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A Phonemic And Phonetic Description Of The Speech Of Selected Negro Informants Of South-Central Los Angeles

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A Phonemic And Phonetic Description Of The Speech Of Selected Negro Informants Of South-Central Los Angeles

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Content A PHONEMIC AND PHONETIC DESCRIPTION OF THE SPEECH OF SELECTED NEGRO INFORMANTS OF SOUTH-CENTRAL LOS ANGELES by Joseph Aurbach A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Speech) August 1970 71-25051 AURBACH, Joseph, 1929- A PHONEMIC AND PHONETIC DESCRIPTION OF THE SPEECH OF SELECTED NEGRO INFORMANTS OF SOUTH-CENTRAL LOS ANGELES. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1970 Speech University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan ^ C o p y rig h t by JOSEPH AURBACH 119711 muTo nTecpdtiTTnM T4AC wtcn MTPROFTLMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, CALIFO RNIA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by under the direction of hXS.... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Gradu ate School, in partial fulfillment of require ments of the degree of D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y .JOSEPH.. AURBACH Dean Date.... A u cf u s t 19 7 0 DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Co-Chairm an v Co-Chairman ACKNOWLEDGMENT With sincere appreciation to all those friends who pushed and pulled to see me through. I would like to par ticularly thank Estelle and Jack Peisach, who knew how im portant it was and who knew how to make me work. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Robert B. Kaplan, a friend and col league, whose patience, encouragement, and hard work made this study possible. I would also like to thank Dr. Janet Bolton and Dr. Walter Fisher for their encouragement and suggestions. My gratitude particularly to my mother, who waited longer than anyone to say, "My son the Doctor." 11 For C . E. C. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT..................................... ii LIST OF TABLES.................................... . v Chapter I. INTRODUCTION......................... 1 Background of the Study Statement of the Problem Design of the Study II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE................... 24 III. HISTORICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND DISTRIBUTIONAL BACKGROUNDS .............. 39 The Geographic Area The Questionnaire The Informants The Interviews The Phonetic Transcription IV. THE PRONUNCIATION OF VOWEL PHONEMES......... 57 The Free Vowels in Stressed Syllables The Checked Vowels in Stressed Syllables The Vowels of Weakly Stressed Syllables Summary iv Chapter Page V. THE PRONUNCIATION OF CONSONANT PHONEMES .... 135 The Consonant Phonemes Morphophonemic //-s// and //-z// Summary VI. THE INCIDENCE OF THE PHONEMES....................167 Environmental Differences of Vowel Phonemes Non-environmental Differences of Vowel Phonemes Non-environmental Differences of Consonant Phonemes Summary VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION................ 191 APPENDIXES Appendix A: Glossary..................................211 Appendix B: Informant Data Sheet and Questionnaire ......................... 218 Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of the Informants................................240 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................258 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Phones of / i / .................................. 61 2. Phones of / u / .................................. 66 3. Phones of / e / .................................. 73 4. Phones of / o / .................................. 78 5. Phones of / o / .................................. 82 6. Phones of /al/ ................................ 87 7. Phones of /au/ ................................ 91 8. Phones of /ol/ ................................ 95 9. Free Vowel (Stressed) Summary................. 98 10. Phones of / i / .....................................102 11. Phones of / v / .....................................107 12. Phones of / £ / .....................................Ill 13. Phones of / © / .....................................117 14. Phones of / » / .....................................121 15. Phones of / a / .....................................127 16. Checked Vowel (Stressed) Summary .............. 130 vi Table Page 17. Summary of Frequency Distribution of Vowels..........................................133 18. Generalized Formulation of Significant Consonant Phonemic Variation ................... 160 19. The Frequency Distribution of the Incidence of /£/ Instead of / i / .......................... 169 20. The Frequency Distribution of /i/ Instead of / £ / ..........................................173 21. The Frequency Distribution of /e/ Instead of / £ / ..........................................175 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Background of the Study The discipline of linguistic geography'1 ' has revealed regional dialect differences in the phonological, the lexi cal, and the syntactic structures of a language. The tech niques and procedures of linguistic geography have been developed and applied by European and North American dialect geographers over the last ninety years. Modern dialect "2 geography had its beginnings in 1876, when the German 3 scholar Georg Wenker inaugurated the Deutscher Sprachatlas. "hror the definition of terms necessary for the discus sion of this study, see Appendix A. ^For a bibliography of dialect studies and question naires, see Sever Pop, Bibliographie des Questionnaires Linguistiques (Louvain, 1955). ^Ferdinand Wrede (Marburg, 1927-1956). The maps, which began appearing in print in 1926, were prepared from the nearly 45,000 responses received from German school teachers who were asked to translate forty sentences into their local dialects. 1 2 4 The Atlas Linguisticrue de la France established several innovations in the techniques of data collection and analy sis. Where Wenker had to rely on the skill of each teacher who answered his questionnaire, Jules Gillieron employed a single trained field worker, Edmont, to interview 600 in dividual informants from different communities using a ques- 5 tionnaire of 2,000 items. Commenting on the innovations of Gillieron in linguistic analysis and reconstruction, Gino Bottiglioni has said that: When Gillieron undertook his task he may not have realized the consequences that would come from the study of the materials that Edmont, his wise and tire less cooperator, submitted to him, and that he was sketching in on outline maps of France. However, these consequences became evident soon afterwards, upon the completion of the great work, in the studies of Gil lieron himself and of his most faithful disciples, Jean Mongines and Roques. These studies devoted par ticular attention to phenomena of a psychological nature which had not been considered significant before and stressed expressive peculiarities peculiar to the different social classes, the sexes, and the age groups of the speakers which had been submerged in the levelled neogrammarian studies.^ ^J. L. Gillieron and E. Edmont, 35 parts (Paris, 1902- 1910). ^Raven I. McDavid, Jr., "The Dialects of American Eng lish," in W. Nelson Francis, The Structure of American Eng lish (New York, 1958), Chapter IX, p. 487. 6"Linguistic Geography: Achievements, Methods, and Orientations," Word. X (August-December 1954), 376. 3 The work of Gillieron and Edmont established linguistic geography as a field which could deal with many of the com plicated forms of spoken language. Another innovation in the field was provided by the Swiss linguists Jaberg and Jud when they surveyed urban as 7 well as rural speech in Italy and southern Switzerland. Attempting an accurate and close attention to word meanings, Jaberg and Jud devised three questionnaires. The question naire normal contained 2,000 words and forms and was used in 354 locations in the field; the questionnaire reduit contained 800 questions and was applied in twenty-eight locations, and the questionnaire agrandi contained 4,000 questions and was used with thirty informants (Pop, p. 85) . During the early period when dialect geography was being developed in Italy, Germany, and Prance, relatively little was produced in either England or the United States. In 1889, A. J. Ellis published the fifth volume, On Early English Pronunciation, of his work The Existing Phonology ^See K. Jaberg and J. Jud, Sprach- und Sachatlas Ita- liens und der Sudschweiz, 8 vols. (Zofingen, 1928-1940). A statement of the principles and procedures of their survey may be found in Der Sprachatlas als Forschungsinstrument: Kritische Grundlegung und Einfuhrung in den Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Sudschweiz (Halle, 1928) . 