Different dialects, same error

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:06 PM -0400 9/4/04, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Sep 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: Different dialects, same error
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>--------
>>
>>>Existenetial 'it' is actually pretty widespread in white southern
>>>speech, although more often noted by linguists for AAVE. Yes, I come
>>>by it native(ly), as I clearly do not come by -ly.
>>
>>There are, however, restrictions in the dialects which I have never
>>quite got the handle on. Some AAVE existential it's are out of bounds
>>for me, but I haven't analyzed them.
>>
>>For example, "It ain't nobody named Windy" sounds really good to me
>>but "It's a man in the other room" (on the existential reading, of
>>course) don't.
>
>dInIs, here's a verse from a '60's blues song

published in 1965 by Elmore James, Marshall Sehorn, and Sonny Boy
Williamson, if the web-based info can be trusted

>for your reading
>enjoyment.
>
>Raise your window, baby.
>I ain't going out that door.
>_It's a man downstairs_.
>He could be your man.
>I don't know.
>
I'm pretty sure (I could listen and check if I can locate the CD)
that the Allman Brothers (southern, white) "translate" this in their
cover of "One Way Out" on the classic "Eat a Peach" album as "There's
a man down there."

Larry