When two consonants appear at the end of a word (for instance the st in test), they are often reduced: the final t is deleted. This happens, to some extent, in every variety of English including standard ones. In AAVE the consonant cluster is reduced variably (i.e. it does not happen every time) and systematically.
Sociolinguists have shown that the frequency of reduction can be expressed by a rule which takes account of a number of interacting facts. Crucially, the frequency of reduction depends on the environment in which the sound occurs. The following two factors, among others, have been found to affect the frequency of reduction in consonant clusters
If the next word starts with a consonant, it is more likely to reduce than if the next word starts with a vowel. For example, reduction is more likely to occur in west side (becoming Wes side) than in west end.
A final t or d is more likely to be deleted if it is not part of the past tense -ed than if it is. (The past tense -ed suffix is pronounced as t or d or Id in English depending on the preceding sound.) For example, reduction is more likely to occur in John ran fast (becoming John ran fas) than in John passed the teacher in his car.
The th sounds: The written symbol th can represent two different sounds in English: both an "unvoiced" sound as in thought, thin and think, and a "voiced" sound as in the, they and that. In AAVE the pronunciation of this sound depends on where in a word it is found.
At the beginning of a word, the voiced sound (e.g. in that) is regularly pronounced as d so 'the', 'they' and 'that' are pronounced as de, dey and dat. AAVE shares this feature with many other nonstandard dialects, including those of the East Coast of United States and Canada.
Less common in AAVE is the pronunciation of the unvoiced sound as t. Thus 'thin' can become tin but rarely does. This however is a very common feature of Caribbean creoles in which 'think' is regularly pronounced as tink, etc. When the th sound is followed by r, it is possible in AAVE to pronounce the th as f as in froat for 'throat'.
Within a word, the unvoiced sound as in nothing, author or ether is often pronounced as f. Thus AAVE speakers will sometimes say nufn 'nothing' and ahfuh 'author'. The voiced sound, within a word, may be pronounced v. So 'brother' becomes bruvah, etc.
At the end of a word, th is often pronounced f in AAVE. For instance 'Ruth' is pronounced Ruf; 'south' is pronounced souf. When the preceding sound is a nasal (e.g. n or m) the th is often pronounced as t as in tent for 'tenth'; mont for 'month'. (10, 69)
The sounds l and r:
When they do not occur at the beginning of a word l and r often undergoes a process known as "vocalization" and are pronounced as uh. This is most apparent in a post-vocalic position (after a vowel). For instance 'steal', 'sister', 'nickel' become steauh, sistuh, nickuh. In some varieties of AAVE (e.g. in the Southern US), r is not pronounced after the vowels o and u. The words door and doe, four and foe, and sure and show can be pronounced alike.
Vowels. /Nasalized vowels:
When a nasal (n or m) follows a vowel, AAVE speakers sometimes delete the nasal consonant and nasalize the vowel. This nasalization is written with a tilde (~) above the vowel. So 'man' becomes mг.
Nasals consonants and front vowels:
In many varieties of English, including standard varieties, the vowels i in pin and e in pen sound different in all words. In AAVE, these sounds are merged before a nasal (like n or m). So in AAVE pin and pen are pronounced with the same vowel. Most Southern US varieties of English merge these vowels too, so this is only a distinctive feature of AAVE in the northern United States.
Diphthongs:
Some vowels like those in night and my or about and cow are called "diphthongs". This means that when the vowel is pronounced, the tongue starts at one place in the mouth and moves as the vowel is being pronounced. In AAVE the vowel in 'night' or in 'my' is often not a diphthong. So when pronouncing the words with this diphthong, AAVE speakers (and speakers of Southern varieties as well) do not move the tongue to the front top position. So 'my' is pronounced ma as in he's over at ma sister's house.
Stress:
AAVE s from some other varieties in the placement of stress in a word. So, where words like police, hotel and July are pronounced with stress on the last syllable in Standard English, in AAVE they may have stress placed on the first syllable so that you get po-lice, ho-tel and Ju-ly.
Sounds:
Creole has some characteristics which are associated with regional and working-class varieties of English and some others which are found only in Caribbean Creole. Some of the most important differences:
The vowel of CUP is like the vowel of British English COP /kVp/
The vowel of ALL is like the vowel of British English ARE /a:l/
The vowels of DAY and HOME are diphthongs /dI@/ and /huom/
The first consonant of THESE /Di:z/ is /d/: /di:z/
the first consonant of THUMP /TVmp/ is /t/: /tVmp/ (16,128)
2. Grammar peculiarities
Some of these characteristics, notably double negatives and the omission of certain auxiliaries such as the has in has been are also characteristic of general colloquial American English.
