionally, some 300 non-standard letters written by African Americans in the 19th century are compared to the main corpus in order to identify differences between speech and writing.

Acknowledgements	p. vii
List of abbreviations	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
Education: where it all started	p. 2
The synchronic description of AAE and its comparison to other varieties of English	p. 3
The debate about the origins of AAE	p. 4
The sociohistorical background for the evolution of AAE	p. 6
The divergence of AAE from other varieties of English	p. 8
Sources for the historical reconstruction of AAE	p. 9
The aims of the present project	p. 10
A final note on terms	p. 11
Data and methods	p. 12
Mississippi samples from the ex-slave narratives Rawick (1977/1979) [WPA MS]	p. 12
The Virginia WPA project [WPA VA]	p. 20
The ex-slave recordings [ESR]	p. 22
Samples from Hyatt's hoodoo interviews [HOODOO1 and HOODOO2]	p. 24
Linguistic evaluation of the subcorpora	p. 28
Methodological possibilities of a combined corpus of Earlier AAE	p. 32
Comparison of subcorpora	p. 32
Studying change in progress - apparent time analyses	p. 33
Analysis by state	p. 35
Gender differences	p. 38
Summary	p. 39
Negation patterns in Earlier AAE	p. 40
Introduction	p. 40
Verbal negation	p. 41
The distribution of ain't and its standard counterparts	p. 41
Verbal negation by subcorpus	p. 41
Verbal negation in apparent time	p. 47
Verbal negation by state	p. 51
Verbal negation by gender	p. 53
The functions of ain't	p. 54
The functions of ain't by subcorpus	p. 55
The functions of ain't in apparent time	p. 56
The functions of ain't by state	p. 59
The functions of ain't by gender	p. 60
Multiple negation / Negative concord	p. 61
Overall frequencies of negative concord and standard negation	p. 62
Negative concord and standard negation by subcorpus	p. 62
Negative concord and standard negation in apparent time	p. 62
Negative concord and standard negation by state	p. 64
Negative concord and standard negation by gender	p. 64
Variability of negative auxiliaries in indeterminate contexts	p. 65
Variability of negative auxiliaries by subcorpus	p. 67
Variability of negative auxiliaries in apparent time	p. 70
Variability of negative auxiliaries by state	p. 73
Variability of negative auxiliaries by gender	p. 77
Negative attraction	p. 78
Never+did+V(inf)	p. 80
Negative postposing	p. 81
Summary	p. 83
The copula in Earlier AAE	p. 89
Introductory remarks	p. 89
Methodological considerations	p. 90
Setting the stage for an analysis: identifying count and don't count items	p. 93
The copula in past tense environments	p. 93
Habitual BE[subscript 2] and non-finite BE	p. 94
Clause final and emphatic copula	p. 94
There + copula / here + copula	p. 94
This + copula	p. 96
Questions	p. 97
What / it / that (WIT)	p. 97
Negation	p. 99
Am	p. 99
Are	p. 104
Phonological environments	p. 107
Survey of copula usage in Earlier AAE	p. 108
Full, contracted and zero forms of the copula	p. 109
Straight vs. Labov (and Romaine)	p. 112
Differences between is and are contraction and deletion	p. 113
Comparison across data sets	p. 113
The variability of is in Earlier AAE	p. 115
Possible constraints on is realization	p. 115
Variability of is by subcorpus	p. 119
Subject type by subcorpus	p. 120
Following grammatical environment by subcorpus	p. 126
Phonological environment by subcorpus	p. 133
VARBRUL analysis of is in the combined corpus	p. 136
Variability of is in apparent time	p. 139
Variability of is by state	p. 147
Variability of is by gender	p. 152
Summary	p. 154
Relativization in Earlier AAE	p. 156
Methodological remarks	p. 156
Relativization in Standard and Nonstandard English	p. 157
Humanness of the antecedent head	p. 162
Category of the antecedent head	p. 166
Adjacency of relative marker and antecedent head	p. 166
Summing up the factors for the present analysis	p. 167
Relativization by subcorpus	p. 171
Humanness of the antecedent	p. 173
Frequency of relative markers by environment	p. 174
Comparison of relative markers across environments	p. 175
Category of the antecedent	p. 176
Frequency of relative markers by environment	p. 176
Comparison of relative markers across environments	p. 178
Adjacency of antecedent and relative marker	p. 178
Comparison of relative markers across environments	p. 179
Summary	p. 181
Relativization in apparent time	p. 182
Humanness of the antecedent	p. 184
Subject relatives	p. 184
Non-subject relatives	p. 185
Category of the antecedent	p. 187
Subject relatives	p. 187
Non-subject relatives	p. 188
Adjacency of antecedent and relative marker	p. 189
Subject relatives	p. 189
Non-subject relatives	p. 190
Summary	p. 191
Relativization by state	p. 193
Humanness of the antecedent	p. 195
Subject relatives	p. 195
Non-subject relatives	p. 196
Category of the antecedent	p. 197
Subject relatives	p. 197
Non-subject relatives	p. 198
Adjacency of antecedent and relative marker	p. 200
Subject relatives	p. 200
Non-subject relatives	p. 201
Summary	p. 202
Relativization by gender	p. 203
Humanness of the antecedent	p. 204
Subject relatives	p. 204
Non-subject relatives	p. 205
Summary	p. 206
Subject relatives	p. 208
Non-subject relatives	p. 209
VARBRUL analysis of subject and non-subject that, what, and zero	p. 209
Comparison of written and spoken Earlier AAE	p. 212
Two sources of written Earlier AAE	p. 212
Letters from Liberia (and Alabama) [LAL]	p. 212
Validity of transcripts	p. 215
Letters written during or after the Civil War (Freedmen's Bureau Letters [FBL])	p. 219
Manuscript letters as linguistic data	p. 221
Negation	p. 224
Verbal Negation	p. 224
Negative concord	p. 226
Negative attraction	p. 230
Negative postposing	p. 231
Summing up	p. 233
The copula	p. 234
The copula in special contexts (there, here, this, WIT)	p. 234
Full, contracted and zero forms of am, are, and is	p. 237
Summing up	p. 242
Relativization	p. 242
Humanness of the antecedent	p. 245
Category of the antecedent	p. 247
Adjacency	p. 250
Summing up	p. 251
Summary: Written sources of Earlier AAE	p. 253
Conclusions	p. 254
Informants by subcorpus	p. 259
Informants by year of birth	p. 266
Informants by state	p. 269
Historical demographics of the American South	p. 272
Detailed listings of negated auxiliaries in indeterminate contexts by sub-corpus	p. 283
Notes	p. 291
References	p. 311
Index	p. 328
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The Historical Evolution of Earlier African American English

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