Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive

[Wilson Gray]

Larry, you know that "th(em)" is pronounced "th([i}m}"! What are you
doing, allowing yourself to be seduced by spelling? And since -nim
always has secondary stress - amongst the colored at least - you're
not going to hear anyone saying "mama-n[@]m." Rather, you may hear
"mama-n[I@]," with shwa (I use the spelling, "shwa," because I want
to, and not in error) being a mere off-glide as the speaker "holds his
mouth" [cf. the expression, "hold one's mouth right" display the
proper, respectful demeanor] to pronounce the /m/.

Sledd, James. 1966. "Breaking, Umlaut, and the Southern Drawl."
Language 42: 18 –41.

-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 Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2:33 PM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>Larry, if you catch an AA speaker saying [nEm] instead of [nIm], kill
>>him, for he is a traitor to his dialect, a disgrace to his race. :-)
>>
>>-Wilson
>
> But I think either AA or EA speakers might use a schwa, [I], or
> barred-I in the final syllable and it could still be transcribed as
> mom(m)anem or mam(m)anem rather than as -nim, given the psychological
> link to "(th)em".  I suspect EA Pittsburghers would not, however,
> refer to "yo mamanem house", with any spelling.
>
> LH
>
>>---
>>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 Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Laurence Horn
>><laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>>  Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  At 9:30 AM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>Judge Penny (late-forty-ish black woman from Atlanta):
>>>>
>>>>"How you gon' have five girlfriends and be so broke that you still
>>>>livin' in _yo' mama-nim house_?!"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I've never heard it expressed this way, before. I would have expected:
>>>>
>>>>"... still livin' in the house _wit' cho' mama-nim_?!"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>  also rendered (for varieties of EA (and AA?) speakers in Pittsburgh
>>>  and environs as well as southerners of all ethnicities) as "mamanem"
>>>  and "mommanem", which are slightly more transparent (< 'n' (th)'em)
>>>
>>>  LH
>>>
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>>
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