Introduction to: “African American Vernacular English (AAVE)“

1. Introduction to:“African American Vernacular English (AAVE)“ John Assenmacher Matthias Schütz

2. History and social context • Roots in trans-Atlantic African slave trade • Captives developed pidgins to communicate

3. History and social context • Roots in trans-Atlantic African slave trade • Captives developed pidgins to communicate • Over years those pidgins became creoles

4. Traits of AAVE seperating it from Standard American English • grammatical structures similar to West African languages • changes in pronunciation • distinctive vocabulary • differences in the use of tenses

5. Phonological and Grammatical Features in AAVE

6. Phonological Features

7. Phonological Features • reduction of certain diphthongs become monophthongs • [aɪ] to [a] and [ɔɪ] to [oː] • example: "boy" pronounced as [boː]

8. Dental Fricatives  • voiceless dental fricative [θ] (thing) -> [t] (ting) • voiced dental fricative [ð] (then) -> [d] (den) • alveolar stops or labiodental fricatives: [f] and [v] • Examples:  smooth[smuːð] -> smoov[smuːv] tooth[tuːθ] is pronounced toof[tuːf]

9. West African-based English creoles and pidgins: • always [d] for "th" regardless of placement • "brudda" for "brother."AAVE is non-rhotic

10. AAVE is non-rhotic • alveolar approximant [ɹ] usually dropped • except: followed by a vowel, e.g. "strong“ • intervocalic [ɹ] may also be dropped e.g. "story" ->"sto'y" [stÉ”i] • But: rhotic AAVE speakers do exist

11. Final ng [Å‹] • velar nasal [Å‹] ->alveolar nasal [n] • two syllables, e.g. "tripping" -> "trippin“ • not in one-syllable content morphemes: sing is sing [sɪŋ] not: sin [sɪn] • But: singing is singin [sɪŋɪn] • Realization of /Å‹/ as [n] feature of many English dialects

12. Final consonant clusters • reduction of final consonant clusters • test becomes tes, hand becomes han • but pant is unchanged - contains a voiced and a voiceless consonant in the cluster

13. Metathesis • adjacent consonants are switched • particularly when the first is [s] • "ask" is realized as "aks"

14. Some other features • before nasal consonants /É›/ and /ɪ/ both /ɪ/ -> pen and pin (sound the same) • before 'l' /ɪ/ and /iː/ both as /ɪ/ -> feel and fill (sound the same) • dropping of /t/ at the end of contractions: don't and ain't -> /doÊŠn/ and /eɪn/

15. Grammatical Features

16. Aspect marking • most distinguishing feature of AAVE is the use of forms of be • used to mark aspect in verb phrases • use or lack of a form of be can indicate whether habitual or not • in SAE: can only be expressed using adverbs, e.g. usually • disputed whether this feature in AAVE has its roots in various West African languages

17. Examples for Aspect marking • He workin'. - simple progressive - He is working [right now]. • He be workin'. - habitual/continuative aspect - He works frequently or habitually. • He be steady workin'. - intensified continuative - He is working staedily. • He been workin'. - perfect progressive - He has been working.

18. Negation • negatives are formed differently from SAE • use of ain't as a general negative indicator • used in place of "am not", "isn't", and "aren't" or even "didn't“ • negation agreement: if sentence is negative - all negatable forms are negated as • e.g. I didn't go nowhere. • SE: double negative -> positive (although this wasn't always so)

19. Literature used: • Mufwene, Salikoko S, 1998. African American English, Structure, history and use. London & New York: Routledge. • Green, Lisa J, 2002. African American English, A linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Mufwene, Salikoko S. Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties. Athens: University of Georgia Press. • Schneider, Edgar W, 1989. American earlier Black English. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.