4 of English Dialects (p. 85), and in 1895 and 1905, respec tively, Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary and Eng lish Dialect Grammar were published. Both of these major British studies relied heavily on the work of volunteers who often had little training in linguistics (McDavid, p. 487) . In the United States early dialect investigation was limited, for the most part, to the circulation of question naires, the collection of word lists, and one or two area studies. With the publication of the linguistic atlases in Europe, the development of questionnaires for testing re gional language variations, and techniques for collecting, analyzing, and mapping data, it became apparent that a linguistic atlas of the United States and Canada could be developed. In 1931, under the direction of Hans Kurath, field work, endorsed by the American Council of Learned g Societies, was begun on a linguistic atlas of New England. 9 Other regional studies have also been undertaken, but only ^Because the original estimated cost of an atlas of the United States and Canada was so high, the ACLS recommended experimental work in a limited area first; they approved appropriations for a linguistic atlas of New England includ ing Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. ^Field work has been completed in the Middle and South Atlantic states and the North-Central states; regional 5 the results of the New England survey have been published.'*'0 It has been forty years since the research on the regional atlas projects was undertaken and the study is not yet completed. As Glenna Ruth Pickford pointed out in 1956, a study of such magnitude runs the risk of being obsolete before it is completed.’ * ’’ * " She believed that American lin guists had devoted too much time to geographical dialects and that geography was only one factor reflected in lin guistic variation; "in America it is not the most impor tant ." She wrote: The preoccupation with geography at the expense of other dimensions of dialectal diversity makes one suspect that American linguistic geography originated as a somewhat mechanical imitation of European ap proaches . To put it bluntly, American linguistic studies have also been undertaken in the Upper Midwest, the Rocky Mountain states, the Pacific Coast, Texas, and the Inland South. -*-^Hans Kurath et al., Linguistic Atlas of New England, 3 vols. in 6 (Providence, R. I., 1939-1943). Other works connected with the Atlas which present the techniques of investigation in the United States are: Kurath et al., Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England (Provi dence, R. I., 1939); Kurath, A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1949); E. Bagby Atwood, A Survey of Verb Forms in the Eastern United States (Ann Ar bor, Mich., 1953). "American Linguistic Geography: A Sociological Appraisal," Word, XII (August 1956), 211. 6 geography has expended vast energies in order to supply answers to unimportant, if not to nonexistent questions. (p. 212) However, it was not until recently that the trend in dia lectology has moved toward the study of stratification of 12 social rather than regional differences. When war was declared on poverty in the early 1960's, the study of the language of the economically and socially disadvantaged became an area of great interest to educators, psychologists, and linguists. The chronic language problems of the dialects of the urban Negro became a matter of pri mary concern. Many Negro high school students were years behind white students in educational attainment. The magic piece of paper was not enough for the potential worker. "He must be able to read with comprehension, write with clarity, and count with accuracy if he is to move into the ranks of 13 the employed." Illiteracy, which is defined as less than ■^The first professional meeting at which social dia lects were given serious consideration was a convention of the CCCC1s in 1962 in Chicago. A special conference devoted to the subject was held in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1964, under the sponsorship of the NCTE and the United States Office of Education. A meeting was called in New York City in 1964 by the Center for Applied Linguistics to discuss the problem in Washington, D. C. ^ The Negro Handbook, compiled by the editors of Ebony (Chicago, 1966), p. 129. 7 five years of formal schooling, was disappearing among younger blacks: In 1962 about 97 per cent of the 14-24-year-olds had at least 5 years of schooling and 94 percent of the 25-29- year-olds had a similar attainment. This does not mean that literacy has taken its place. Instead a new being has been created, a functional illiterate. This is a person who has been exposed to schooling but whose ability in the basic skills of reading, writing, and counting do not pass a 6th or 7th grade achievement level. (p. 129) Although the language problems have been apparent for a long time, little attention has been paid until recently to urban Negro dialects, and few systematic studies have been under- 14 taken of Negro speech at all. The speech of the Negro has long been ignored for a variety of reasons. Like George Philip Krapp, many lin guists attempted to show that all phonological and syntactic details of Negro speech could be traced back to English ori gin, that "the characteristics of the American dialect I have found only three systematic studies of Negro speech prior to 1955 : James W. Abel, "A Study of the Speech of Six Freshmen from Southern University (Negro)," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Louisiana State University, 1950); William E. Farrison, "The Phonology of the Illiterate Negro Dialect of Guilford County, North Carolina," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Ohio State University, 1936); and Earl T. Pardoe, "A Historical and Phonetic Study of Negro Dialect," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Louisiana State University, 1937). 8 speech, both Negro and white, are for the most part sur- 15 vivals of older and native elements in the language." Concerning the English origin theory of Negro dialects, Krapp wrote: The Negroes, indeed, in acquiring English have done their work so thoroughly that they have retained not a trace of any native African speech. Neither have they transferred anything of importance from their native tongues to the general language. A few words, such as voodoo, hoodoo, and buckra, may come into English from some original African dialect, but most of the words commonly supposed to be of Negro origin, e.g., tote, •jazz, and mosey, are really derived from ancient Eng lish or other European sources. The native African dialects have been completely lost. That this should have happened is not surprising, for it is a linguistic axiom that when two groups of people with different languages come into contact, the one on a relatively high, the other on a relatively low cultural level, the latter adapts itself freely to the speech of the former, whereas the group on the higher cultural plane borrows little or nothing from that on the lower.16 Another reason for neglect is that it was thought, by some linguists, that the speech of the Negro and the speech of the white on the same social and educational level did not differ radically. Kurath wrote: 15 The English Language in America (New York, 1925), I, 251. 16 "The English of the Negro," American Mercury, II (June 1924), 190. For an elaboration of Krapp's point of view see Cleanth Brooks, Jr., The Relation of the Alabama- Georgia Dialect to the Provincial Dialects of Great Britain (Baton Rouge, La., 1935). 9 By the large [sic] the Southern Negro speaks the language of the white man of his locality or area and of his level of education. But in some respects his speech is more archaic or old fashioned; not un-English, but retarded because of less schooling. As far as the speech of uneducated Negroes is con cerned, it differs little from that of the illiterate white; that is, it exhibits the same regional and local variations as that of simple white folk.