Those pesky negatives (revisited)

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 11, 2004, at 5:24 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Those pesky negatives (revisited)
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> I'm puzzled with Wilson's comments on 'done' and 'through.'
>
> I would be hard pressed to distinguish the grammaticality (not
> prescriptive status) of "Are you done?" versus "Are you through?" The
> claim that the latter is AAE (or AAVE) don't warsh with me atall.
> Perfective 'done' (I done finished) is, of course, widely shared in
> nonstandard varieties, white and black, but Wilson's assignment of
> 'through' (in this sense) to AA(V)E is puzzler to me. Perhaps there
> is some frequency factor involved, but I recall no references to it
> in the literature.
>
> dInIs

We're not talking about the same phenomenon. I'm speaking of "done" and
"through" in their use as synonyms for "finished" only. I remember an
old cop show in which the LAPD are dealing with a white man from the
Southern hill country. The man says, "I kilt my partner." The cops ask
him what he's talking about. He answers, "What I said. I *done*
[emphasis in the original] kilt 'im." I find nothing interesting in
this, despite the fact that it's a scripted, therefore completely
artificial, exchange. However, if I understand dInIs a-right, he thinks
that I'm claiming that a Southern black man would have said, not "I
done kilt 'im," but "I through kilt 'im." Rather, what I'm claiming is
merely that a white person would say something like, "I'm done killing
him," whereas a black person would say something like, "I'm through
killing him" and that either would say something like "I done finished
killing him" or "I've finished killing him." I'm also stating as fact
that this particular usage of "through" was totally pervasive in the
social environment in which I grew up, whereas this same usage of
"done" simply did not occur. When I found myself in environments in
which the use of "done" was pervasive instead of that of "through," it
struck me as "ungrammatical." I therefore constructed at least two
incorrect theories to account for this phenomenon before I realized the
truth of the matter: my way of using "through" is non-standard, despite
the fact that the usage seems to be quite transparent. I've never found
a single instance in which anyone has failed to grasp my meaning when
I've said "I'm through" instead of "I'm done."

Though I realize that few here are likely to care, I find the phrase,
"African-American Vernacular English" to be an incredible pomposity
devoid of useful content. Back in the day when "Negro dialect" was the
standard term, a friend jokingly suggested that we rename our dialect
"Niggese" and be through with it. Works for me. Why not? Because Jesse
Jackson won't like it?

-Wilson Gray

>
>
>
>>
>> In general, I have no problem whatsoever with the splitting of
>> infinitives. I'm fairly certain that I was in high school before I
>> even
>> heard about the no-splitting-of-infinitives "rule." Also, in general,
>> I
>> try to avoid the splitting of infinitives in writing, but *not*
>> because
>> I believe in the existence of some supposed "rule" against it. It's
>> merely a stylistic whim. However, this simply is not the case wrt  "to
>> _not_ VP." For me, it is a genuine rule of  grammar that "to not VP"
>> is
>> wrong. I didn't learn it through being taught it or by reading it in
>> some prescriptive "grammar." I learned it from the fact that it was
>> not
>> used by the people from whom I learned to speak.
>>
>> I have to admit that this is not the first time that I've found myself
>> on the wrong side of the grammatical fence. I once believed that only
>> the illiterate or the semi-literate used "done" instead of "through"
>> in
>> cases such as, "I'll be done with this posting in a few minutes" "you
>> can't go out till you're done with your chores" "are you done with
>> that?"  "may I use that when you're done?" Then I realized that I was
>> wrong. The truth was that only illiterate or semi-literate *white*
>> people used such forms. Finally, I realized that I was still wrong,
>> For
>> speakers of standard English, such use of "done" is perfectly
>> grammatical, used by speakers of all levels of education or social
>> standing or sophistication. Rather, it's the use of "through" in cases
>> such as those above that is a grammatical peculiarity, a feature of
>> everyone's favorite non-standard dialect, Black English.
>>
>> Perhaps I should make it a point to remember a statement made by a
>> former classmate after she had challenged Morris Halle during a
>> lecture
>> on a point of phonological theory: "I don't know why I said that! I
>> know that I speak with an accent!"
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
>         Asian and African Languages
> Wells Hall A-740
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office: (517) 353-0740
> Fax: (517) 432-2736
>