Grammaticalization in AAVE

Cukor‐Avila, Patricia; Bailey, Guy

doi:10.3765/bls.v21i1.1401

Cited by 28 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Of particular interest is their finding that 94 percent of their preterite had tokens occurred in narrative complicating action clauses, where, in a similar fashion to the present perfect in the London preadolescent narratives, it was found to mark the prelude to narrative peaks, in addition to marking dramatic points of intensity themselves (Rickford and Théberge-Rafal 1999, 48). Similar results have also been obtained from African American speakers elsewhere in the United States (see, e.g., Cukor-Avila and Bailey 1995;Ross, Oetting, and Stapleton 2004), and preterite had + V-ed is also reported to exist among young Puerto Ricans in New York City (Rickford and Théberge-Rafal 1999, 53). However, as Rickford and Théberge-Rafal (1999, 55) cautiously remarked, the social distribution of this construction warrants further detailed analysis across a wider range of age groups to distinguish between developmental phenomena and bona fide linguistic change.…”

Section: Cited the Following Examplessupporting

confidence: 78%

Tense Variation in Preadolescent Narratives

Levey

2006

Journal of English Linguistics

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Most of the previous research on variation in tense-aspect morphology in narrative has focused on the discourse functions of the alternation between the simple past and the conversational historical present (CHP). However, it is not clear what discourse functions may be implicated in narrative by switches between the simple past and other tense-aspect categories and whether there are differences between contemporary vernacular varieties of English in this regard. This article addresses these issues by examining tense variation in the narrative complicating action clauses embedded in fifty-six narratives of personal experience recounted by a small group of preadolescents recorded in Greater London in the southeast of England. Using a variationist methodology incorporating distributional and multivariate analyses of tense variation in a circumscribed narrative subcomponent, the article examines switches between the simple past, the CHP, and the present perfect. Building on the foundational research conducted on the alternation between the simple past and the CHP in narrative, the results presented here suggest that alternations between the present perfect and other tense forms are motivated by structural and pragmatic considerations associated with the segmentation and evaluation of narrative episodes.

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Section: Cited the Following Examplessupporting

confidence: 78%

Tense Variation in Preadolescent Narratives

Levey

2006

Journal of English Linguistics

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“…The syntactic and semantic reanalysis of zero and full/contracted copula forms by post-World War II Springville speakers bears a striking resemblance to another grammatical development within the present tense of be, the grammaticalization of be 2 (Bailey andMaynor 1987, 1989;Cukor-Avila and Bailey 1995), the near-categorical loss of present-tense verbal -s (Bailey, Maynor, and Cukor-Avila 1989;Cukor-Avila 1997), and the post-World War II reanalysis of had+past as a simple past-tense form (Cukor-Avila 1995;Cukor-Avila and Bailey 1995). 6 Bailey andMaynor (1987, 1989) argue that the emergence of invariant be+V+ing as a marker of habitual aspect was largely a consequence of three things: (1) structural pressures within the progressive system itself, which in English can have a number of meanings (habitual, durative, and future) that are not progressive at all; (2) the presence of variant auxiliary forms of be in English (e.g., is/º/be) that were not distinct from one another in function; and (3) the presence of an earlier invariant be in black folk speech, one that derived from the deletion of a preceding would and carried past habitual meaning.…”

Section: Cukor-avila / Stativity and Copula Absence In Aave 347mentioning

confidence: 99%

Stativity and Copula Absence in AAVE

Cukor‐Avila

1999

Journal of English Linguistics

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The copula has been one of the most important sites for work on the origins of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In particular, the effects of the following grammatical environment on copula absence have been crucial in attempts by linguists to argue a creole origins hypothesis. 1 Almost thirty years of copula research have confirmed the ordering of gonna, V+ing, predicate locative/predicate adjective, and NP in the constraint hierarchy for the effects of the following grammatical environment on copula absence. The ordering of predicate locatives and adjectives has been a source of controversy, though, with different analyses finding different orderings for these environments. However, it is the ordering of predicate locative/predicate adjective with respect to one another that has been singled out by researchers as a key factor in determining a creole ancestry for AAVE. Scholars such as Baugh (1979( , 1980( ), Holm (1984, Rickford and Blake (1990), and Rickford (1998) have argued that an AAVE constraint ordering that shows higher copula absence rates for following predicate adjectives than for predicate locatives parallels similar constraints in Caribbean anglophone creoles, which would strongly suggest creole origins for AAVE. These researchers point to the fact that in African languages and in creoles such as Jamaican Creole and Gullah, adjectives are a subclass of verbs and consequently would not require a preceding copula (Holm 1984, 102).Research on diaspora varieties of AAVE, however, has called the creole constraint order (and the creole hypothesis) into question. Poplack and Sankoff (1987) show that the ordering of the following grammatical constraints on copula absence

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“…First, prior research has shown that some features of contemporary AAVE (e.g. be+V+ing as a marker of present habitual action) are recent developments and thus inappropriate for analysis in earlier varieties Maynor 1987, 1989;Cukor-Avila 1995;Cukor-Avila and Bailey 1996;Rickford 1992). Second, other features, such as verbal ±s absence occur in both earlier and contemporary AAVE but function dierently (cf.…”

Section: An Approach To the Effects Of Interviewer Racementioning

confidence: 99%