Hostname: page-component-546b4f848f-zwmfq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2023-06-01T17:12:41.342Z Has data issue: false Feature Flags: { "useRatesEcommerce": true } hasContentIssue false
  • English

Copula variability in Gullah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2003

Tracey L. Weldon
Tracey L. Weldon
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Get access Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many researchers have investigated the copula for possible links between African American Vernacular English (aave) and Atlantic Creoles, a connection that has served as the foundation of the Creolist Hypothesis in the on-going debate over the origins of aave. One variety that has been of particular interest in this debate is Gullah, which has been hypothetically linked to aave since some of the earliest statements of the Creolist Hypothesis. To date, however, very little research has been done on copula variability in Gullah itself. This study, therefore, provides an analysis of copula variability in present affirmative contexts in Gullah. Variation is found among full, contracted, and zero forms in 1st person singular, plural/2nd person singular, and 3rd person singular environments. The analysis also reveals some parallels between Gullah and aave that offer support for the theory of an aave/creole connection.I would like to acknowledge the Department of Linguistics and the Center for African Studies at Ohio State University for covering the cost of some of the fieldwork for this study. I would also like to acknowledge the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina for providing several hours of recordings used for the study. My sincerest thanks to research assistants Jason Sellers and Cherlon Ussery for help with transcriptions and data tabulation and to the following friends and colleagues for their help and support during various stages of this project: Emily Bender, Eugenia Deas, Vennie Deas-Moore, Brian Joseph, Michele Nichols, Terence Odlin, John Paolillo, Donald Winford, and Walt Wolfram. And, finally, my thanks to James Walker and an anonymous LVC reviewer for their helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. I accept full responsibility for any remaining errors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 37 - 72
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bailey, Beryl L. (1965). Toward a new perspective in Negro English dialectology. American Speech 40:171-177.Google Scholar
Baugh, John. (1980). A reexamination of the Black English copula. In William Labov (ed.), Locating language in time and space. New York: Academic. 83-106.
Bender, Emily. (2000). Syntactic variation and linguistic competence: The case of aave copula absence. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University.
Bickerton, Derek. (1971). Inherent variability and variable rules. Foundations of Language 7:457-492.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek. (1972). The structure of polylectal grammars. In R. Shuy (ed.), Twenty-third annual round table: Sociolinguistics: Current trends and prospects. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 17-42.
Bickerton, Derek. (1973). The nature of a creole continuum. Language 49:640-669.Google Scholar
Blake, Renee. (1997). Defining the envelope of linguistics variation: The case of "don't count" forms in the copula analysis of African American Vernacular English. Language Variation and Change 9:57-79.Google Scholar
Cassidy, Frederick. (1980). The place of Gullah. American Speech 55:3-16.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta. (1973). The interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University.
D'Eloia, Sarah G. (1973). Issues in the analysis of Nonstandard Negro English: A review of J. L. Dillard's Black English. Journal of English Linguistics 7:87-106.Google Scholar
Dillard, Joe L. (1972). Black English: Its history and usage in the United States. New York: Random House.
Edwards, Walter. (1980). Varieties of English in Guyana: Some comparisons with bev. Linguistics 18:289-309.Google Scholar
Ewers, Traute. (1996). The origin of American Black English: Be-forms in the hoodoo texts. Berlin: Mouton.CrossRef
Fasold, Ralph. (1990). Contraction and deletion in Vernacular Black English: Creole history and relationship to Euro-American English. Unpublished manuscript.
Fraser, Bruce. (1972). Optional rules in grammar. Monograph series on languages and linguistics, Georgetown University. 25:1-16.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory (1988). Advanced Varbrul analysis. In K. Ferrara, B. Brown, K. Walters, & J. Baugh (eds.), Linguistic change and contact. Austin: University of Texas Department of Linguistics. 124-136.
