Laying the groundwork for the DELV (Precursor literature, dissertations, joint work of the Working Groups prior to the conceptualization of the DELV)
Publication Date
1996
Abstract
Does African-American English (AAE) have a separate grammar from Standard American English (SAE)? AAE has a number of distinctive features, several of which have been discussed extensively in the sociolinguistic literature: the variable use of third-person singular -s; the absence of plura -s; the variable use of copula; and others. (See Labov, 1966, 1969a, b, and Fasold, 1972 for discussion.) Perhaps the most distinctive feature of AAE is habitual or invariant "be".
Journal or Book Title
Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development
Pages
364-373
Volume
1
COinS
Comments
Jackson, J., Ramos, E., Hall, F., Coles, D. J., Seymour, H. N., Dickey, M., Broderick, K., & Hollebrandse, B. (1996). They be taggin', don't they? The acquisition of invariant Be. In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-Amitay, E. Hughes, & A. Zukowski (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development: Vol. 1 (pp. 364-373). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.