CHAT: Southernisms (was Re: Genitive relationships)

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Tom Wier wrote:
> > (1) [E] / [nasal] --> [I];  [&] / [nasal] --> [E]
> Hmm, I say /k&n/, and I hear that as well, here in Florida (of course,
> Florida, except in rural areas of the Panhandle, isn't all that Southern
> to begin with), but as for [E] --> [I], that's definitely present in my
> dialect.
Do you know the settlement patterns for Florida?  Was it mostly
by people from like South Carolina and Georgia?  As for Texas, the
situation is kinda confused, for a couple reasons:

(a) Texas was originally settled by people from Missouri, who
themselves spoke a dialect closer to that of Middle American
(and therefore traditional Texan dialects tend not to be nonrhotic)
(b) Texas is *big* (as we've already alluded to), and so West
Texas dialects feature a lot of dialectal leveling with dialects of
the Mountain regions.  That /&/ -> [E] before nasals rule I think
originates from there.

> > (2) final consonant cluster reduction: [lEft] --> [lEf]
> I don't hear or say that either.
Well, it's really basilectal, and is rare anyways.

> > (3) [ai] --> [a:]
> Is that actually used?  I know that it's a stereotype of Southern
> speach, but I don't think I've heard it before.
Oh, it sure is here.  Especially by people out in the Hill
Country it seems, and in the Llano Estacado.

> > (4) [l] / _p# or _f# --> [p] or [f]:  [hElp] --> [hEp]
> Again, something I've lever heard.
I've heard it in stereotypes before, but not in person.

> > (5) [l] / _k --> palatal lateral approximant
> So that "elk" has a palatal lateral?  Interesting, something I've never
> heard.
I have a whole packet of such stuff from my sociolinguistics
course (though the packet's main point was discussing features
of AAVE).  Perhaps I can mail you some of the stuff sometime.

> > (6) loss of [n], and nasalization on preceding vowel
> I don't think I've heard a loss of [n], but the nasalization is a
> near-universal feature of English, isn't it?
I have.  I remember quite distinctly hearing some guy on the
elevator once saying something, and then "Oh, [mE:~]!"  Note
of course that the [E] is still present.  It kinda makes me wonder
if the Cajuns of East Texas had anything to do with that...

Nah, prolly not.

> > (8) [In] for -ing: nearly universal, as I suspect in many areas of the
> > country (if not the world)
> I have both [In] and [iN], with, of course, [In] being more common in
> casual speach, and almost non-existent when using "scientific" words
> (e.g., I'd probably never say analyzin')
Yeah, basically the same with me.

> > (9) _y'all_, of course, which can imply (for me at least)
> > paucality, where some phrasal unit like _[Al@yAl]_
> > serves for more than that.
> For me, "all y'all" implies totality, i.e., every one of y'all, just
> like "all (of) us".  However, I've never heard "y'all" being used
> completely consistently.  That is, "you" is still used for plural at
> times, tho y'all is never used for singular.  Perhaps the best example
> is that stereotypical Southernism "y'all come back now, ya hear?", where
> "ya" is used for plural in the second clause.
Funny thing, is that people who're not originally from the South, I've
noticed, tend to exaggerate its usage when speaking.  One girl I know
whose family is from Buffalo, New York, uses _y'all_ *all the time*,
even when she's being unfriendly ;-) (that's another thing, of course:  use
of _y'all_ indexes the speaker's desired familiarity with the listeners).

=======================================================
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

There's nothing particularly wrong with the
proletariat. It's the hamburgers of the
proletariat that I have a problem with. - Alfred Wallace
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