Hancock, Ian. (1980). Gullah and Barbadian: Origins and relationships. American Speech 55:17-35.Google Scholar
Hannah, Dawn. (1997). Copula absence in Samana English: Implications for research on the linguistic history of African-American Vernacular English. American Speech 72:339-372.Google Scholar
Holm, John. (1984). Variability of the copula in Black English and its Creole kin. American Speech 59:291-309.Google Scholar
Howe, Darin, & Walker, James. (2000). Negation in Early African American English: A creole diagnostic? In S. Poplack (ed.), The English history of African American English. Oxford: Blackwell. 109-140.
Jones-Jackson, Patricia. (1984). On decreolization and language death in Gullah. Language in Society 13:351-362.Google Scholar
Jones-Jackson, Patricia. (1987). When roots die: Endangered traditions on the Sea Islands. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Krapp, George. (1924). The English of the Negro. American Mercury 2:190-195.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans. (1928). The origin of dialectal differences in spoken American English. Modern Philology 25:285-295.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans. (1949). A word geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Labov, William. (1969). Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula. Language 45:715-762.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972a). Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula. Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Oxford: Blackwell. 65-129.
Labov, William. (1972b). Some principles of linguistic methodology. Language in Society 1:97-120.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972c). The study of language in its social context. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: Philadelphia University Press. 183-259.
Labov, William. (1984). Field methods of the project on linguistic change and variation. In J. Baugh & J. Sherzer (eds.), Language in use: Readings in sociolinguistics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Labov, William, Cohen, Paul, Robins, Clarence, & Lewis, John. (1968). A study of the non-standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City (2 vols.). Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey.
LePage, Robert, & DeCamp, David. (1960). Jamaican Creole: Creole Language Studies 1. London: Macmillan.
McDavid, Raven, & McDavid, Virgina. (1951). The relationship of the speech of Negroes to the speech of Whites. American Speech 26:3-17.Google Scholar
Milroy, Leslie. (1987). Observing and analysing natural language. Oxford: Blackwell.
Montgomery, Michael. (1991). The linguistic value of the ex-slave recordings. In G. Bailey, N. Maynor, & P. Cukor-Avila (eds.), The emergence of Black English: Text and commentary. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 173-189.
Mufwene, Salikoko. (1991a). Is Gullah decreolizing? A comparison of a speech sample of the 1930s with a sample of the 1980s. In G. Bailey, N. Maynor, & P. Cukor-Avila (eds.), The emergence of Black English. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 131-140.
Mufwene, Salikoko. (1991b). Some reasons why Gullah is not dying yet. English World-Wide 12:215-243.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko. (1992). Ideology and facts on African-American English. Pragmatics 2:141-166.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko. (1993). Investigating Gullah: Difficulties in ensuring "authenticity'. In D. Lance & W. Glowka (eds.), Language variation in North American English. New York: Modern Language Association. 178-190.
Nichols, Patricia. (1976). Linguistic change in Gullah: Sex, age, and mobility. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University.
Paolillo, John. (2002). Analyzing linguistic variation: Statistical models and methods. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Poplack, Shana, & Sankoff, David. (1987). The Philadelphia story in the Spanish Caribbean. American Speech 62:291-314.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (1989). There's no tense like the present: Verbal -s inflection in early Black English. Language Variation and Change 1:47-84.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (1991). African American English in the Diaspora: The case of old-line Nova Scotians. Language Variation and Change 3:301-339.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (1994). -S or nothing: Marking the plural in the African American Diaspora. American Speech 69:227-259.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, & Tagliamonte, Sali. (2001). African American English in the Diaspora. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rand, David, & Sankoff, David. (1990). goldvarb, version 2: A variable rule application for the Macintosh. Montreal: Universite de Montreal, Centre de recherches mathematiques.
Rickford, John. (1974). The insights of the mesolect. In D. DeCamp & I. Hancock (eds.), Pidgins and creoles: Current trends and prospects. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 92-117.
