Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby mama"; "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.

Tue Nov 25 21:22:23 UTC 2008

"Conversating" isn't usually just "talking," except when used in
joking speech by more-educated but less-hip members of the outgroup.

-Wilson

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Jocelyn Limpert
<jocelyn.limpert at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby mama";
>              "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> P.S. Another favorite word in that community is "conversate" in place of
> "talk"!
>
> On 11/25/08, Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby mama";
>>              "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> in DC courts, you hear a lot of references to "baby fas" as well (baby
>> fathers as referred to in the black community, or at least that community
>> that involuntarily frequents the courtrooms)
>>
>> On 11/25/08, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>> > Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby
>> mama";
>> >              "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:22 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> >
>> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > > -----------------------
>> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> > > Subject:      Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby
>> > > mama"; "Mary,
>> > >              the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
>> > >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > >
>> > > Used by two, early-twenties. white people who otherwise spoke an r-ful
>> > > Southern dialect of the "hillbilly" school (the theme of the show is
>> > > "Hot-Headed Hillbillies").
>> > >
>> > > This is probably not news among the pros in the field, but, for me,
>> > > this is the first time that I've heard these formations used in
>> > > natural speech, not once but several times, with no shifting to "my
>> > > cousin's nephew," etc., by whites who were clearly not whiggers.
>> > > Though Jerry hassled all of them about, e.g. "my cousin nephew"
>> > > ("'Cousin nephew'? What does that mean? Which is it supposed to be:
>> > > your cousin's nephew or your nephew's cousin?") they seemed to be
>> > > completely unaware of what he was driving at.
>> >
>> > if i understand these examples correctly, there are two very different
>> > phenomena here.
>> >
>> > one is the "zero possessive", as in "my cousin nephew" (standard "my
>> > cousin's nephew"), which we've discussed a number of times here
>> > (though somewhat inconclusively: it's a well-known feature of AAVE,
>> > but is variable for many speakers, and i don't know its geographical
>> > and social distribution, nor do i know any of the details of the
>> > internal factors favoring or impeding it).
>> >
>> > the first two examples have zero possessives, but of a somewhat
>> > complex sort: the possessor phrase itself contains a possessive (a
>> > possessive pronoun, in particular), as in [my cousin] [nephew].  this
>> > *might* be a favored environment for a zero possessive; speakers might
>> > think that possession is sufficiently marked by the possessive pronoun.
>> >
>> > (as i remarked in earlier discussions, the zero possessive is attested
>> > in british dialects.  the Survey of English Dialects says, "Mainly in
>> > the northern dialects, the possessive singular often takes a zero
>> > ending when one noun qualifies another ..." (p. 483-4).  SED gives
>> > examples, many with possessive pronouns in the possessor phrase, but
>> > some without: "farmer lad" 'farmer's lad'. in the U.S., i'm somewhat
>> > surprised (like Wilson, and, for that matter, Jerry Springer) to hear
>> > zero possessives from white speakers, even rural Southern ones.  but i
>> > don't know what the facts are.)
>> >
>> > now "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids" has a possessive pronoun in
>> > it, but otherwise is nothing like the zero possessives.  the point of
>> > interest is the relative clause "that I watch her kids" (modifying
>> > "the girl").  this is a well-known sort of "gapless relative", of a
>> > type that has a resumptive pronoun ("her") instead of a gap.  a gap
>> > would be just ungrammatical in the configuration here; the pronoun
>> > "rescues" an island violation.  some discussion at:
>> >
>> > ML, 10/14/07: Ask Language Log: Gapless relatives:
>> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005019.html
>> > gapped/gapless relatives
>> >
>> > AZ, 10/14/07: More gapless relatives:
>> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005022.html
>> > gapped/gapless relatives
>> >
>> > as far as i know, resumptive pronouns rescuing island violations are
>> > not particularly restricted socially or geographically, though they
>> > are most common in speech (where they allow speakers to get out of
>> > tight situations in mid-speech).  they also occur in comic writing,
>> > for humorous effect.
>> >
>> > (the standard version of "the girl that I watch her kids" would be
>> > "the girl whose kids I watch" -- with the front-heavy relative clause
>> > "whose kids I watch".  the thing is, this requires a lot of advance
>> > planning; avoiding this planning sets people up to need a resumptive
>> > pronoun.)
>> >
>> > arnold
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
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