The linguist William Labov carried out and published the first thorough grammatical study of African American Vernacular English in 1965.(37)
The copula BE is often dropped, as in Russian, Hebrew, Arabic and other languages. For example: You crazy! ("You're crazy") or She my sister ("She's my sister"). The phenomenon is also observed in questions: Who you? ("Who're you?") and Where you at? ("Where are you (at)?"). On the other hand, a stressed is cannot be dropped: She is my sister. (37)
The general rules are:
- Only the forms is and are (which in any case is often replaced by is) can be omitted
- These forms cannot be omitted when they are pronounced with a stress (whether or not the stress serves specifically to impart an emphatic sense to the verb's meaning).
- These forms cannot be omitted when the corresponding form in Standard English cannot show contraction (and vice-versa). For example, I don't know where he is cannot be reduced to *I don't know where he because in Standard English the corresponding reduction *I don't know where he's is likewise impossible. (Though I don't know where he at is possible.)
Possibly some other minor conditions apply as well.
Present-tense verbs are uninflected for number/person: there is no -s ending in the present-tense third-person singular. Example: She writes poetry ("She writes poetry"). Similarly, was used for what in Standard English are contexts for both was and were.
The word it or is denotes the existence of something, equivalent to Standard English there in "there is", or "there are". This usage is also found in the English of the US South. Examples Is a doughnut in the cabinet ("There's a doughnut in the cabinet") and It ain't no spoon ("There isn't a spoon", also "They ain't no spoon").
Altered syntax in questions: In “ Why they ain't growin'?” ("Why aren't they growing?") and “Who the hell she think she is?” ("Who the hell does she think she is?") lack the inversion of standard English. Because of this, there is also no need for the auxiliary DO. (29, 48)
| GRAMMAR AND STRUCTURE RULE IN WEST AFRICAN LANGUAGE, | BLACK ENGLISH |
| construction of sentences without the form of the verb to be | He sick today. They talkin about school now. |
| Repetition of noun subject with pronoun | My father, he work there. |
| Question patterns without do | What it come to? |
| Same form of noun for singular and plural | one boy; five boy |
| No tense indicated in verb | I know it good when he ask me |
| Same verb form for all subjects | I know; you know; he know; we know; they know |
| Sound Rule in West African Languages | Black English |
| No consonant pairs | jus (for just); men (for mend) |
| Few long vowels or two-part vowel (diphthongs) | rat (for right); tahm (for time) |
| No /r/ sound | mow (for more) |
| No /th/ sound | substitution of /d/ or /f/ for /th/; souf (for south) and dis (for this) |
Copula Deletion with "To Be" and Other Characteristics
| Example | Name | SE Meaning / Notes |
| He workin'. | Simple progressive | He is working [currently]. |
| He be workin'. | Habitual/continuative aspect | He works frequently or habitually. Better illustrated with "He be workin' Tuesdays." |
| He stay workin'. | Intensified continuative | He is always working. |
| He been workin'. | Perfect progressive | He has been working. |
| He been had dat job. | Remote phase (see below) | He has had that job for a long time and still has it. |
| He done worked. | Emphasized perfective | He has worked. Syntactically, "He worked" is valid, but "done" is used to emphasize the completed nature of the action.[25] |
One of the most famous grammatical characteristics of Black English is the use of the verb to be. Omission of the verb to be, or copula deletion, is very typical of Black English. The "is" can be omitted completely ("He Michael, too"). On the
other hand, in sentences where the is or other forms of be are not contracted in general Standard English usage, it is not deleted in Black English
| He finna go to work. | Immediate future | He's about to go to work. Finna is a contraction of "fixing to"; though is also believed to show residual influence of late 16th century archaism "would fain (to)", that persisted until later in some rural dialects spoken in the Carolinas (near the Gullah region). "Fittin' to" is commonly thought to be another form of the original "fixin' (fixing) to", and it is also heard as fitna, fidna, fixna, and finsta.[26] |
| I was walkin' home, and I had worked all day. | Preterite narration. | "Had" is used to begin a preterite narration. Usually it occurs in the first clause of the narration, and nowhere else. |
The aspect marked by stressed 'been' has been given many names, including perfect phase, remote past, remote phase this article uses the third. Been here is stressed; in order to distinguish it from unstressed been (used as in Standard English), linguists often write it as BIN. Thus the distinction between She BIN running ("She has been running for a long time") and She been running ("She has been running")
With non-stative verbs, the role of been is simple: it places the action in the distant past, or represents total completion of the action. A Standard English equivalent is to add "a long time ago". For example, She been told me that translates as, "She told me that a long time ago".(35)
However, when been is used with stative verbs or gerund forms, been shows that the action began in the distant past and that it is continuing now. Linguist John R. Rockford suggests that a better translation when used with stative verbs is "for a long time". For instance, in response to "I like your new dress", one might hear Oh, I been had this dress, meaning that the speaker has had the dress for a long time and that it isn't new. To see the difference between the simple past and the gerund when used with been, consider the utterances:
I been bought her clothes means "I bought her clothes a long time ago".
