{"title":"A Variationist Approach to Subject–Aux Question Inversion in Bajan and Other Caribbean Creole Englishes, AAVE and Appalachian","authors":"J. Rickford, R. Melnick","doi":"10.1017/9781316091142.012","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Our quantitative, variationist (Rbrul) analyses of subject-auxiliary inversion in question formation across three Caribbean creole Englishes (Guyanese, Jamaican, and Bajan, the mesolectal creole English of Barbados) and two North American vernacular Englishes (AAVE and Appalachian) combine with prior comparable (Varbrul) analyses of this variable in Samaná and African Nova Scotia English to illustrate the patterning of its variable constraints. Previously, canonical descriptions held that English-based creoles differ from standard and metropolitan colloquial Englishes by forming questions with rising intonation alone (e.g., Guyanese: Jaan de hoom “John is at home”), without subject-auxiliary inversion (Is John at home?). In practice, however, we find considerable, and substantially similar, constraint-based variation across the varieties studied, with YES/NO questions and auxiliary do favoring non-inversion. These and other cross-varietal similarities are significant for understanding this variable but suggest that question formation may not be fruitful for investigating the question of prior creolization in AAVE.","PeriodicalId":312626,"journal":{"name":"Variation, Versatility and Change in Sociolinguistics and Creole Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Variation, Versatility and Change in Sociolinguistics and Creole Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316091142.012","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Our quantitative, variationist (Rbrul) analyses of subject-auxiliary inversion in question formation across three Caribbean creole Englishes (Guyanese, Jamaican, and Bajan, the mesolectal creole English of Barbados) and two North American vernacular Englishes (AAVE and Appalachian) combine with prior comparable (Varbrul) analyses of this variable in Samaná and African Nova Scotia English to illustrate the patterning of its variable constraints. Previously, canonical descriptions held that English-based creoles differ from standard and metropolitan colloquial Englishes by forming questions with rising intonation alone (e.g., Guyanese: Jaan de hoom “John is at home”), without subject-auxiliary inversion (Is John at home?). In practice, however, we find considerable, and substantially similar, constraint-based variation across the varieties studied, with YES/NO questions and auxiliary do favoring non-inversion. These and other cross-varietal similarities are significant for understanding this variable but suggest that question formation may not be fruitful for investigating the question of prior creolization in AAVE.
我们对三种加勒比克里奥尔英语(圭亚那语、牙买加语和巴巴多斯的中集克里奥尔英语巴扬语)和两种北美白话英语(AAVE和阿巴拉契亚语)的主语-辅助倒转问题形成的定量变异分析(Rbrul),结合之前对saman和非洲新斯科舍省英语中这一变量的可比性分析(Varbrul),说明了其变量约束的模式。以前,权威的描述认为,以英语为基础的克里奥尔语与标准英语和都市口语英语的不同之处在于,它形成的问句只有上升语调(例如,圭亚那语:Jaan de hoom“John is at home”),没有主语-助动词倒装(is John at home?)。然而,在实践中,我们发现在所研究的品种中存在相当大的、基本相似的基于约束的差异,YES/NO问题和辅助do倾向于非反演。这些和其他跨品种相似性对于理解这一变量具有重要意义,但表明问题的形成可能对调查AAVE中先前的克里奥尔化问题没有结果。