-^ And Stewart hypothesized several other reasons for paying little attention to the problem: First, there has been the general attitude, common even among some linguists, that non-standard speech is less worthy of interest and study than varieties of speech with high prestige and social acceptability. As this relates to the speech of Negroes, it has been reinforced by a commendable desire to emphasize the potential of the Negro to be identical to white Amer icans, and accordingly to deemphasize any current behavioral patterns which might not seem to contribute directly to that goal. Where attention has been paid to non-standard Negro speech, much of it has unfortu nately been in the form of amateurish and often racis- tic speculation by the early "authorities," and this has undoubtedly discouraged many reputable linguists from specializing in the area. Lastly, respect for the feelings of Negroes themselves has probably played a part in discouraging the study of Negro speech. For, as it is quite understandable, many Negroes (par ticularly educated ones) are somewhat sensitive about ■^A Word Geography of the Eastern United States, p. 6. That some investigators do not consider Negro speech a "dis tinct entity" may be seen in Donald J. Lloyd and Harry R. VTarfel, American English in Its Cultural Setting (New York, 1956), p. 18. For a discussion of the Gullah dialect, found only in the Sea Islands and the low country of South Caro lina and Georgia, as distinctive Negro speech see Lorenzo D. Turner, Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (Chicago, 1949) . 10 any public focus on distinctively Negro behavior, par ticularly if it happens to be that of lower class Negroes. In some cases, this attitude may stem from a belief that such studies, where unmatched by com parable ones of the behavior of educated Negroes, might well encourage old stereotypes about the Amer ican Negro by giving an incomplete picture of the cultural range which he represents. In other cases, the same attitude may betray a feeling of insecurity in individuals who themselves have made an incomplete transition from a lower class, non-standard speech background, and who may accordingly feel threatened by any evidence of the proximity of behavior which they worked very hard to leave behind. Investigation of Negro speech as a "distinct entity" was initiated in the early 1960's. Contemporary linguists, unlike their predecessors who utilized adult informants, turned their attention to the speech of the urban Negro child. Stewart believed that basilect patterns were largely restricted to young children and that research in this area 19 would prove to be the most beneficial. J. L. Dillard, •*-®William A. Stewart, "Urban Negro Speech: Socio- linguistic Factors Affecting English Teaching," in Social Dialects and Language Learning, ed. Roger W. Shuy (Cham paign, 111., 1964), p. 13. Examples of the amateurish ap proach to Negro speech are the "lazy tongue," "flatnose," and "thick lip" theories of the existence of a Negro dia lect. •^Stewart, p. 15, defines acrolect as the topmost dia lect in the sociolinguistic hierarchy and structurally quite close to the General American dialect of many educated whites; basilect is the other extreme, or the lowest dialect in the sociolinguistic hierarchy. 11 agreeing that the study of the speech of younger children would be valuable, wrote: The theoretical issue thereby raised is a considerable ones is it a general linguistic condition, or perhaps a special characteristic of this dialect, that archaic forms are preserved longer in the speech of children than elsewhere? Obviously, a linguistic study which focuses on the speech of children will be much more relevant to the educational world than the older stud- • 0 0 les which utilized adult informants. The Negro ghetto child comes to school using a language system which is different from the system of the middle- class white child. The lingua franca of the classroom is standard English; it is the dialect used to teach reading, spelling, writing, and speaking. Standard English has never been completely described by linguists; Charles Carpenter Fries defined standard English as a set of language habits in which the major matters of the political, social, economic, educational and relig ious life of this country are carried on. To these language habits is attached a certain prestige, for the use of them suggests constant relations with those responsible for the important affairs of our communi ties . It is this set of language habits . . . which is the "standard" not because it is any more correct or more beautiful or more capable than other varieties of English; it is standard solely because it is the 20"The English Teacher and the Language of the Newly Integrated Student," Teachers College Record. LXIX (Novem ber 1967), 116. 12 particular type of English used in the conduct of the important affairs of our people. It is also the type of English used by the socially acceptable of most of our communities, and insofar that it is true it has become social or class dialect in the United States. And Virginia French Allen defined standard English as "the kind of English habitually used by most of the educated 22 English-speaking persons in the United States." Non- 23 standard English is a code whose basic patterns include ^ American English Grammar (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1940), p. 13. O O "Teaching Standard English As a Second Dialect," Teachers College Record, LXVIII (February 1967), 355. The term "standard English" should not be confused with the term "General American." General American is used to differen tiate regional dialects; the country is divided into three mutually exclusive dialect areas, Eastern, Southern, and General American. General American, then, is a regional and not a social classification. ^Non-standard is the term most linguists have adopted to refer to the speech of the Negro as a "distinct entity." The term has been almost universally adopted, and NNS is used to refer to Negro non-standard English. Recently, how ever, the term Black English has also come into use. Non standard is not to be interpreted as the older phonological term "substandard." Claude M. Wise wrote in Introduction to Phonetics (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1958), p. 189: "Since the standard speech of any region has been defined as the cultivated speech of that region, substandard may be defined as uncultivated. More accurately, the term sub standard applies to specific pronunciations that do not measure up to standard, rather than to an individual's speech as a whole. Actually, the speech of a given individ ual may be in large measure at standard level, with only a few words pronounced in a substandard way." 13 some of the phonology, vocabulary, and grammar of standard English, but also includes some items derived from other sources. Those children who speak non-standard English have a serious problem in the classroom learning to read and •4 - 24 write. Educators, psychologists, and linguists have developed differing theories concerning the language of the urban Negro child. Educators and psychologists have viewed such language as both "true verbal destitution" and "unconcep tualized experience and underdeveloped language." Many linguists have termed it "full but non-standard development" 25 of language. Early research has substantiated the 24 See William Labov, Paul Cohen, and Clarence Robins, "A Preliminary Study of the Structure of English Used by Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City," Coopera tive Research Project No. 3091, mimeographed paper (New York City, 1965), hereinafter cited as Labov, "A Preliminary Study," and Labov, "Some Sources of Reading Problems for Negro Speakers of Nonstandard English," in Teaching Black Children to Read, ed. Joan C. Baratz and Roger W. Shuy (Washington, D. C., 1969), pp. 29-67. This paper was first presented at the NCTE Spring Institute on New Directions in Elementary English in Chicago, March 1966. A shorter ver sion of the paper is reprinted in New Directions in Ele mentary English, ed. A. Frazier (Champaign, 111., 1967), pp. 140-167. 2^See Alexander Frazier, "A Research Proposal to De velop the Language Skills of Children with Poor Back grounds , " in Improving English Skills of Culturally Differ ent Youth, ed. Arno Jewett et al. (Washington, D. C., 1964), viewpoint of the linguist that: 14 A non-standard variety of English is neither "in complete" nor "fragmentary," nor is it a debased and corrupted version of the standard English that is the necessary goal of instruction. It has a grammar of its own, as systematic as the grammar of standard English. The implications of "system" in language are most important. For example, a non-standard speaker is not perversely and stupidly "mixing up the tenses" of standard Englishj he may have a quite dif ferent system through which he expresses various dis tinctions which may coincide with those made by the system of standard English. It is because his lan guage is so systematic, and so deeply ingrained through constant practice, that it does not yield to piecemeal "correction" which violates the system and thus seems to the child to violate common sense. Confusion is compounded when the non-standard speaking child is faced with written forms of the standard language that do not correspond in any simple way to what he is accustomed to hear and say. Careful consideration needs to be given to the possibility of first acquiring standard spoken language as a more manageable bridge to standard written language. 