dialect in novels

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Thursday, February 22, 2001 11:52 am +0000 "James A. Landau"
<JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:

>
> Why is there an "s" on "Ebonics"?  AAVE is a single dialect (as far as I
> know) of English, a rather major dialect in fact, and its regional or
> other variations are minor compared to the similarites among AAVE in say
> California and New York.  Hence it should be referred to as "Ebonic"
> rather than "Ebonics".

Well, as far as I'm concerned, it should be 'AAVE' and not 'Ebonics' at
all--but the 's' is not a pluralizing one.  It's on analogy with the 's' in
'Phonics'.  Note that 'linguistics' and 'physics' have 's's on them as well
but are not plural.  (We don't say "linguistics are fascinating subjects")

Lynnes


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320