QUIZ on Selected Linguistic Features of African American English. 
DUE Monday 12/12/05, in class (11:15am).
			
Teachers and other educators need to know about the features of AAE so that they can understand AAE-speaking children and help them acquire 'school language' (= mainstream American English) while giving recognition to their 'home language' (= African American English). If you were a teacher of AAE-speaking children, it would be important for you to get 100% on the quiz below. The quiz is based on the 'Child dialogue in African American English' collected by Dr. Toya Wyatt of Cal State University, Fullerton, CA.

Following the format below, you are to provide a translation of each of the sentences of the AAE Child Dialogue into mainstream American English.  (Some sentences will be identical in both varieties). When there is a difference between the AAE sentence and the translation into MAE, you must, for each difference, (i) note what that difference is, (ii) mention the rule in the grammar of AAE that describes the feature in AAE, or make a comment on the usage based on your own knowledge of English, and (iii) indicate whether the linguistic feature that appears in the AAE sentence is shared with other varieties of American English, or not shared.  Examples of answers for the first few sentences are given below. All remaining sentences should be answered using the same format.  A version of this document is available online, so that you can download the dialogue and conveniently copy the format for the answers. It is on the course website, or at this addess:
http://courses.umass.edu/ling113/materials/AAEQuiz1.shtml

CG:  	(1) "Lookit, TC!  Ain't that Pinocchio?"
Translation mainstream Am. English:  "Lookit, TC!  Isn't that Pinocchio?"
(i)	Difference:  isn't instead of ain't 		
(ii)	Rule:  ain't is the form for present tense of auxiliary be plus negation 
(iii) Shared with other nonmainstream varieties

TC:  	(2) "Yup ... an' his daddy too!
Translation: "Yes ... and his daddy too!
(i)	Difference1: Yes for yup
(ii)	Comment: yup is an informal variant of yes
(iii) Shared by informal mainstream American English and other varieties

(i)	Difference 2:  and for an'
(ii) Rule: Consonant cluster reduction at ends of words even before 
	vowels.
(iii)	Not shared. In other varieties, there's no consonant cluster reduction   before vowels.



         	(3) They walkin'... they walkin' by that old whale
		Translation:
		(i)	Difference1:
(ii)	Rule or comment:
(iii)	Shared/not shared?

		(i)	Difference2 (if there is a second difference, etc...):
(ii)	Rule or comment:
(iii)	Shared/not shared?


	(4) 'Member in that movie when Pinocchio got ate by the whale?"
		
CG:	(5) "Yep, I seen that movie before"

	(6)  Pinocchio was dancin'.

(7) Know why he was dancin' so hard?"

TG:	(8) "Cuz he seen his daddy."

CG:	(9) "Nope, that ain't it. 

	(10) It's cuz he was tryin' to tickle that ol' whale."

TG:	(11)  "Him and his daddy was both tryin' to make that whale sneeze."

(12) But don't no whales be sneezin' like that in real life."

CG: 	(13) "Yeah, they do... and so do my Daddy.

(14)   He sneeze like that all the time."

TG:      (15) "Why he sneeze so much?"

CG: 	(16)  "Cuz, that's just the way it is.

(17) That's what my Daddy say,

(18) 'It's just like like... it's jus' the way it is.

(19) Ain't nothing but life..."


Ling 113 		Selkirk Fall 2005

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