Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive

[William Salmon]

> Larry, you know that "th(em)" is pronounced "th([i}m}"! What are you
> doing, allowing yourself to be seduced by spelling? And since -nim
> always has secondary stress - amongst the colored at least - you're
> not going to hear anyone saying "mama-n[@]m."

I've heard it produced -nIm. But, it's also frequently drawn out much
more with a diphthong, like this: nee-um. This latter is how my
relatives in Dallas and East Texas would say it:

He's over atcher mamanee-ums house...


Rather, you may hear
> "mama-n[I@]," with shwa (I use the spelling, "shwa," because I want
> to, and not in error) being a mere off-glide as the speaker "holds his
> mouth" [cf. the expression, "hold one's mouth right" display the
> proper, respectful demeanor] to pronounce the /m/.
>
> Sledd, James. 1966. "Breaking, Umlaut, and the Southern Drawl."
> Language 42: 18 –41.
>
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Laurence Horn
> <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 2:33 PM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>> Larry, if you catch an AA speaker saying [nEm] instead of [nIm], kill
>>> him, for he is a traitor to his dialect, a disgrace to his race. :-)
>>>
>>> -Wilson
>>
>> But I think either AA or EA speakers might use a schwa, [I], or
>> barred-I in the final syllable and it could still be transcribed as
>> mom(m)anem or mam(m)anem rather than as -nim, given the psychological
>> link to "(th)em".  I suspect EA Pittsburghers would not, however,
>> refer to "yo mamanem house", with any spelling.
>>
>> LH
>>
>>> ---
>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>> -----
>>> -Mark Twain
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Laurence Horn
>>> <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>>>  Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>  At 9:30 AM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>> Judge Penny (late-forty-ish black woman from Atlanta):
>>>>>
>>>>> "How you gon' have five girlfriends and be so broke that you still
>>>>> livin' in _yo' mama-nim house_?!"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I've never heard it expressed this way, before. I would have expected:
>>>>>
>>>>> "... still livin' in the house _wit' cho' mama-nim_?!"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>  also rendered (for varieties of EA (and AA?) speakers in Pittsburgh
>>>>  and environs as well as southerners of all ethnicities) as "mamanem"
>>>>  and "mommanem", which are slightly more transparent (< 'n' (th)'em)
>>>>
>>>>  LH
>>>>
>>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>

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