26 Joan C. Baratz estimated that "upwards to [sicl 95% of the children in the black ghetto speak Negro non-standard, pp. 69-79, and Joan C. Baratz, "Language in the Economically Disadvantaged Child: A Perspective," ASHA, X (April 1968), 143-145. Baratz refuted the schools of thought that treat the speech of the Negro as "a retardation of acquisition of language." She said that "the children in many instances were learning forms that do not appear in standard English." 26"District of Columbia Urban Language Study Project Description," mimeographed paper from the Center for Applied Linguistics (Washington, D. C., 1965), p. 4. 15 with about only 15% of that 95% being more or less bilin- 27 gual— i.e. speaking both standard and Negro non-standard." Thus, not only did some linguists think they were dealing with a distinct language system, they also assumed that they were dealing with one non-regional, fairly universal dia lect, brought about in great part by linguistic swamping with the massive migration of Negroes to the North and West Coast from the Southern Atlantic and Gulf states. According to Stewart, "extremely heavy migration may cause linguistic swamping, with the result that even native-born persons may 28 come to have the same type of speech as the immigrants." In answer to those who thought that the speech of the Negro in urban centers was nothing more than substandard Southern 29 30 dialect removed from the South, both Bailey and Loflin 27"The Language Teacher and the Disadvantaged: Testing and the Negro Speaker of Nonstandard English," mimeographed paper from the Center for Applied Linguistics (Washington, D. C., n.d.), p. 6. 28»FOreign Language Teaching Methods in Quasi-Foreign Language Situations," in Non-Standard Speech and the Teach ing of English, ed. William A. Stewart (Washington, D. C., 1964), p. 8. OQ Beryl Loftman Bailey, "Toward a New Perspective in Negro English Dialectology," American Speech, XL (October 1965), 171-177. Of) , JUMarvm D. Loflm, "A Note on the Deep Structure of 16 analyzed the deep structure of Negro speech to demonstrate that it differed from the other dialects of English. Al though they agreed that Negro speech was a "distinct entity" separate from other dialects of English, some linguists be lieved that more than one dialect was involved in the analy sis of Negro non-standard speech. As Kaplan stated: The title of the seminar ["Is the Purpose in Teaching English Usage to Eliminate Nonstandard Forms or to Add to the Child's Linguistic Repertoire?"], as well as the general usage, seems to obscure semantically one fairly important issue. The use of the term "nonstandard" in the title seems to imply the existence of one identifi able dialect which is significantly at variance with an implied single "standard" dialect. Nothing could be further from the truth. The spoken "standard" of Pro fessors McDavid and Shuy should have demonstrated at least the latter point adequately. (Italics mine.) The problem of one universal dialect as opposed to a variety of non-standard dialects is still to be solved by research. Regardless of the outcome of such research, the Nonstandard English in Washington, D. C.," Glossa, I (1967), 26-32. ■^Robert B. Kaplan, "On a Note of Protest (in a Minor Key): Bidialectism vs. Bidialectism," College English, XXX (February 1969), 386, reprinted under corrected title "On a Note of Protest (in a Minor Key): Bidialectism vs. Bi- dialecticism," in "Linguistic-Cultural Differences and Amer ican Education," special Anthology Issue of The Florida FL Reporter, VII (Spring-Summer 1969),'84, 165. 17 difficulty remains that the child speaks an oral code that has no written tradition. That the speech of the Negro is "different" from the speech of the white middle class is readily discernible, although the phonology, vocabulary, and grammar are similar to the speech of the middle class. Bailey asserted that one of the serious problems was en countered in the phonology of the language. "As far as the sounds go," she wrote, "they do not in themselves present too great a problem; rather the distribution of individual 32 sounds create difficulty." Raven McDavid suggested that variance in pronunciation, which is.obviously characteristic of a minority group, produces unfavorable reactions from the 33 dominant culture. And Pederson concluded that phonologi cal differences alone could be injurious when the Negro com municated with his white neighbors, "for his non-standard allophones may have the effect of a foreign brogue which serves to identify him as a suspicious one, if not an 32"some Aspects of the Impact of Linguistics on Lan guage Teaching in Disadvantaged Communities," in On the Dia lects of Children, ed. A. L. Davis (Champaign, 111., 1968), p. 16, reprinted from Elementary English. XLV (May 1968), 570-578. 33 "Dialect Differences and Social Differences in an Ur ban Society," in The English Language in the School Program, ed. Robert F. Hogan (Champaign, 111., 1966), p. 194. 18 34 outright invader." Many linguists agree that speech is fundamental to other language skills. Speech is also an element in ability to listen, and listening is modified as speech learning changes. In "The Goals for Culturally Different Youth," Lou LaBrant pointed out that today's linguists are agreed that language develops on a basis of the oral, that spoken forms eventually determine written. And attacking writing, he said, without changing speech, is to wo£k*at a super ficial kind of learning which can only be indifferently 35 effective m the expression of individual ideas. He stated: Recently at Dillard University, a Negro college in New Orleans, representative freshmen were tested carefully. Speech recordings were analyzed by an expert in pho netics and writing was analyzed by two competent stu dents of written English. In the diagnosis of 44 stu dents, only 1 student showed a difference between oral and written expression; that is, the speech instructor was able to predict the language errors the students would make in writing while the writing experts pre dicted accurately the general speech problems of the 34Lee A. Pederson, "Non-Standard Negro Speech in Chi cago, " in Non-Standard Speech and the Teaching of English, ed. William A. Stewart (Washington, D. C., 1964), p. 21. 33In Improving English Skills of Culturally Different Youth, ed. Arno Jewett et al. (Washington, D. C., 1964), p. 24. 19 writers. This is an impressive finding when one remem bers that these students had had 12 years of instruction in reading and writing, but very little if any in speech. Despite rules and examples, speech— home speech— domi nated. (p. 24) That the problem of Negro dialect merits investigation may be ascertained in the writings of several noted lin guists . Labov has written: No systematic studies have been made of the language of the Negro children, and most discussions are based upon folk literature, subjective impressions and social stereotypes. It is not sufficient to describe such an underlying structure by listing a few deviant phrases, or a few "mistakes" in pronunciation; to analyze this problem, it is necessary to have a systematic descrip tion of the sound pattern used by Negro children in the urban areas being studied . . .36 That we cannot assume Negro dialect to be a universal dia lect was also pointed out by Labov: The first task of the linguist in any community is a descriptive one. There is little to say about educa tional problems, or motivation, or interference, until one can give an account of the linguistic behavior of the native speakers of the particular speech community in question. From the evidence brought forward in the present conference, we know that there are striking similarities in the linguistic problems that have arisen in many different cities across the United States. Nevertheless, we can take nothing for granted in ap proaching the language of Detroit, or Wilmington, 36"A Preliminary Study," p. 4. 20 37 or Newark: . . . And finally, Kaplan observed that it is necessary for linguists to provide accurate phonological and syntactic descriptions of non-standard dialects, "in order to provide a base from which pedagogical strategies may be developed to reduce the tension with standard dialects" (p. 388). Statement of the Problem The purpose of this study was to analyze the dialect (s) of the English spoken by a sample of the disadvantaged Ne groes in South-Central Los Angeles and to describe certain 38 phonological features of their speech. While this is not a comparative study employing undefinable "native speaker" controls, it does attempt to describe those phonological features unique to such a dialect, if indeed it can be demonstrated that the dialect exists. The following ques tions were to be answered: 1. Assuming that the speech of the disadvantaged Negro is at least one "distinct entity, " what is the phonemic 37"Stages in the Acquisition of Standard English," in Social Dialects and Language Learning, ed. Roger W. Shuy (Champaign, 111., 1964), p. 99. 