African American English Plurals Usually in standard English, the plural of nouns is marked with some version of /s/, pronounced [s], [z] or [z] cat…
A. African American English Plurals
Usually in standard English, the plural of nouns is marked with some version of /s/, pronounced [s], [z] or [əz] cat – cats, dog – dogs, house – houses etc. But in AAE we often have cases where the noun is NOT marked for plural at all. Some examples are given here:
1. We bought two hundred pound o’ fish. (not pounds)
2. How many glass of beer did they drink yesterday? (not glasses)
3. It’s about six mile up the road. (not miles)
4. We have several gallon o’ water. (not gallons)
However, for the same speakers who have (1-4), there are also cases where the s cannot be dropped. These are given in 5-8:
5. We caught two hundred cats yesterday. (not cat)
6. They have three cars in the garage (not car)
7. They have a lot of animals. (not animal)
8. It’s a story about twelve chairs. (not chair)
Question 1: What is the pattern that determines whether plural /s/-drop is possible or not? Does it have to do with meaning or form? Can you state the rule of /s/-drop based on the two sets of words above?
Now consider some cases where we have the same words as we had in (1-4), but here the /s/ drop is not possible. What is the difference between this group (9-12) and (1-4)?
9. We had pounds of fish that spoiled. (not pound)
10. The glassesof beer we bought are on the table. (not glass)
11. These beautiful beaches go on for miles. (not mile)
12. We had gallons of water left. (not gallon)
Question 2: Now state a new version of the rule for dropping plural endings that covers all the cases we have seen here. What are the 2 conditions that must be true for this rule to operate?
Question 3: Now predict whether or not plural drop is possible in the following examples: (write the sentence number followed by POSSIBLE OR NOT POSSIBLE)
13. She had three pounds of fish left.
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