Table Of ContentTENSE-ASPECT IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENGLISH:
A SOCIOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE
PATRICE DALE WILLIAMS
A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
1991
Copyright 1991
Patrice Dale Williams
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my undying gratitude,
first of all, to Dr. Haig Der-Houssikian, chair of my
doctoral committee. His patience, support, and
encouragement were in themselves a source of
inspiration for me during the long hours spent working
on this final project. Words alone cannot adequately
express the sum total of what have learned from him.
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I sincerely thank him for his time, his knowledge, both
of which he so willingly shared, and, most of all, for
the kindness he showed me, even when fell short of my
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goals. Truly, he has been more than my committee
chairperson; he has been my mentor.
I also wish to thank the other members of my
doctoral committee--Dr Allan Burns, Dr. Chauncey Chu,
.
Dr. Mildred Hill-Lubin, and Dr. Jerrie Cobb Scott--all
of who not only encouraged me, but who also gave m e
helpful suggestions to facilitate the completion of
this dissertation.
I express my sincere thanks to the faculty and
students in linguistics at the University of Florida,
who, through their openmindedness, created an
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atmosphere which was not only intellectual, but highly
congenial as well.
I thank the director of the linguistics program.
Dr. Jean Casagrande, for his support, and Dr. David
Byrdsong for his kind compassion. I also extend a
special "thank-you" to Dr. Ann Jeffries, who, even with
the busiest of schedules, found time to offer me words
of encouragement and support.
Finally, I thank the members of the Gainesville
community who made me feel welcome in their churches
and in their homes; thank my family and friends for
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their encouragement; and, most of all, I thank God for
allowing me to persevere until reached my goal.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii
ABSTRACT vii
CHAPTER
ONE: STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1
General Background to AAE Grammar 2
Specific Background To AAE Tense-Aspect 5
A Comparative Analysis of SAE and AAE 6
Tense
8
Aspect 11
The Present Study 23
Specific Problem Statement 25
Research Hypotheses 29
Null Hypotheses 29
TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 31
The Appropriate Domain for AAE 33
Rural Versus Urban 34
Northern versus Southern 38
The Origin of AAE 41
Quantitative Differences 41
Qualitative Differences 43
The Religious Experience 49
The African-American Church 49
The African-American Preacher 51
African-American Sermons 52
THREE: METHODS AND PROCEDURES
60
Design of the Study 62
Instrument Development
63
The Biographical Data Form(BDF) 65
The Dialect Prompting Form(DPF) 66
The Dialect Response Evaluation Sheet DRES 6
( ) .
Sampling Technique 72
Data Collection 74
Statistical Analysis 81
v
FOUR: RESULTS OF ANALYSES
89
Hypothesized Findings 90
Hypothesis I 90
Hypothesis II 93
Hypothesis III 97
Hypothesis IV 99
Unhypothesized Findings 99
FIVE: CONCLUSIONS 107
Conclusions from Hypothesized Findings Ill
From Results of Hypothesis I Ill
From Results of Hypothesis II 125
From Results of Hypothesis III 127
From Results of Hypothesis IV 128
Conclusions from Unhypothesized Findings 128
Limitations 132
Recommendations 132
Implications 133
APPENDICES
A Excerpts from Sermons 136
B Interviews 146
REFERENCES 154
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 161
vi
Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of
the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
TENSE-ASPECT IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENGLISH:
A SOCIOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE
By
Patrice Dale Williams
August 1991
Chair: Dr. Haig Der-Houssikian
Major Department: Linguistics
This dissertation is concerned with those tenacious
tense-aspect features of African-American English (AAE) that
may well be vestiges of a West African prototype. The study
focused on comparing those tense-aspect features in the
discourse of AAE speakers. The five informants were
relatively uneducated, elderly ministers who were lifelong
residents of the rural South.
Two sets of data were collected from each subject. The
first, a prepared data sample, consisted of a sermon from
each minister. The second, the prompted data sample, was
obtained by having the subjects, during an interview,
complete statements designed to elicit AAE features
Vll•
predicted by a hypothetical grammar. The subjects'
responses were evaluated according to a Dialect Response
Evaluation Sheet (DRES).
It was hypothesized that there would be no
statistically significant differences among the results
1)
of the prepared data; 2) among the results of the prompted
data; between the results of the prepared and prompted
3)
data; and between the results of the combined data and
4)
results predicted by hypothetical grammar of AAE tense-
aspect
.
These hypotheses were tested via the t-test, chi
square, Spearman rho, and Kendall's coefficient of
concordance. Yates' correction was used to correct for
bias. The results of these measures revealed statistically
significant differences within the prepared results; between
the prepared and prompted results; and between the combined
data and the hypothetical grammar. The null hypothesis
predicting no statistically significant differences among
the prompted results, was, however, accepted.
The investigator concluded that the statistically
significant differences within the prepared data were
indicative of the variable nature of performance and that
the significant differences between the data samples, as
well as between the combined samples and the hypothetical
grammar, underscored the need for effective prompting, or
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elicitation techniques, in order to better tap into that
elusive domain called competence. In light of the variable
performance, the finding of no statistically significant
differences for the prompted sample indicated how inexact a
measure of competence performance is.
The findings of this study are congruent with the
literature on ’’performance versus competence."
IX
CHAPTER
1
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
For some time now, African-American English (AAE)
has been a source of both frustration and fascination
for many linguists. Not only has it withstood
inspection both through the myopic lenses of a
"deficit” theoretical model, and from the more focused
perspective of a "different" model, but it has also
survived such pejorative epithets as "deviant",
"simplified", "illogical", and "erratic" (see critiques
by Bailey, 1971; Labov, 1972a, 1981; Stewart, 1975.)
Moreover, its origin has been ascribed to a number of
language sources, from pidgins (Bolinger, 1980) and
creoles (Bailey, 1971; Bickerton 1973, 1976; Rickford,
1977; Stewart, 1975) to West African languages (Asante,
1975; Burling, 1982; Dahl, 1984; Davis, 1983; Stewart,
1975; Twiggs, 1973) and even to corrupt dialects of
American English (McDavid, 197 1 ; Williamson, 1971).
The educational systems in this country have taken
serious steps to deal with AAE, having decided at one
point in time to approach it as a foreign language and,
lastly, as a second dialect. Despite all these
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