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[Michael Newman]

>
>While you're listening, think of another possibility: maybe the final
>element could be approximated as "y'o" -- with some approximation of a
>glottal stop in the middle, or at least two separate vowels rather than a
>diphthong. I think that's what I've heard more than once. The tone pattern
>of "such a fool y'o" (with "such a" reduced to CVC followed by an echo
>vowel of comparatively short length) comes out 2-3-2_falling. That marks
>"fool" as a  specially stressed element, which makes sense in this
>context.

I'll listen to it, and I can even use a CSL to rule it in or out, but
I doubt that there is a glottal stop. The speakers *believe* it is
the same yo.
I can't show the intonation patterns here because I'd have to get my
tapes and relisten, but for what it's worth, here are some real
examples of various uses of 'yo' as spoken by three Queens, NY teens.
What's striking is the versatility. The one's in clause final
position are indeed downstressed, I'm pretty sure. Names are
pseudonyms, and transcriptions are by the person referred to as
"Kareem" in the text. I offer no interpretations because I haven't
been focusing on the issue yet. I welcome anyone else's.

Examples from Darryl (mixed Jamaican-Am/Af. Am) high school junior
good student/ rap artist

-think in, in um, yo any type of music you listen to, anything you
listen to you have that certain degree of slang,

-People rhyme,  like yo, you met Malik?

-it's like when you in a situation, you can see it for all the (?)
but if you look from the outside you could see the situation, whereas
I speak it so I can't really say yo.

-Havin a conversation with Karim is like something totally piss. Yo
he'll make you think so much, it's like ridiculous the things he
comes up wit. It's like real creative, but kinda bugged out, yo.

- I mean, he says, why do 7-11's have locks, if they're open 24 hours
a day, seven days a week.  Like he says things like that, like yo,
it's true, but yo, who thinks about stuff like that.

Examples from Rashid (Af. Am  gang member)-sorry about the violent
descriptions.
-I mean if me and you was runnin from the police and there was a song
in the background and I heard the song all night long, two years
later when we hear dat song we gonna go yo, remember that night.

-Yeah breakin, I am sayin, breakin is cool yo.  If you know how to do
it it's cool me personally, know what I mean? that's not my, that's
not my, I don't flip for break dancing,

-so me n him was on my footfall in front of the Chinese restaurant,
and he was tellin, he was like yo, I just picked a package up, know
what I mean?

-I waited like twenty minutes then I went back outside, went back
outside I see this thing, I'm like "yo, son, remember that gun shot?"
he was like "yeah." "Yo, what happen?"  He was like "Yo man, po lice
got bagged."  I wuz like "word" I was like "what happened? "

Examples from Jorge (mixed Dominican/Ecuadorian hs. junior honor roll
student/rap artist)

-then Kareem was like yo ya'll should make a track...and I was like
aight ...we gone make a track dissin' this nigga.

-I told him yo were battlin' He's like aight come on ..I told him
about why I wanna battle him. He's like "yo I ain't tryin to steal
your image or your flow." I'm like what ever.....

-Andre just got mad sothen for like the whole year, even up yo like
the beginin of this year, I aint speak to him.

-He speaks Spanish. Hilarrius, he came up to me just a week ago. He
was like, "yo, you wanna do a song in Spanish?" I was like, "I got no
problem." I could work with him.



--
Michael Newman
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics
Dept. of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
Queens College/CUNY
Flushing, NY 11367