38The delimitations of the geographical area of this study are discussed in Chapter III. 21 structure of the speech of the Negro in this area? 2. What is the allophonic distribution within this dialect (s)? 3. Are the features of this Negro dialect(s) consist ent; that is, do they constitute a sub-dialect or are they random or individual (i.e., idiolectal) in occurrence? 4. If these features are consistent, are they exclu sively local, or do they characterize a dialect form of wide geographic distribution or specific regional character? 5. Does the duration of residence within a given speech community tend to alter the characteristics or the distribution of the speech? Design of the Study A federally-funded NDEA Institute for teachers of Eng lish as a Second Language or English as a Second Dialect, grades K-12, was held at the University of Southern Cali fornia during the summer of 1967. As one aspect of the course work in the Institute, the fifty-four participants were trained in field methods in linguistics. This course in field methods in linguistics was taught by the investi gator of this study. The standard field methods in lin guistics employ a questionnaire designed to evoke examples 22 39 of typical linguistic data from informants. The participants were trained in the methods of elicit ing responses from informants, and the data were tape- recorded during the interviews for the purpose of analysis. The data gathered during the interviews were tran scribed in close phonetic transcription and then collated and interpreted by the author to determine the phonetic and 40 allophonic distribution of the speech of the informants. The analysis included the pronunciation of the checked and free vowels and vowels of weakly stressed syllables, the pronunciation of the consonant phonemes including consonant clusters, and the incidence of the phonemes in the speech of the informants. Subsequent analysis determined the answers to the questions raised under the statement of the problem. Until approximately 1965, there was a dearth of mate rial which dealt with the speech of the Negro in the United States. Although many linguists have turned their attention to the problem, much of the material which has appeared is speculative, and a great deal of it is based on •^The questionnaire, informants, and interview proced ures are discussed in Chapter III. ^The phonetic system used in this study is described in Chapter III. 23 "conversations overheard on street corners and buses." Few systematic studies have been undertaken which describe the speech patterns of the Negro— the first step necessary in order to deal with the problem. This study attempts that first step. However, a brief review of the available lit erature is necessary. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Prior to 1965, when linguistic theories concerning Negro speech as a "distinct entity" began to appear, two dissertations surveyed social dialects in urban areas. Both studies employed all Negro populations as informants.'1 ' The first of these studies was undertaken in 1953 by George N. Putnam and Edna M. O'Hern at Catholic University in -^When the Linguistic Atlas was undertaken, the great majority of communities which were designated to be studied were rural communities. For studies which indicate the feasibility of describing speech in delimited urban areas see: Frederick Brengleman, "American English Spoken in the Puget Sound Area of Washington," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Uni versity of Washington, 1957); Yakira Hagalili Frank, "The Speech of New York City," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of Michigan, 1948); Allan Forbes Hubbell, The Pronunciation of English in New York City (New York, 1950); David DeCamp, "The Pronunciation of English in San Francisco," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of California, 1953); Janet B. Saw yer, "A Dialect Study of San Antonio, Texas: A Bilingual Community," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of Texas, 1957). 24 25 2 Washington, D. C. The study was divided into two parts: a description of a dialect spoken by a group of urban Ne groes whose social status was extremely low, and an investi gation of the significance of this dialect as a mark of social status. The area of investigation was limited to an inhabited Washington alley which comprised a known popula tion of eighty-eight adults over eighteen years of age. The investigators succeeded in interviewing seventy-four persons or 84 per cent of the known population of the alley (p. 4). Putnam and O'Hern concentrated on the feature of the in formants' speech which seemed to them most distinctive— the segmental phonemes. Only exploratory studies were made of the suprasegmental phonemes, of morphology, syntax, and lexicon of the speech of their informants (p. 4). The pho netic analysis was based on free conversation elicited from their informants and transcribed on the spot. To verify their findings the investigators tape-recorded the speech of five informants. Each informant was asked to record a list of thirty sentences. They were also to identify a set of thirty-five simple object-pictures, to discuss a set of 2 "The Status Significance of an Isolated Urban Dia lect, " supplement to Language, XXXI, iv, pt. 2 (1955). 26 thirty-five emotional situation-pictures, and to retell, after hearing it read, one of Aesop's fables, The Lion and the Mouse (p. 7) . To test the social status of the dialect of their test population, the investigators asked a group of judges to indicate the social status of twelve speakers, three of them from the test population and nine of them from outside the test population. The speakers were all Negro, and the specimens were arranged in random order (p. 5) . Putnam and O'Hern concluded that: The dialect differed most strikingly from Standard English in its phonetic features. The mid-front and -back and low-front and -back vowel phonemes included deviant allophones, and spectrographic evidence showed a general tendency to centralize the vowels . The diphthong phonemes also included deviant allophones, and many included at least sporadic undiphthongized allophones. The consonants were characterized by great weakening. Among the non-phonetic features, only verb morphology appeared to be very distinctive. Thus the difference between the alley dialect and Standard English seemed to be confined rather strik ingly to a limited range of linguistic phenomena. . . . the most remarkable result of the study was the discovery that untrained judges could rate the social status of speakers so accurately after listen ing to a very short speech selection in the absence of all irrelevant cues. The importance of speech as a mark of social status . . . is a matter of great social significance. It is known that speech habits are not easily altered; and phonetic speech features, which proved to be most dis tinctive of social status, are probably more resistant to change than non-phonetic speech habits. (p. 29) The second of the studies completed prior to 1965 was 27 conducted in Memphis, Tennessee by Juanita Virginia William son. She began with the premise that the speech of the Ne gro was not a "distinct entity" and did not differ materi ally from that of whites from the same economic and educa tional level as that of the Negro. She wrote: Certain characteristics, however, continue to be assigned to the speech of the Negro. Statements that certain pronunciations are believed to be the specific property of Negro speech are frequently made. Such statements are usually impressions rather than obser vations based on systematic investigation. The compar isons of the speech of the Negro and that of whites have too frequently juxtaposed the speech of the cultured white of an area with that of the least privileged and least sophisticated Negro. A uniformity, moreover, which exists no more in reality than it does in the speech of the white speakers of an area is often at tributed to the speech of the Negro.3 The study in Memphis was limited to a description of segmental phonemes, their occurrence in the speech of both the educated and those who had little or no formal educa tion, and to certain features of the morphology (p. 2). The instrument used for the investigation was the short work sheets designed for the Linguistic Atlas of the United O J"A Phonological and Morphological Study of the Speech of the Negro of Memphis, Tennessee," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of Michigan, 1961), p. 1. 