The Historical Evolution of Earlier African American English: An Empirical Comparison of Early Sources

by Alexander Kautzsch

Based on a 500,000 word corpus of early sources collected from ex-slave narratives, ex-slave recordings, and interviews with hoodoo priests, this book reconstructs the English spoken by African Americans between 1830 and 1920. By means of detailed quantitative analyses, three linguistic features (negation patterns, copula usage, and relative marker choice) are interpreted along the lines of temporal change, regional diversity, and variation across...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3110173018
• ISBN13: 9783110173017
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: de Gruyter Mouton
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary