Tense and aspect Although AAVE does not necessarily have the
simple past-tense marker of other English varieties (that is, the
-ed of "work
ed"), it does have an optional tense system with at least four aspects of the past tense and two aspects of the future tense. The dialect uses several
tense–aspect–mood markers integrated into the predicate phrase, including
gon or
gonna (future tense),
done (completive aspect),
be (habitual aspect, state of being), and
been (durative aspect). These can function separately or in conjunction. Syntactically,
I bought it is grammatical, but
done (always unstressed, pronounced as ) is used to emphasize the completed nature of the action. ''I'ma
, also commonly spelled Imma'', is pronounced as . Harvard professor Sunn m'Cheaux claims ''I'ma
originated in the Gullah language (an English creole), which uses "a-" instead of "-ing" for this type of verb inflection. Alternatively, other sources suggest it is a further shortening of I'm gonna''. As phase auxiliary verbs,
been and
done must occur as the first auxiliary; when they occur as the second, they carry additional
aspects: :
He been done working means "he finished work a long time ago". :
He done been working means "until recently, he worked over a long period of time". The latter example shows one of the most distinctive features of AAVE: the use of
be to indicate that performance of the verb is of a habitual nature. In most other American English dialects, this can only be expressed unambiguously by using adverbs such as
usually. This aspect-marking form of
been or BIN is stressed and semantically distinct from the unstressed form:
She BIN running ('She has been running for a long time') and
She been running ('She has been running'). This aspect has been given several names, including
perfect phase,
remote past, and
remote phase (this article uses the third). As shown above,
been places action in the distant past. However, when
been is used with
stative verbs or
gerund forms,
been shows that the action began in the distant past and that it is continuing now. suggests that a better translation when used with stative verbs is "for a long time". For instance, in response to "I like your new dress", one might hear
Oh, I been had this dress, meaning that the speaker has had the dress for a long time and that it isn't new. To see the difference between the simple past and the gerund when used with
been, consider the following expressions: :
I been bought her clothes means "I bought her clothes a long time ago". :
I been buying her clothes means "I've been buying her clothes for a long time". Auxiliaries in African American Vernacular English are related in a typical pattern. They can be grouped into negative forms and affirmative forms for each of the words. For example, "had" is an affirmative form, while "hatn" is the corresponding negative form. These same auxiliaries can be used to mark sentences for the anterior aspect. As another example,
was marks type 1 sentences, which by default are present tense, and transforms them to a time before the present. Take, for instance, "She at home": the word
was can be inserted to mark this sentence, making the marked equivalent "She was at home". Auxiliaries such as these also have opposing negative and affirmative forms. In its negative form the auxiliary verb "wadn" is used to convey the opposing affirmative form. In addition to these,
come (which may or may not be an auxiliary) may be used to indicate speaker indignation, such as in ''Don't come acting like you don't know what happened and you started the whole thing'' ("Don't try to act as if you don't know what happened, because you started the whole thing"). The irrealis mood marker
be, having no intrinsic tense refers to a current or future event that may be less than real.
Modals The dialect uses double modals, such as
might could, which can function in various ways, including as adverbs.
Negation Negatives are formed differently from most other varieties of English: • Use of ''
ain't as a general negative marker. As in other English dialects, it can be used instead of am not
, isn't
, aren't
, haven't
, and hasn't.
However, some speakers of AAVE distinctively use ain't
instead of don't
, doesn't
, or didn't
(e.g., I ain't know that
). Ain't'' had its origins in common English but became increasingly stigmatized since the 19th century . •
Double negation, as in ''I didn't go nowhere''. If the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated. This contrasts with
standard written English convention, which interprets a double negative to mean a positive (although this was not always so; see
double negative). There is no limit to how many negators can be used. • In a negative construction, an indefinite pronoun such as
nobody or
nothing can be inverted with the negative verb particle for emphasis (e.g., ''Don't nobody know the answer
, Ain't nothing going on''.) While AAVE shares these with Creole languages, early recordings of African Nova Scotian English, Samaná English, and recordings of former slaves indicate that negation was likely inherited from nonstandard colonial English.
Other grammatical characteristics • The
copula be in the present tense is often
dropped, as in
Russian,
Hungarian,
Arabic, and other languages. For example:
You crazy ("You're crazy") or
She my sister ("She's my sister"). This extends to questions:
Who you? ("Who're you?") and
Where you at? ("Where are you (at)?"). This has been sometimes considered a Southern U.S. regionalism, though it is most frequent in African-American speech. On the other hand,
is can be included for emphasis:
Yes, she is
my sister. The general rules are: • Only the forms
is and
are (often replaced by
is) can be omitted;
am,
was, and
were are not deleted. • These forms cannot be omitted when they would be pronounced with stress in Standard American (whether or not the stress serves specifically to impart an emphatic sense to the verb's meaning). • These forms can be omitted only when the corresponding form in standard English can be contracted. For example, ''I don't know where he is
cannot be reduced to *I don't know where he,
and correspondingly Standard English forbids the contraction *I don't know where he's
. Compare the acceptable forms I don't know where he at
in AAVE, paralleling I don't know where he's at'' in Standard English.{{cite web • Verbs are uninflected for number and person: there is no
-s ending in the present-tense third-person singular. Example:
She write poetry ("She writes poetry"). AAVE ''don't
for standard English doesn't
comes from this, unlike in some other dialects which use don't
for standard English doesn't
but does
when not in the negative. Similarly, AAVE was
is used for standard English was
and were.'' • The genitive -'s ending indicating possession may or may not be used. Instead, genitive case is inferrable from adjacency. This feature is similar to many
Caribbean creoles. Many language forms throughout the world use an unmarked possessive; it may here result from a simplification of grammatical structures. Example:
my momma sister ("my mother's sister"). • The words
it and
they denote existence of something, equivalent to standard English's
there is or
there are. • Word order in questions: ''Why they ain't growing?'' ("Why aren't they growing?") and
Who the hell she think she is? ("Who the hell does she think she is?") lack the inversion of most other forms of English. Because of this, there is also no need for the
auxiliary do. •
Relative clauses do not require a
relative pronoun when they modify a noun in the object or in the predicate nominative position. == Vocabulary ==