28 4 States and Canada. Twenty-four Negro informants * ranging in age from twenty-seven to eighty-four years, were used in the Memphis study. All except one of the informants were native Memphians whose parents were born either in Memphis or in the adjacent sections of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama (p. 3). The classification of informants basically followed the three-level classification used for the Lin guistic Atlas of New England. Williamson concluded that: On the phonological level distinctive features of the speech of the Negro of Memphis are to be found pri marily on the subphonemic level and in the incidence of the phonemes. The phonemic system does not differ very greatly from that of other dialects of American Eng lish. (p. 100) Her conclusions concerning the phonetic structure of the speech of the Negro in Memphis were in opposition to the conclusions of Putnam and O'Hern, who concluded (p. 29) that ^Williamson made a number of modifications in the work sheets . For a discussion of the classification of inform ants used in the Atlas and the modifications made by Wil liamson see Chapter III. Hans Kurath wrote in the Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England, p. 148, that the short word list included "the most important key words [of the long work sheets], providing in outline a complete body of material on the informant's pronunciation and selected features of his vocabulary and grammar." Frank, in "The Speech of New York City," had shown the possibility of using Atlas records in an urban metropolitan area. 29 the dialect of the Washington Negro differed most from standard English in its phonetic and allophonic features. Williamson's study is probably the most significant early work to deal with the speech of the Negro. It un doubtedly set the parameters for later theories dealing with Negro dialect in urban areas in the sense that subsequent studies had either to accept or repudiate her findings. A number of other studies have employed Negro inform ants either as part of the population under investigation or as the entire population. In 1958, Howren used the tech niques and procedures of the Linguistic Atlas to study the speech of both Caucasians and Negroes of Louisville, Ken- 5 tucky. In a population of fifteen primary informants and six supplementary informants he included five Negroes as primary informants and one Negro as a supplementary inform ant. Howren1s purpose was to describe the phonology, mor phology, and lexicon of the dialect of Louisville and to "discover what Eastern dialect elements are found in Louis ville speech, and in what approximate proportions" (p. xvi) . His interest in the social distribution of the speech of his 5 Robert Ray Howren, "The Speech of Louisville, Ken tucky, 1 1 unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Indiana University, 1958). 30 informants was secondary. In a phonological study in metropolitan Chicago,^ Pederson had eight Negroes among his fifty-five primary in formants and twenty-eight Negroes among his subsidiary in formants . The primary informants were interviewed with the Atlas questionnaire and the subsidiary informants with a phonological check list (p. 53) . Based on an analysis of the speech of his informants, Pederson concluded that the speech of the Negro was characterized by the range of its variation in both the pronunciation and the alternation of phonemes. The major difference between Negro and Caucasian speech existed in the different patterns of phonetic dis tribution and in the frequency of occurrence of those fea tures. "The non-exclusive features of Negro speech are used by most young Negroes, irrespective of education or social class," he wrote, "whereas, in Caucasian speech, these fea tures correlate closely with age, education, social class, and regional ancestry" (pp. 187-188). In 1964, William Labov completed a detailed g Lee A. Pederson, "The Pronunciation of English in Metropolitan Chicago: Vowels and Consonants," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of Chicago, 1964). Hereinafter cited as Pederson, "The Pronunciation of English." 31 sociolinguistic study of the Lower East Side of New York 7 City. His purpose was to obtain quantitative measures of the social stratification of language in New York City. Working from the premise that phonological behavior was not amorphous but the most highly structured aspect of language, Labov selected five phonological variables which showed con siderable social significance in the differentiation of speech styles and speakers (pp. 47-49). He selected the Q presence or absence of final or preconsonantal (r) in words such as car or card, the vowel (eh) in words such as bad, bag, and ask, the vowel (oh) as in caught, talk, and dog, and the consonants (th) and (dh) as in thing and then as the five phonological variables to examine (pp. 50-55). Labov then isolated four major dimensions in the speech of New Yorkers to determine the stratification of speech levels. He isolated stylistic variation, socioeconomic variation, ^The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Washington, D. C., 1966). Negroes were one of the ethnic groups represented in the study but not a major portion of the population examined. ®These are phonetic symbols developed and used by Labov in his study. Corresponding phonetic symbols in the Inter national Phonetic Alphabet are: [r], [m], [o]j [0]* and [3]. These are similar to the Trager-Smith symbols. 32 ethnic variation, and variation through age levels of the population. 9 Based on the findings in his study in New York City, Labov, along with Paul Cohen and Harold Robins, conducted a preliminary study of the speech of the Negro in New York to determine "the specific phonological and grammatical differ ences between speech systems . . . through the systematic study of linguistic variation" (p. 11). The investigators adopted the sociolinguistic techniques which Labov had used in his earlier study and conducted seventy-five exploratory interviews in Harlem and twenty-five supplementary inter views in Cleveland, Philadelphia, and St. Helene Island, South Carolina (p. 11). One of the major goals of this pre liminary research was to isolate the chief linguistic vari ables responsible for structural conflict between non standard English and standard English as taught in the classroom (p. 27). As Labov had done in his earlier study, The Social Stratification of English in New York City, these researchers concerned themselves primarily with phonological variables in the speech of their informants. A more recent study conducted in Baltimore drew its q "A Preliminary Study." 33 population from four inner-city elementary schools located in the most depressed socioeconomic areas of the city."^ The test population was composed of both Caucasians and Negroes and focused on the ability of the subjects to re produce standard English utterances under controlled condi tions . The study did not attempt a description of the lan guage pattern of the population. The investigators con cluded that the ability to repeat cannot be assumed; it must by "systematically developed at an early stage in any train ing materials in Standard English" (p. 23) . Another study which dealt with the syntactic elements of non-standard English was undertaken by Kenneth R. Johnson in Los Angeles.^ Johnson's purpose was to determine whether an English program employing second-language teach ing methods would be more effective in teaching grammatical elements of standard English to Negro students than a pro gram employing the traditional first-language English l°Catherine Garvey and Paul T. McFarlane, A Preliminary Study of Standard English Speech Patterns in the Baltimore City Public Schools, Report No. 16 (Baltimore, 1968). "A Comparison of Traditional Techniques and Second Language Techniques for Teaching Grammatical Structures of Standard Oral English to Tenth-Grade Negro Students Who Speak a Nonstandard Dialect," unpub. Ed.D. diss. (University of Southern California, 1968). 