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

Adam Walker wrote:

>--- 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.
>
>

Mine is [D@j] in front of vowels, but it's not phonemic, it's just /D@/.
  I keep the /@/-/@n/ distinction.

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