The Origin of the Verbal -S in Black English

Abstract

ONE OF THE CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES in study of black English has been verb morphology, particularly synchronic status and diachronic provenance of paradigmatically related present tense verb endings -s and zero. The observation that third person singular -s is frequently deleted by lower class black speakers has lead to assumption that the third singular present tense marker is not required in black dialect (Lanier 1976, p. 51; cf. Funkhouser 1973, pp. 809-10, 819; Fickett 1972, p. 17; Loflin, Sobin, and Dillard 1973, p. 24; Smitherman 1977, p. 26). This view was originally offered by creolists in connection with creole substratum hypothesis, which suggests a creole origin of dialects spoken by blacks in United States (cf. e.g., Dillard 1972, pp. 40-42; Traugott 1976, p. 88); for use of uninflected verb forms is typical of pidgin and creole languages, e.g., Gullah (Turner 1949, p. 224; Van Sertima 1976, p. 141), Haitian Creole (Hall 1966, p. 109) and West African Pidgin English (Grade 1892, p. 383), which reveals influence of African languages (Turner 1948, p. 78; cf. Hall 1966, p. 109; Van Sertima 1976, p. 141). By virtue of results of recent sociolinguistic research, which has shown uninflected verb to be predominant third person singular form in black English, this hypothesis has obtained considerable support among sociolinguists as well (e.g., Fasold and Wolfram 1970, pp. 63-64; Fasold 1971; Fasold 1981, pp. 170-71; Labov 1970b, p. 230).' William Labov infers from relatively high proportion of zero forms, lack of stylistic variation, and inefficacy of phonological constraints, that there is no underlying third singular -s in NNE [Nonstandard Negro English] (Labov, Cohen, Robins, and Lewis 1968, 1: 164). Within this theoretical framework, existing -s suffixes in black English have been interpreted, if in third person singular, as post-creole interference from standard English, or, if in any other grammatical person, as hypercorrect usage,2 as is explained by Burling (1973, p. 49):

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