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Relativization strategies in Earlier African American Vernacular English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

Gunnel Tottie  and
Michel Rey
Gunnel Tottie
Affiliation:
University of Zurich
Michel Rey
Affiliation:
University of Zurich
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Abstract

This article, which examines the system of relative markers in Early African American English as documented in the Ex-Slave Recordings (Bailey et al., 1991), is intended as a contribution to two areas of research: African American Vernacular English and the system of relativization in English. We found a significantly higher incidence of zero marking in adverbial relatives than in non-adverbial relatives. Among non-adverbial relatives, a variable rule analysis showed that non-humanness of the head as well as the function of the head as subject complement or subject in an existential sentence strongly favored zero relatives, and that prepositional complement heads disfavored zeroes. The lack of wh-relatives aswell as the frequency of zero subject relatives is interpreted as evidence that African American Vernacular English is a dialect of English.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1997 , pp. 219 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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