AAE Phonological Coding

[Pam Norton]

Hello all,
  I have a couple of questions about how to phonologically code some features of an AAE speaker's narrative transcript that is part of my dissertation analysis. I am basically using Craig, Thompson, Washington and Potter's phonological types (2003), but am stumped by how  to classify these:

1) movingk/moving

This is an addition, but is it basically "devoicing of final consonant"? 

This child does this pretty consistently throughout the transcript, including "dancingk", "slippingk", "nothingk". My guess is someone has "corrected" her n/ng productions and she's overemphasizing the "ng" and then applying the devoicing rule. Any other suggested interpretation? Can it be considered an AAE feature? 

2) sawt/saw 
She's adding a regular -ed ending to the irregular past tense form (maybe for the same reason above, that is, overgeneralization based on emphasis of including -ed which can be optional in AAE), but is the voiceless consonant also an example of devoicing final consonant?

3) mans, with /s/ final
This is the same type of grammatical/phonological convergence and it seems more clear-cut that I would code this is devoicing of final consonant. Any alternative ways of codings this?

Thanks for your help.

Pam Norton, ABD
Jt. Program in Special Education
U.C. Berkeley and San Francisco State University


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