dialect in novels

[lesa.dill]

We're getting two different things tangled up here I think.  One is the
artifice--novels that use or pretend to use dialect.  I suppose there are or
could be rules for the writers of such things, although the rules must by
default be as much of a failure as the novels written in them.  The "rules" of
the real-world dialect, however, are a prescriptivist sticky wicket I want no
part of.  You write them and, Bob, you are right, you spend the remainder of
your linguistic life defining the multitudinous exceptions, which only grow
greater with the years.  (It does sound like what lawyers do!)
>===== Original Message From American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
=====
>I think an exception can only arise if there is something from which it
>is excepted. Exceptions to a rule have no "status" without a rule in
>place from which they deviate. My thought was simply that possibly
>enough exceptions (to a rule) of a similar nature can be identified so
>as to constitute a new rule in and of themselves. For example, there are
>a number of exceptions to the hearsay rule in law. One of the categories
>of exceptions is business records. This is a somewhat fluid group and,
>in effect, is open-ended. Thus, the business records exception has
>become a sub-rule and might even be considered as a rule of evidence all
>by itself.
>
>Bob
>
>Salikoko Mufwene wrote:
>>
>> At 11:08 AM 3/2/2001 -0500, Bob Fitzke wrote:
>> >By all means. The exceptions all arise out of a common ancestor,
>> i.e.,
>> >"the rule".
>> >
>> How come? Exceptions are exceptions because a rule did/does not cover
>> them in the first place. Are you suggesting that exceptions are
>> (necessarily) divergences from an earlier evolutionary stage when they
>> were covered by the same more general rule? Do speakers really acquire
>> a language by rules or are rules essentially a by-product of how
>> analysts want to account for linguistic behavior (i.e., the behavior
>> of speakers)?
>>
>> Sali.
>>
>> >Salikoko Mufwene wrote:
>> >>
>> >> At 09:14 AM 3/2/2001 -0500, Bib Fitzke wrote:
>> >> >Or, perhaps, when enough of the exceptions coalesce to form a new
>> >> rule
>> >> >of their own; sort of a "rule within a rule". A type of
>> speciation?
>> >> >
>> >> "Speciation" presupposes some sort of common evolutionary history,
>> a
>> >> sort of divergence after evolving together. Would that be the case
>> >> here?
>> >>
>> >> Sali.
>> >>
>> >> **********************************************************
>> >> Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>> >> University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX
>> >> 773-834-0924
>> >> Department of Linguistics
>> >> 1010 East 59th Street
>> >> Chicago, IL 60637
>> >>
>> http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
>> >> **********************************************************
>> >
>> **********************************************************
>> Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>> University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX
>> 773-834-0924
>> Department of Linguistics
>> 1010 East 59th Street
>> Chicago, IL 60637
>> http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
>> **********************************************************