34 teaching techniques. He attempted to determine whether the students who were taught by second-language techniques had fewer non-standard grammatical deviations in their oral lan guage than students who were taught by the traditional Eng lish program (pp. 7-8). The study was limited to sixty-seven tenth-grade Negro students who attended a high school in South-Central Los Angeles and were considered, by Johnson, to be speakers of non-standard English. Only grammatical elements of the lan guage were considered; phonological elements were not taken into account. Johnson recorded and transcribed speech sam ples for each student at the beginning and at the end of the program. An experimental program, "Standard Oral English," which employed the second-language techniques of pattern- practice, plot drills, audio-discrimination drills, and audio-lingual techniques, was used in the classroom (p. 132). The sixty-seven students were divided into three experimental groups. Group I received an extended program of standard English taught by second-language techniques; Group II received a concentrated version of the program; and the Control Group was taught the regular English program (p. 133). At the end of the experimental program, a com parison of the groups indicated that the experimental groups 35 had a lower incidence of deviations in their post transcriptions than the Control Group (p. 134) . Johnson concluded that second-language techniques were significantly more effective than traditional techniques for teaching standard English to students who speak a non-standard dia lect (p. 137). Johnson's study, while it is extremely interesting, does fall into the group of studies which attempt to evalu ate two or more methodologies against each other. Like other such studies, Johnson's suffers from the fact that such comparisons are not likely to be broadly valid; that is, if a particular methodology is intended to stress spoken language rather than written language, then the students taught by that method are likely to learn spoken language to a greater degree of proficiency than they are likely to learn written language. To put it another way, it is a truism of education that students learn what they are taught. Johnson's study does not necessarily demonstrate the superiority of any particular technique so much as it reinforces the truism. 12 The most recent systematic study of Negro speech to 19 , A completed study not available for examination at 36 be considered is a pilot investigation of the language of black children in rural northern Florida by Susan H. Hous- 13 ton. Houston analyzed the speech of twenty-two children between the ages of nine and twelve to provide descriptive information on which to base linguistic programs (p. 599) . Houston termed the language of these children "Unedu cated Child Black English." She defined "Black English" in the following way: The form of language which I have called Black English would traditionally probably be termed a dialect. How ever, this term is used in a number of senses, some of them even pejorative . . ., and therefore is ambiguous. I use the term DIALECT to refer only to regional vari ants of language, rather than to social, situational, or racial linguistic types. In this sense, Black Eng lish and White English are not dialects, although, to be sure, they have dialects or alternative forms of characteristic geographic areas. Instead, they are GENERA of American English: Black English is a genus of English, and so is White English. (pp. 599-600) Based on her analysis of the speech of her informants, Houston presented a phonetic and phonemic inventory of Florida Child Black English and a set of transformational this time was Walter A. Wolfram, "Linguistic Correlates of Social Stratification in the Speech of Detroit Negroes," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1969). "A Sociolinguistic Consideration of the Black English of Children in Northern Florida," Language, XLV (September 1969), 599-607. 37 14 descriptive rules for the phonology of the speech. Unlike Williamson, she concluded that Black and White English differ principally in phonology; she found few major morpho- syntactic differences between the two. On the question of assigning particular features to either phonology or syntax, she determined that differences between Black and White Eng lish should be treated as phonological where possible, since We expect variants of a language to differ in sur face rather than in base structure; phonological diver gence involves a less sweeping claim than syntactic. One would want to see, too, whether a few very general phonological rules might solve not only the problem in question but also other dubious items. . . . A full description of the base component of Child Black Eng lish should not differ appreciably from that of Child White English. (p. 603) Few systematic studies of the speech of the Negro have been undertaken by linguists up to the present time. Schol ars involved with the entire problem of Negro dialect have not been able to agree on the level of significant distinc tions in Negro speech. Some linguists conclude that Negro •^The impact of transformational-generative grammar upon the field of linguistics cannot be ignored. For recent works dealing with the transformational phonological theory see: Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cam bridge, Mass., 1965), and Chomsky and Morris Halle, The Sound Pattern of English (New York, 1967). My study is principally descriptive; therefore, no attempt will be made to formulate transformational rules. 38 speech is not radically different from Southern speech; other linguists conclude that it is a "distinct entity," but are not in agreement as to whether it is the phonological variants or the syntactic variants that should be examined. The present study is an attempt to examine the seg mental structure among Negro speakers in a densely populated area in Los Angeles on the assumption that the phonological structure constitutes only one significant linguistic phe nomenon that merits investigation in any serious attempts to reach conclusions about the characteristics of Negro non- , , n • x. 1 5 standard Englxsh. In attempting to analyze and describe the speech of a community, an investigator must select a region that is in some way both unified and representative. The unity of the community may be established on a historical, political, or social basis. The Negro has a long history in Los Angeles. That history is essential to an understanding of the present linguistic situations, since it reveals the sociological factors which have given rise to the present situation. ■^Detailed distinctions between this study and its pre decessors is discussed in Chapter III (see pp. 50-53 below) . The unique contributions of this study are discussed in the conclusion. CHAPTER III HISTORICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, AND DISTRIBUTIONAL BACKGROUNDS The Geographic Area The history of the Negro in Los Angeles begins with the founding of the Pueblo on September 4, 1781. Of the eleven families, composed of a total of forty-four persons, who founded the city, two were Caucasian, sixteen were Indian, and twenty-six were Negro.'*" The original place of settle ment was located north of the present Sunset Boulevard and west of what is now Main Street (p. 2). By 1790, nine years after the founding of the Pueblo, the population in Los Angeles had increased to 141 persons of mixed racial back grounds j they were classified as Spaniards, Indians, ■'"Charlotta A. Bass, Forty Years ; Memoirs from the Pages of a Newspaper (Los Angeles, 1960), p. 2. A number of the founders that Bass lists as Negro would be termed mu latto by some historians. 39 40 2 Mexicans, Negroes, mulattoes, and mestizos. When the census of 1850 was taken, only twelve Negroes were counted in Los Angeles. The entire population of Los Angeles at that time was 1,610 persons, and Negroes repre- 3 sented 0.7 per cent of the total population. The fact that the majority of the twelve Negroes were housed with white 4 families would indicate that they were probably servants. In 1860, there were sixty-six Negroes in Los Angeles, and in 1870, their number had grown to ninety-three, 1.6 per cent of the total population of 5,728 (Bond, p. 21). In the 1860's and 1870's, the Negro population was generally distributed over the city and not restricted to any particu lar section. Many of the Negroes either bought or rented small ranches outside the city limits (p. 47). In 1880, the total population in Los Angeles had risen to 11,183; the Negro population was 102. One may 2John Steven McGroarty, Los Angeles from the Mountains to the Sea (Chicago, 1921), I, 135. 3 . . Dorothy Slade Williams, "Ecology of Negro Communities in Los Angeles County: 1940-1959," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Uni versity of Southern California, 1961), p. 58. ^J. Max Bond, "The Negro in Los Angeles," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of Southern California, 1936), p. 46. 