Is there such a phenomenon as "undercorrection/hypocorrection?

[Wilson Gray]

>>   I think our guy meant to shift "aks" to "ast" or even "asted,"
>>   but it was already too late and he wound up "down-shifting," so to
>>   speak, from the "proper" "whose" to "who" _by accident_.

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Is there such a phenomenon as
>               "undercorrection/hypocorrection?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>right, "who is car was it" is ungrammatical but what I'm saying is that =
>he started to say "who's", maybe he had in mind something like "He asked =
>me who's in the car" or something - anyway, he changed the structure of =
>the sentence halfway through. As I type this I realize it sounds far =
>fetched, but I wanted to suggest that someone concerned about impressing =
>a judge is more likely to make their speech more formal (i.e. by undoing =
>a contraction, and notice that 'who's' for 'who + was' is even more =
>informal/vernacular than 'who + is') than to make it more informal. This =
>would seem all the more likely if, as suggested, the speaker is a =
>vernacular-speaking young African American talking to an older African =
>American in a position of authority. In this context I can't understand =
>the social motivation to make his speech more vernacular which is what =
>'whose > who' seems to result from.

I agree with this, but we're clearly keyboarding past each other. It
may help to provide more background. The defendant was trying to
explain what happened after he and his girlfriend were stopped by the
police for driving a car with illegal plates. He had stolen a pair of
dealer plates from his job and covered the DEALER designation with
masking tape, so that the cops wouldn't notice. They didn't notice
the DEALER, but they did notice the masking tape. Since the car was
owned by his now ex-girlfriend and was being driven by her, she was
ticketed, her car was impounded, etc. So, she was suing him for the
money she lost in fines, impound fees, etc.

-Wilson

>
>Anyway, maybe Wilson has intuitions on this: is possessive 'who' a =
>possible AAVE form (e.g. He the man who car I borrowed)? I realize =
>that's why this example was posted as an example of hypocorrection, but =
>does the form exist? You don't get in AAVE, as far as I know, possessive =
>'he' instead of 'his'. You have 'they' alternating with 'their' (e.g. =
>That's they problem), but that's probably a result of r-lessness =
>originally.

On the "Maury" show, you'll hear formations like "Who yo baby daddy,
bitch?!" a zillion times.

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray
>Sent: Wed 3/16/2005 8:26 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject:      Re: Is there such a phenomenon as =
>"undercorrection/hypocorrection?
>=20
>Not quite. "Who is car was it" is ungrammatical. He said, "He [a
>policeman] ax me whose, uh, who car was it." What the speaker did was
>to "correct" the standard possessive in /-s/ to the BE possessive
>without /-s/.
>
>-Wilson
>
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: Is there such a phenomenon as
>>                "undercorrection/hypocorrection?
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>-------
>>
>>So by Wilson's analysis what the man said was
>>"He aks me 'who's, uh, who car was it?"
>>Right? In other words he was uncontracting a contraction in this formal
>>context.
>>
>>
>>On 3/16/05 4:58 PM, "Wilson Gray" <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
>>
>>>   Yes, they both were. It was the "Judge Joe Brown" show, which is a
>>>   clone of "Judge Judy," if you're not familiar with it. Anyway, Judge
>  >>  Joe has absolutely no sympathy for the common street thug and has
>>>   made that very clear. My impression was that the speaker, a common
>>>   street thug, suddenly became aware of the difference between his
>>>   low-class BE and the judge's middle-class BE. And, knowing that =
>Judge
>>>   Joe Brown is not the kind of brother that you can conversate with, =
>he
>>>   decided that it would behoove him to talk as "proper" as he could.
>>>   But you really have to have had practice in order to switch to
>>>   another dialect in mid-utterance, unless you're doing it all the
>  >>  time. I think our guy meant to shift "aks" to "ast" or even "asted,"
>>>   but it was already too late and he wound up "down-shifting," so to
>  >>  speak, from the "proper" "whose" to "who" by accident.
>>>
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>>>>   Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>   Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
>>>>   Subject:      Re: Is there such a phenomenon as
>>>>                 "undercorrection/hypocorrection?
>>>>
>>>>----------------------------------------------------------------------=
>-------
>>>>   --
>>>>
>>>>   Were both the interviewer and the guest black?  Might this have =
>been
>>>>   accommodation to an "in-group" interlocutor?
>>>>
>>>>   At 04:14 PM 3/16/2005, you wrote:
>>>>>   Spoken by a black TV-show guest:
>>>>>
>>>>>   He aks me _whose, uh, who_ car was this.
>>>>>
>>>>>   -Wilson