Is there such a phenomenon as "undercorrection/hypocorrection?

Dennis R. Preston preston at MSU.EDU
Wed Mar 16 21:36:52 UTC 2005


John Baugh has a nice piece on hypocorrection, a now standardized
term I think. Remember, however, it may mean structural or
statistical hypocorrection.

1) statistical - when you use more nonstandard than you or the
situation might seem to call for, or when one groups uses more
nonstandard than would be expected from its position in social
structure.

2) structural - when you try to use a "lower status" (presumably
covertly prestigious form) but get it wrong. Spose one of you
flatlanders wanted to sound like a hillbilly and got into
a-prefixing. You might utter "I  was a-rememberin what Ole Joe tole
me." But you would be wrong; a-pefixing doesn't occur before
unstressed syllables.

dInIs

>Spoken by a black TV-show guest:
>
>He aks me _whose, uh, who_ car was this.
>
>-Wilson



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