Obama and the indefinite article

[Geoff Nathan]

Since Obama did not grow up in an African-American community it's very unlikely he has any native AAVE features.  He did spend quite a bit of time at Punahou, where I suspect he acquired Hawaiian English--I went to University of Hawaii as a graduate student, and became a fairly good second-language speaker myself.
Unfortunately I'm a little rusty, but my intuitions on the subject tell me that it's not HE, because the indefinite article in HE is 'one', not 'a'.  But certainly 'a+glottal stop' is widespread on the mainland, as others have said.

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Automatic digest processor" <LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
To: "Recipients of ADS-L digests" <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2008 12:01:31 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: ADS-L Digest - 7 Nov 2008 to 8 Nov 2008 (#2008-313)

There are 3 messages totalling 119 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Obama and indefinite articles (2)
  2. Heard on The Judges: "show out" = approx., throw a tantrum,
     blow one's top, etc.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 8 Nov 2008 01:26:28 -0800
From:    Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Obama and indefinite articles

Yes, I'm certainly not trying to claim that Obama is the only one who
does that.

Unfortunately, your summary makes my post look pretty vacuous. Perhaps
it is, but what I was particularly referring to and is cut out in your
response is that I was talking about the "a" + vowel combination.

-----

On Nov 7, 2008, at 12:04 PM, Bradley A. Esparza wrote:

> Watching President-elect Obama speak I just heard him say
> "....*a*international....", not 'an'. <ay>
> Bradley A. Esparza

-----

BB

On Nov 7, 2008, at 4:38 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:

>
> On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Benjamin Barrett
> <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> My impression is that Obama gears his speech style to match his
>> purpose and audience.
>
> As many of us do all the time.

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 8 Nov 2008 11:58:38 -0500
From:    Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heard on The Judges: "show out" = approx., throw a tantrum,
         blow one's top, etc.

Wilson, when I was growing up in Texas, "show out" was the only form I ever heard from my parents (originally Arkansawyers).

Curiously, having spent many years in Georgia, I am not aware of what I might typically hear Georgians say!

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 10:23:16 -0500
>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
-------------------------------------------------------------
>
>This was used by Judge Penny, a fifty-ish black woman from Georgia. My parents and grandparents from Texas also used this expression. Are any other Southrons familiar with this expression? It's usually used WRT children, but it can also be applied more-or-less jokingly WRT adults, in my experience. It seems to be confined to the South. After we left Texas, I heard it only from my relatives. This was the first time that I'd heard anybody use it several dekkids.
>
>-Wilson

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 8 Nov 2008 20:45:58 +0000
From:    ronbutters at AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Obama and indefinite articles

Arnold is right that "a international" is a common dialect feature and certainly not a "disfluency." However, I disagree with Arnold when he says that the absence of /n/ (actually, the use of a glottal stop instead of /n/) before vowels is "not likely for someone with obama's linguistic history." This is common among speakers in the midwest, even educated speakers such as Obama and myself." I'd expect to hear it commonly in Hawaii as well as Kansas and Illinois. Dialectally, Obama seems to be an educated Midwesterner, with little or no AAVE.
------Original Message------
From: Arnold Zwicky
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Nov 7, 2008 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Obama and indefinite articles

On Nov 7, 2008, at 3:11 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Obama and indefinite articles
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 4:04 AM, Bradley A. Esparza <baesparza at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
>> Watching President-elect Obama speak I just heard him say
>> "....*a*international....", not 'an'. <ay>
>> Bradley A. Esparza
>
>
> That's a pretty common disfluency, akin to saying /Ti/ in front of a
> word
> that starts with a consonant.  Both of these are found in the speech
> of
> respectable Standard English speakers.  I wouldn't be worried unless
> he is
> consistent about it.

it's also a well-documented dialectal variant.  not likely for someone
with obama's linguistic history, though.

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

------------------------------

End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Nov 2008 to 8 Nov 2008 (#2008-313)
**********************************************************

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org