This paper examines the past temporal reference system in two data sets representing "early" Black English: Sarnana and the Ex-slave Recordings, with a view to discovering the structure underlying variable use of overt verbal morphology. Extrapolating from proposals in the literature on the behavior of past temporal reference structures in known creoles, as well as in black and white vernaculars, we propose and test an analytical model based on quantitative methodology and making use of the stepwise selection procedure incorporated in a variable rule analysis. Competing hypotheses were operationalized as factors in the analysis and systematically tested on the same data set.
Perhaps the most striking result of our study is that no matter which way the data are configured, the same three factor effects obtain. These reflect general constraints on language use and language processing rather than specific creole phenomena, such as the patterning expected of a relative tense system sensitive to stativity and anteriority. These findings lead us to suggest not only that an English-like system of absolute tense marking, expressed by both marked and unmarked verbs, prevails in these materials, but also that the temporal organization of these materials is not consistent with what has been posited for creole languages.
2025. Past Marking in Australian Aboriginal English on Croker Island: Local Versus Cross-Variety Patterns and Principles. Journal of English Linguistics
2014. What's Past Is Past: Variation in the Expression of Past Time Reference in Negerhollands Narratives. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 26:3 ► pp. 272 ff.
Hackert, Stephanie
2008. Counting and coding the past: Circumscribing the variable context in quantitative analyses of past inflection. Language Variation and Change 20:1 ► pp. 127 ff.
2004. From Somerset to Samaná: Preverbal did in the voyage of English. Language Variation and Change 16:02
Weldon, Tracey L.
2003. Copula variability in Gullah. Language Variation and Change 15:01
Weldon, Tracey L.
2007. GULLAH NEGATION: A VARIABLE ANALYSIS. American Speech 82:4 ► pp. 341 ff.
John Algeo
2001. The Cambridge History of the English Language,
Tagliamonte, Sali & Jennifer Smith
1999. Analogical Leveling in Samaná English. Journal of English Linguistics 27:1 ► pp. 8 ff.
Börjars, Kersti, Nigel Vincent & Carol Chapman
1997. Paradigms, periphrases and pronominal inflection: a feature-based account. In Yearbook of Morphology 1996 [Yearbook of Morphology, ], ► pp. 155 ff.
Howe, Darin M.
1997. Negation and the history of African American English. Language Variation and Change 9:2 ► pp. 267 ff.
2017. Bibliography. In The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 453 ff.
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