AAVE

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AAVE

• American Voices, Chapter 34
• by John Baugh
• Stanford University

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Major features of AAVE

• Reduction of final consonant clusters
• Suffix s absence
• Post-vocalic r absence
• Phonological inversion
• Absence of present-tense auxiliary and linking
  verbs
• Syntactic alternation
• Non-standard negation

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• Standard Engl AAVE
• 1. Reduction of final cold, left, col, lef
• consonant clusters mind, desk min, des
• 2. Suffix s absence cents, brothers cen,
  brother
• He likes it. He like it.
• 3. Post-vocalic r door, car do, ca
• absense
• 4. Phonological ask aks
• inversion

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• Standard Eng AAVE
• Absence of
• present-tense He is here. He here.
• linking verbs. We are leaving. We leaving.
• Syntactic alternation
• What time is it? What time it is?
• How can you do that? How you can do that?
• Non-standard negation
• I dont have any cards. I aint got no card.
• He didnt leave any keys. He aint leave no
  key.

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Question for discussion

• Myth 14 states Double Negatives are Illogical.
• Are they?
• What is the hidden logic of double negatives?
• Small groups 10 minutes