I been buyin' her clothes means "I've been buying her clothes for a long time".
Negation
Negatives are formed differently from standard American English:
Use of ain't as a general negative indicator. It can be used where Standard English would use am not, isn't, aren't, haven't and hasn't, a trait which is not specific to AAVE. However, in marked contrast to other varieties of English in the U.S., some speakers of AAVE also use ain't in lieu of don't, doesn't, or didn't (e.g., I ain't know that). Ain't had its origins in common English, but became increasingly stigmatized since the 19th century. See also amn't.
Negative concord, popularly called "double negation", as in I didn't go nowhere; if the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated. This contrasts with Standard English, where a double negative is considered a positive (although this wasn't always so; see double negative). There is also "triple" or "multiple negation", as in the phrase I don't know nothing about no one no more, which would be "I don't know anything about anybody anymore" in Standard English. Black English also employs a pattern of multiple negation. Where negation is repeated throughout the clause or sentence. For Standard English "I didnґt see anything like that anywhere", Black English has " I ainґt see nothinґ like dat no place". The use of the negative contraction ainґt is distinctive of Black English, especially as a single past negative (I ainґt see for I didnґt see or he ainґt gonna do it). Multiple negation often implies emphasis.
In a negative construction, an indefinite pronoun such as nobody or nothing can be inverted with the negative verb particle for emphasis (eg. Don't nobody know the answer, Ain't nothin' goin' on.) (12, 54)
While these are features that AAVE has in common with Creole languages, Howe and Walker use data from early recordings of African Nova Scotian English, Samanб English, and Ex-Slave recordings to demonstrate that negation was inherited from nonstandard colonial English.
The use of "invariant be" is almost only found in Black English. This refers to repeated actions over a considerable extent of time, and the distinction between he walk, he walkinґ, he be walkinґ has no exact parallel in Standard English. These three verb forms have different negatives: He donґt walk, he ainґt walkinґ, he donґt be walkinґ. One might say 'He rich' instead of 'He is rich'; and 'Dey ugly' for 'They are ugly', and so on. (14,447) A brief version is:
In African-American Vernacular English you may omit forms of the copular verb 'be' provided all of the following conditions are met.
It must not be accented. You never leave 'is' out of something like 'There already is one!'
It mustn't end the sentence. You never say, 'I don't know what it is' without the 'is'.
It mustn't begin the sentence. You never leave out the 'is' in a question like 'Is dat right?'
It mustn't be an infinitive. You never leave out 'be' in something like 'You got to be strong' or an imperative like 'Be careful', or in one of those habitual aspect cases like 'He be laughin'.'
It mustn't be in the past tense. You never leave out 'was' or 'were'.
It mustn't be negated. You never leave out 'ain't' from something like 'He ain't no fool.'
It mustn't be first person singular. You never leave out the 'am' of sentences like 'I'm yo' main man.'
The frequency of inclusion has been shown to depend on a variety of factors. Here are some examples:
In future sentences with gonna or gon (see below):
I don't care what he say, you __ gon laugh.
...as long as i's kids around he's gon play rough or however they're playing.
Before verbs with the -ing or -in ending(progressive):
I tell him to be quiet because he don't know what he __ talking about.
I mean, he may say something's out of place but he __ cleaning up behind it and you can't get mad at him.
Before adjectives and expressions of location: