Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby mama"; "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.

[Jocelyn Limpert]

P.S. Another favorite word in that community is "conversate" in place of
"talk"!

On 11/25/08, Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby mama";
>              "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> in DC courts, you hear a lot of references to "baby fas" as well (baby
> fathers as referred to in the black community, or at least that community
> that involuntarily frequents the courtrooms)
>
> On 11/25/08, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby
> mama";
> >              "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:22 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      Heard on Springer: "my cousin nephew"; "your baby
> > > mama"; "Mary,
> > >              the girl that I watch her kids", etc.
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > Used by two, early-twenties. white people who otherwise spoke an r-ful
> > > Southern dialect of the "hillbilly" school (the theme of the show is
> > > "Hot-Headed Hillbillies").
> > >
> > > This is probably not news among the pros in the field, but, for me,
> > > this is the first time that I've heard these formations used in
> > > natural speech, not once but several times, with no shifting to "my
> > > cousin's nephew," etc., by whites who were clearly not whiggers.
> > > Though Jerry hassled all of them about, e.g. "my cousin nephew"
> > > ("'Cousin nephew'? What does that mean? Which is it supposed to be:
> > > your cousin's nephew or your nephew's cousin?") they seemed to be
> > > completely unaware of what he was driving at.
> >
> > if i understand these examples correctly, there are two very different
> > phenomena here.
> >
> > one is the "zero possessive", as in "my cousin nephew" (standard "my
> > cousin's nephew"), which we've discussed a number of times here
> > (though somewhat inconclusively: it's a well-known feature of AAVE,
> > but is variable for many speakers, and i don't know its geographical
> > and social distribution, nor do i know any of the details of the
> > internal factors favoring or impeding it).
> >
> > the first two examples have zero possessives, but of a somewhat
> > complex sort: the possessor phrase itself contains a possessive (a
> > possessive pronoun, in particular), as in [my cousin] [nephew].  this
> > *might* be a favored environment for a zero possessive; speakers might
> > think that possession is sufficiently marked by the possessive pronoun.
> >
> > (as i remarked in earlier discussions, the zero possessive is attested
> > in british dialects.  the Survey of English Dialects says, "Mainly in
> > the northern dialects, the possessive singular often takes a zero
> > ending when one noun qualifies another ..." (p. 483-4).  SED gives
> > examples, many with possessive pronouns in the possessor phrase, but
> > some without: "farmer lad" 'farmer's lad'. in the U.S., i'm somewhat
> > surprised (like Wilson, and, for that matter, Jerry Springer) to hear
> > zero possessives from white speakers, even rural Southern ones.  but i
> > don't know what the facts are.)
> >
> > now "Mary, the girl that I watch her kids" has a possessive pronoun in
> > it, but otherwise is nothing like the zero possessives.  the point of
> > interest is the relative clause "that I watch her kids" (modifying
> > "the girl").  this is a well-known sort of "gapless relative", of a
> > type that has a resumptive pronoun ("her") instead of a gap.  a gap
> > would be just ungrammatical in the configuration here; the pronoun
> > "rescues" an island violation.  some discussion at:
> >
> > ML, 10/14/07: Ask Language Log: Gapless relatives:
> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005019.html
> > gapped/gapless relatives
> >
> > AZ, 10/14/07: More gapless relatives:
> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005022.html
> > gapped/gapless relatives
> >
> > as far as i know, resumptive pronouns rescuing island violations are
> > not particularly restricted socially or geographically, though they
> > are most common in speech (where they allow speakers to get out of
> > tight situations in mid-speech).  they also occur in comic writing,
> > for humorous effect.
> >
> > (the standard version of "the girl that I watch her kids" would be
> > "the girl whose kids I watch" -- with the front-heavy relative clause
> > "whose kids I watch".  the thing is, this requires a lot of advance
> > planning; avoiding this planning sets people up to need a resumptive
> > pronoun.)
> >
> > arnold
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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