Rickford, John. (1977). The question of prior creolization in Black English. In A. Valdman (ed.), Pidgin and creole linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 190-221.
Rickford, John. (1992). The creole residue in Barbados. In J. Hall, N. Doane, & D. Ringler (eds.), Old English and new: Studies in language and linguistics in honor of Frederic G. Cassidy. New York: Garland. 183-201.
Rickford, John. (1998). The creole origins of African-American Vernacular English: Evidence from copula absence. In S. Mufwene, J. Rickford, G. Bailey, & J. Baugh (eds.), African-American English: Structure, history, and use. New York: Rutledge. 154-200.
Rickford, John, & Blake, Renee. (1990). Copula contraction and absence in Barbadian English, Samana English and Vernacular Black English. In K. Hall, J-P. Koenig, M. Meacham, S. Reinman, & L. Sutton (eds.), BLS 16: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. 257-268.
Rickford, John, & Handler, Jerome. (1994). Textual evidence on the nature of early Barbadian speech, 1676-1835. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 9:221-255.Google Scholar
Rickford, John, Ball, Arnetha, Blake, Renee, Jackson, Raina, & Martin, Nomi. (1991). Rappin on the copula coffin: Theoretical and methodological issues in the analysis of copula variation in African American Vernacular English. Language Variation and Change 3:103-132.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. (1982). Socio-historical linguistics: Its status and methodology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
Schneider, Edgar. (1982). On the history of Black English in the U.S.A.: Some new evidence. English World Wide 3:18-46.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar. (1989). American earlier Black English. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Schneider, Edgar. (1993). Africanisms in the grammar of Afro-American English: Weighing the evidence. In S. Mufwene (ed.), Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 192-208.
Singler, John. (1991). Copula variation in Liberian Settler English and American Black English. In W. Edwards & D. Winford (eds.), Verb phrase patterns in Black English and Creole. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 129-164.
Stewart, William. (1967). Sociolinguistic factors in the history of American Negro Dialects. The Florida FL Reporter 5(2):11, 22, 24, 26, 28.Google Scholar
Stewart, William. (1968). Continuity and change in American Negro dialects. The Florida FL Reporter 6(1):3-4, 14-16, 18.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali, & Poplack, Shana. (1988). How Black English past got to the present. Language in Society 17:513-533.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali, & Poplack, Shana. (1993). The zero-marked verb: Testing the creole hypothesis. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics 8:171-206.Google Scholar
Turner, Lorenzo D. (1949). Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. New York: Arno.
Walker, James. (2000). Rephrasing the copula: Contraction and zero in early African American English. In S. Poplack (ed.), The English history of African American English. Oxford: Blackwell.
Weldon, Tracey. (1998). Exploring the aave-Gullah connection: A comparative study of copula variability. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University.
Winford, Donald. (1992a). Another look at the copula in Black English and Caribbean creoles. American Speech 67:21-60.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. (1992b). Back to the past: The bev/creole connection revisited. Language Variation and Change 4:311-357.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. (1997). On the origins of African American Vernacular English--A creolist perspective. Part I: The sociohistorical background. Diachronica 14:305-344.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. (1998). On the origins of African American Vernacular English--A creolist perspective. Part II: Linguistic features. Diachronica 15:99-154.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. (1969). A sociolinguistic description of Detroit Negro speech. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Wolfram, Walt. (1974). The relationship of White Southern speech to Vernacular Black English. Language 50:498-527.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. (1975). Variable constraints and rule relations. In R. Fasold & R. Shuy (eds.), Analyzing variation in English: Papers from the second colloquium on New Ways of Analyzing Variation. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 70-88.
Wolfram, Walt. (1986). Good data in a bad situation: Eliciting vernacular structures. In J. Fishman, A. Tabouret-Keller, M. Cline, B. Khrishnamurti, & M. Abdulziz (eds.), Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language. Vol. 2. The Fergusonian Impact: In honor of Charles A. Ferguson on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1-22.