5 ms·

Am I understanding correctly that this paper is making the argument that because AAVE follows an identifiable set of grammatical rules, it is a dialect rather t

• sp332 9y ago
  Right. The point is that the differences are following rules, they're not "mistakes".
  • weberc2 9y ago
    Seems like arguing semantics--what is a "mistake" if not a departure from the established convention? What is the difference between a "rule" and a "mistake"? That the "mistake" is repeated a certain amount of times and/or by some critical mass of people? How often / how many people must repeat the mistake before it becomes a rule? If it becomes a new rule, does it cease to become a mistake? The classification quickly begins to feel arbitrary.
    • conistonwater 9y ago
      > What is the difference between a "rule" and a "mistake"? Your question is answered directly in Pullum's article, at length. He even gives a separate explicit example of the who-whom distinction and explains how it works and how to think about it. There is a clear reason for why this is not arbitrary.
    • sp332 9y ago
      A mistake is made from ignorance or carelessness. It is individual and won't be shared, at least not widely. A rule is applied intentionally and consistently, and it can get wide support. Importantly, making up new rules does not indicate a mental or moral deficiency like making lots of mistakes might.
• tempYeez 9y ago
  Yeh which makes sense because grammatical rules are by the nature of how a people would develop a language intuitive to humans. We put names to those grammatical rules, but they are typically more so a function of how human beings as a species communicate.
• conistonwater 9y ago
  If you want to read more about dialects, I know Victor Mair (from Language Log) wrote a lot about such things in the context of Chinese (e.g., http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10303; http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10303; http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=124 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=124). That's not anything specifically to do with AAVE, but more the general concept of what does and doesn't let you call something a dialect.
• Pharylon 9y ago
  Sure, and many rules of AAVE are more consistent. For instance take the following words in standard English: * yourself * myself * ourselves * himself * itself One of these things is not like the other! All of these take the form of possive + "self," except "himself." And sure enough, in AAVE we have "hisself" instead. A more logical, consistent replacement.
  • csours 9y ago
    So when some people think of AAVE speakers as incorrect, it is because they don't use the right wrong way to talk. Linguistics is a weird field.
  • jtuente 9y ago
    To more heavily emphasize the point here consider the feminine possive as well, her/hers: * herself
    • bonzini 9y ago
      "her" is both the possessive and the accusative, so it's consistent with either myself or himself. Itself too, since you can consider it a contraction of either "it-self" or "its-self".
  • weberc2 9y ago
    I recall that immigrant populations that don't integrate into the main population for long periods of time have a tendency to learn simplified versions of the original language. If I recall correctly, Old English lost a lot of its ornament when the Norse settled in Britain. EDIT: I'm puzzled by the downvotes. Am I mistaken? If so, I'm happy to be corrected.
    • yodon 9y ago
      You are probably thinking of Pidgins and Creoles[0], two very well studied linguistic categories that come about when two or more groups with no shared language come together (Pidgin) and then their children learn the Pidgin as a first language (morphing it into a Creole). AAVE is grammatically and functionally distinct from either a Pidgin or a Creole. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language