A history of the English Language

partly because of educational policies that may be implied. 
Some features of African American Vernacular English (often abbreviated AAVE) 
occur also in the Southern white nonstandard English of comparable socioeconomic 
levels. However, there are also phonological and morphological features that occur 
almost exclusively in AAVE or occur at a significantly higher rate than in other varieties. 
The reduction of final consonant clusters (for example, 
lis’
for 
list
), as we have seen, is a 
common feature of the Lower South, as is the loss of postvocalic 
r 
(
ca’
for 
car, fo’ 
for 
four
), and both of these deletions occur in AAVE. The most usual context for deletion of 
such consonants is before a word beginning with a consonant. AAVE differs from other 
varieties in having a higher rate of deletion before a vowel (for example, 
lif’ up
for 
lift 
up
). AAVE is also characterized by deletion of a word-final single consonant after a 
vowel as in 
ma’
for 
man,
with a nasalized [æ], or 
boo’
for 
boot
. Both voiced and 
voiceless 
th
vary from Standard English in AAVE—for example,[ð] in 
that
realized as 
[d], 
dat;
[
θ
] in 
thin
realized as [t], 
tin;
and [
θ
] in 
nothing
and 
mouth
realized as [f], 
nuf’n, 
mouf
. As in many varieties of English, both standard and nonstandard, the -
ing
suffix 
occurs as [In], 
singin’
. 
Among the grammatical features of AAVE, the verbal system is especially interesting 
in its systematic differences from Standard English. The verb 
to be
is regularly deleted 
both as the linking verb and as the helping verb: for example 
He tall
for Standard English 
He is tall,
and 
They runnin’
for 
They are running
. There is a category of 
verbal aspect
that represents habitual action that may occur over a period of time repeatedly, though 
not necessarily continuously; for example, 
They be runnin’
for Standard English 
They are 
usually running,
or 
They usually run
42
In AAVE this structure contrasts with 
They 
runnin’,
cited above, which means 
They are running right now
. Other systematic features 
of the verbal system in AAVE include the use of
 done
to emphasize the completed nature 
of an action—for example, 
He done did it
for Standard English 
He’s already done it
—
and the absence of third person singular present tense -
s,
as in 
He talk
for Standard 
English 
He talks
. 
9. 
Hispanic American English.
Like African American Vernacular English, Hispanic American English is a social and 
ethnic variety, but like the Anglo
41 
See the essays by Ralph W.Fasold, William Labov, Fay B.Vaughn-Cooke, Guy Bailey, Walt 
Wolfram, A.K.Spears, and John Rickford in 
American Speech,
62 (1987). 
42 
In informal discussion of grammar a distinction is often not made between verbal tense and 
aspect, though clearly it is necessary to be more precise in describing these categories in AAVE. 
Tense
refers to the time during which the action of a verb takes place. 
Aspect
refers to the 
beginning, duration, completion, or repetition of the action of a verb. 
A history of the english language 362

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dialects of the Southwest it is also a geographical variety for which isoglosses can be 
traced across the map. Indeed, some of the roots of its geography reach back further than 
those of any other variety of American English, to the late sixteenth century and for more 
than two centuries afterwards, when Texas was a part of Mexico. Hispanic American 
English is unique among the major varieties of English in being the result of languages in 
continuing contact within a bilingual culture, and yet the complexity of the linguistic 
situation is such that some scholars have questioned whether it is a dialect at all. The 
alternative would be to consider the features associated with Hispanic American English 
the result of language contact with Spanish and thus the manifestations of English learned 
as a second language, rather than the features of a stable dialect. It has been only within 
the past three decades that enough research has been done to establish that it is a variety 
of American English in its own right. Many of the features of Hispanic American English 
do not appear in Spanish, and many of its speakers have low proficiency in Spanish or are 
monolingual in English. These facts make clear that the variety is learned and spoken like 
any other variety of English. Yet the situation is complex, because the community of 
speakers includes those who are fluently bilingual, those who are much more proficient in 
Spanish than in English, those who are much more proficient in English than in Spanish, 
and others located at various points along the spectrum. While features of pronunciation 
and intonation may remain stable, the selection of those features depends on numerous 
variables, including the context of speech and the attitude of the speaker. In a study of 
Mexican-American English, a variety often referred to as