ain't support (P.S.)

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Innibidih woan?chu" ("Should anyone wish to assail you") will keep 25th Century scholars guessing.

  Unless they're all saying it.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: ain't support (P.S.)
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Doan?chu werr' 'bout a thang, Larr. Innibidih woan?chu, dey got tuh go
through me fois'!

-Wilson

On 5/11/06, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: ain't support (P.S.)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
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>
> At 9:11 PM -0400 5/11/06, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >>
> >>I ain't even do shit
> >>You ain't even do that shit
> >>It ain't even do shit
> >>Damn, I ain't even do nothing
> >>We make good music together and we ain't even do a song yet
> >>
> >Not a new trend, but a well-established trait of AAVE/Black English.
> >I think it goes by "past tense 'ain't"" or some equally memorable
> >label. It'll be covered in Rickford's or other treatments of the
> >variety, and it constitutes a fairly reliable diagnostic for AAVE
> >vs. other non-standard dialects (in which "ain't" =3D 'hasn't' or
> >'haven't' rather than 'didn't'). Wilson, any thoughts?
> >
> I should have mentioned that I wasn't intending to claim that AAVE
> speakers use "ain't" *just* as the preterite, but rather that some
> AAVE speakers employ it as a negative preterite as well as as a
> negative perfect. Thus it only serves as a diagnostic in one
> direction; the use of "ain't" with the value of 'hasn't/haven't'
> isn't indicative of any specific dialect.
>
> LH
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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