Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T13:35:35.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The birth of a variant: Evidence for a tripartite negative past be paradigm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Kirk Hazen
Kirk Hazen
Affiliation:
West Virginia University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the study of past be, most researchers have assumed a two variant distinction for negative forms (i.e., wasn't and weren't). In Warren County, North Carolina, evidence suggests a three variant distinction (i.e., wasn't, weren't, and wont). Throughout the history of sociolinguistic investigation, two types of variants have been noted: a sociolinguistic variant and a linguistic variant. In Warren County, wont functions as both types, as demonstrated through acoustic, morphophonological, and sociolinguistic evidence. Through the analysis of negative past be, guidelines are suggested for determining a particular form as a separate linguistic and sociolinguistic variant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , October 1998 , pp. 221 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atwood, E. Bagby. (1953). A survey of verb forms in the eastern United States. (Studies in American English 2.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butters, Ronald R., & Nix, Ruth A. (1986). The English of Blacks in Wilmington, North Carolina. In Montgomery, Michael B. & Bailey, Guy (Eds.), Language variety in the south. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Dictionary of American Regional English [DARE]. (1985-). Volume 1 (A-C), Cassidy, Frederic G. (Ed.). Volume II (D-H) and Volume III (1–0), Frederic G. Cassidy & Joan Houston Hall (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Docherty, Gerald J., Foulkes, Paul, Milroy, James, Milroy, Lesley, & Walshaw, David. (1997). Descriptive adequacy in phonology: A variationist perspective. Journal of Linguistics 33:275–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. (1989). Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. (1991). Social polarization and the choice of linguistic variants. In Eckert, Penelope (Ed.), New ways of analyzing sound change. San Diego: Academic. 213–232.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W. (1990). The sociolinguistics of language. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph W., Bins, Carolyn, Skopek, Lucienne, Tully, Barbara, & Louis, Conan. (1973). Influence on social led level: Where you are and where your head is. Paper presented at Southeastern Conference on Linguistics 9, Richmond, VA.Google Scholar
Feagin, Crawford. (1979). Variation and change in Alabama English. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, Coupland, Nikolas, & Coupland, Justine. (1991). Accommodation theory: Communication, context, and consequence. In Giles, Howard, Coupland, Nikolas, & Coupland, Justine (Eds.), Contexts of accommodation: Developments in applied sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habick, Timothy. (1980). Sound change in Fanner City: A sociolinguistic study based on acoustic data. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Habick, Timothy. (1991). Burnouts vs. rednecks: Effects of group membership on the phonemic system. In Eckert, Penelope (Ed.), New ways of analyzing sound change. San Diego: Academic. 185–212.Google Scholar
Hazen, Kirk. (1996). The phonological and morphological justification of ain't. In Arnold, Jennifer, Blake, Renée, Davidson, Brad, Schwenter, Scott, & Solomon, Julie (Eds.), Sociolinguistic variation: Data, theory, and analysis. Stanford: CSLI. 101–112.Google Scholar
Hazen, Kirk. (2000). Identity and ethnicity in the rural South: A sociolinguistic view through past and present Be. (Publications of the American Dialect Society 83.) Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Iri, M. (1959). Mathematical models in phonetics. Gerrgo Kirrkyu 35:23–30.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1963). The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19:273–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. (1969). Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula. Language 45:715–762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1989). The child as linguistic historian. Language Variation and Change 1:85–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. (1998). Coexistent systems in African-American English. In Mufwene, Salikoko S., Rickford, John R., Bailey, Guy, & Baugh, John (Eds.), African-American English. New York: Routledge. 110–153.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Cohen, Paul, Robbins, Clarence, & Lewis, John. (1968). A study of the non-standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City. Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, Peter. (1993). A course in phonetics (3rd ed.). Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Leach, Lucy Iana. (1941). Reminiscences of my work. Raleigh, NC: Edwards and Broughton.Google Scholar
Le Page, R. B., & Tabouret-Keller, Andrée. (1985). Acts of identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Stephen, & Wolfram, Walt. (1998). The sentence in African-American Vernacular English. In Salikoko, S., Mufwene, John R., Rickford, Guy Bailey, & John, Baugh (Eds.), African-American English. New York: Routledge. 11–36.Google Scholar
Milroy, James, Milroy, Lesley, Hartley, S., & Walshaw, David. (1994). Glottal stops and Tyneside glottalisation: Competing patterns of variation and change in British English. Language Variation and Change 6:327–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North Carolina State Planning Division. (1971). The beginning of a regional planning process. Raleigh, NC.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary [OED]. (1933). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet, & Talkin, David. (1992). Lenition of /h/ and glottal stop. In Doherty, G. & Ladd, D. R. (Eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology 2. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. 90–127.Google Scholar
Polk, Mary. (1962). The way we were. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1997). The morpholexical nature of English to-contraction. Language 73:79–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K., & Ladusaw, William A. (1986). Phonetic symbol guide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie. (1995). Evidence and argument in the development of prenasal [z] to [d]. American Speech. 70:291–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie, & Wolfram, Walt. (1994). Convergent explanation and alternative regularization patterns: Were/weren't leveling in a vernacular English variety. Language Variation and Change 6:273–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali, & Smith, Jennifer, (forthcoming). Analogical leveling in Samaná English: The case of was and were. Manuscript, University of York.Google Scholar
Visser, F. T. (1984). An historical syntax of the English language. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Weldon, Tracey. (1994). Negation in African American Vernacular English. Language Variation and Change 6:356–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weldon, Tracey. (1996). Another look at negative inversion in African American Vernacular English: An HPSG account. Paper presented to the Triangle Linguistics Club, Durham, NC.Google Scholar
Wellman, Manley Wade. (1959). The county of Warren. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. (1969). A sociolinguistic description of Detroit Negro speech. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. (1993). Identifying and interpreting variables. In Preston, Dennis R. (Ed.), American dialect research. Philadelphia: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, & Christian, Donna. (1976). Appalachian speech. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, Hazen, Kirk, & Schilling-Estes, Natalie. (1999). Dialect maintenance and change on the Outer Banks. (Publications of the American Dialect Society 81.) Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, Hazen, Kirk, & Tamburro, Jennifer. (1997). Isolation within isolation: A solitary century of African-American Vernacular English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 1:7–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, & Sellers, Jason. (1997). Alternative regularization patterning and ethnic marking in a tri-ethnic rural southern community. Paper presented at Southeastern Conference on Linguistics 56, Charlotte, NC.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M., & Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1983). Cliticization vs. inflection: English n't. Language 59:502–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar