Deictic 'go'

[Benjamin Barrett]

This doesn't strike me as being particular to AAVE; here are some webcites:

Here goes your love letter: http://tesfa-love-tesfa.blogspot.com/2012/04/detroit-here-goes-your-love-letter.html
Here goes your generic animal crossing-esque speech: http://alliscrossing.com/forum/topic.aspx?pid=1730350
Here goes your prescription: http://shiitslegit.tumblr.com/

I don't think I use this myself, but it doesn't strike me as particularly odd (until it's pointed out). I don't see this meaning in Wiktionary or the OED.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos

On Nov 5, 2013, at 8:31 PM, Benjamin Torbert <btorbert at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> 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.

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