Deictic 'go'

Benjamin Torbert btorbert at GMAIL.COM
Wed Nov 6 04:31:29 UTC 2013


Little help, y'all:

I have [at least] two grad students who teach in majority (read, 100%) AfAm
classrooms in StL, and they bring up things about AA(V)E, and they're
seldom able to stump me, but this time, I wasn't able to give a complete
answer.  They were asking me about what is apparently known as deictic *go*.

1) There go your pencil.
2) Here go your permission slip.

These more or less paraphrase in mainstream American English (ugh, the
label, I know) with a form of *be, *namely *is, *probably contracted most
likely.

Is there any scholarly work on this feature, beyond a basic description of
the feature?  I was vaguely aware of it, but I don't remember anyone
talking about it in six years of gradskool, when we were talking about AAE
more or less nonstop.  The only thing I could find was a 1975 article
(Clark/Garnica), and it seems to address different issues.

Thanks,
BT

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