Re: USAGE: indefinite "a" before vowel-initial words

--- John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>
> > But I've heard others using
> > "a" sometimes prevocalically (and without
> pausing), and have
> > noticed myself using it.
>
> The use of /@/ and /D@/ as invariant articles is a
> marker for
> AAVE, a language variety that no American can avoid
> being affected
> by to some degree.  One day I was explaining the
> /D@/ ~ /Di/ variation
> to a group of people (it's much less known that /@/
> ~ /@n/, not being
> reflected in the orthography) and promptly violated
> the constraint
> myself in the course of the explanation!  Someone
> called me on it,
> leaving me to meditate on the difference between
> speaking with a view
> to speech and speaking with a view to content, as
> William Safire puts it.
>
My ideolect (I won't claim greater currency) does not
have /Di/ except as an emphatic or a rythmic variant
in poetry or song.  The unmarked form is invarriablly
/D@/ reguardless of the following phoneme.

ADam

=====
Indjindrud edjuebu ul Josias ad ul Jeconias ed ils sus frarris in il deporrachuni in al
Baviluña, ed debostu il deporrachuni in al Baviluña, indjindrud ul Jeconias
ad ul Salatil. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Salatiel ad ul Zorubaviu. Indjindrud
edjuebu ul Zorobaviu ad ul Abiud. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Abiud ad ul Eliacim.
Indjindrud edjuebu ul Eliacim ad ul Azor.

Machu 1:11-13

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