41 hypothesize that the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment, and Reconstruction created a population pressure which may account for this sudden rapid growth. By 1890, there were 1,258 Negroes in the city, 2.5 per cent of the total popu lation of 50,395 (p. 22). It was in about 1888 that a spe cific Negro community located at First and Los Angeles Streets had its beginnings (p. 64). The Negro community shortly began to expand south and east in the direction of Central Avenue. Eventually this area was to become the 5 largest Negro community in Los Angeles. As the Negro population in Los Angeles continued to increase, from 2,131 in 1900 to 7,599 in 1910 (p. 20), other predominantly Negro communities began to develop. About 1902, when the Central Avenue area became overcrowded, an other Negro community began to form in the Temple Street area. The Boyle Heights area was predominantly Negro by about 1900 (but in the last twenty years Mexican-Americans have gradually replaced Negroes), and the Holmes Avenue area or Furlong Tract by about 1903. The West Jefferson area c Mignon E. Rothstem, "A Study of the Growth of Negro Population in Los Angeles and Available Housing Facilities between 1940 and 1946," unpub. master's thesis (University of Southern California, 1950), p. 27. 42 became a Negro community in the early 1920's, and the popu lation increased steadily during the Depression. The Watts community developed during the same period as the West Jef ferson area. In recent years, the Negro community has con tinued to expand and new communities have been established and expanded to join with the original Central Avenue area (pp. 30-34). The establishment and growth of Negro communities was the direct result of great influxes of Negroes into Los Angeles throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but World War I gave the population growth even greater impetus. During the war, as European migration to the United States dwindled, the primary source for the un skilled labor force for war production became the Negro. From 1915 to 1918, 500,000 Negroes left the South and mi- g grated to the industrial centers. That many Negroes migrated to Los Angeles is indicated in the great increase in population; in 1920, there were 15,759 Negroes in the city, 2.7 per cent of the entire popu lation of 576,673 (Bond, p. 71). 0 Benjamin G. Brawley, A Short History of the American Negro (New York, 1931), p. 170. 43 In 1930, the city had 1,238,048 people and the Negro population had risen to 38,894, two and a half times its previous figure (Rothstein, p. 21). The great increase in Negro population in Los Angeles caused even further expan sion of the Negro communities as well as ultimate invasion of white neighborhoods. A study of the Negro in Los Angeles up to the period of the 1930's determined that the increases in Negro population were due to immigration rather than to increases in birth rate (p. 22). In the ten-year period between 1930 and 1940, the Negro population increased 68 per cent to 63,744 (p. 22). And, during the second World War, industrial expansion and the need for industrial workers attracted more Negroes than members of any other minority group to Los Angeles to fill the labor shortage. The in-migrating Negroes swelled the already overcrowded Negro communities which had been estab lished in the South-Central area. A special census taken in 1946 indicated a tremendous rise in population in the six years between the 1940 and the 1946 census; the Negro popu lation grew to 133,032, an increase of 108 per cent (p. 22). The decades of the 1940's and the 1950's were marked by unprecedented shifts of population in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Negroes migrated from the rural 44 7 South into the urban centers of the North and West. Be tween 1940 and 1960, while the white population in Califor nia more than doubled, the Negro population increased seven times, from 124,306 to 883,861 (p. 6). The in-migrant Ne groes moved into the substantially segregated areas in Los Angeles. In 1960, of the 334,916 Negroes living in Los 3 Angeles, 93.7 per cent lived in the South-Central district. The special census after the Watts riots in the summer of 1965 revealed that 259,980 Negroes, over one-third of Los Angeles County's estimated Negro population, lived in the 9 ghetto of the impoverished South-Central area. The growth of Negro population in Los Angeles has in creased steadily over the years. Its growth was especially great during the two World Wars, when Negroes in-migrated from the South to fill jobs created by increased production. Another large influx occurred during the 1950's and early ^Negro Californians (San Francisco, 1963), p. 5. ®"Basic Statistics: Negro Population, Los Angeles County," compiled by John Davies, unpub. paper from the Los Angeles Urban League (Los Angeles, January 1967), p. 3. ^Negroes and Mexican-Americans in South and East Los Angeles (San Francisco, July 1966), p. 34. This publication is an analysis of a special United States census taken in November 1965. 45 1960's. The majority of migrating Negroes moved into and still live in the South-Central area of the city. One may hypothesize a number of reasons for the concentration of Negroes in the ghetto area of Los Angeles: this area read ily accepted incoming Negroes; housing was most readily available to Negroes in this area; and Negroes believed that economic conditions in this area were most appropriate to their needs. Since South-Central Los Angeles presently contains approximately 93 per cent of the Negro population of Los Angeles, it was selected as the geographic area for the study of the speech of the Negro in Los Angeles. South- Central Los Angeles is delimited, both by demographers and for purposes of this study, by Western Avenue on the west, Rosecrans Boulevard on the south, Alameda Boulevard on the east, and Olympic Boulevard on the north. Included in South-Central Los Angeles are the Watts, Central, Avalon, Florence, Green Meadows, Exposition, and Willowbrook areas of Los Angeles . The Questionnaire In selecting a questionnaire for the study of the speech in South-Central Los Angeles, a number of 46 questionnaires that had been used in other studies were in vestigated. Of particular interest were the short work sheets used in the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada^ and the questionnaires used by William Labov in New 11 12 York, by Lee Pederson in Chicago, and by the Detroit 13 Dialect Study. 14 15 16 The studies of Howren, Williamson, and Pederson used an adaptation of the short work sheets of the Linguis tic Atlas; each study contained a detailed phonological analysis of the speech of the respective areas in which they were used. Howren did not discuss his adaptations of the ■^The short work sheets were compiled by Alva Lee Davis and Ravin I. McDavid, Jr. in 1949. Copies of the mimeo graphed work sheets may be obtained from the regional of fices of the Atlas Project. See also pp. 27-28 above. ^ The Social Stratification of English in New York City, pp. 589-603. 12"The Pronunciation of English," pp. 197-212. ■^Roger W. Shuy, Walter A. Wolfram, and William K. Riley, Field Techniques in an Urban Language Study (Wash ington, D. C., 1968), pp. 45-55. •^"The Speech of Louisville, Kentucky," p. xix. He did not include a sample of his questionnaire in his study. ^"Speech of the Negro of Memphis, Tennessee," p. 2. She did not include a sample of her questionnaire. 16"The Pronunciation of English," p. 53. 47 questionnaire, while Williamson omitted such items as fort night , twice as good, and whippletree when she found that the informants were unfamiliar with them. She added other items, such as color terms, "which, because of the great diversity of color which exists among Negroes, are often used by the informants" (pp. 2-3). The greatest numbers of changes in the work sheets were made by Pederson for his study in Chicago. His changes were an attempt to focus attention on speech in an urban area. Since his study was carried out in a large urban center and 17 was entirely devoted to phonological analysis, his ques tionnaire of 700 items was used in this study of the speech 18 of the Negro in South-Central Los Angeles. The criticism of the Atlas questionnaire by Raven I. McDavid, Jr., served as an outline for some of the additions Pederson made in his questionnaire. The Atlas work sheets were criticized as having too many items, omitting special 17 The questionnaires of Labov and the Detroit Dialect Study were too limited to use for a phonological study. •*-®For the questionnaire used in this study, see Appen dix B. All items which dealt specifically with the Chicago area were deleted from the questionnaire and place names for the Los Angeles area were substituted. The check-list which Pederson used with his subsidiary informants was not used in the Los Angeles study. 48 vocabularies which were locally significant, placing too much emphasis on rural and small-town culture, and ignoring 19 popular culture. McDavid presented a sample of items he thought should be included in the study of the speech of urban areas: . . . instead of looking for rural relics, we might explore the distribution of peculiar urban vocabulary items, many of them innovations in an urban society. Few items of this kind appear in the Atlas question naire, but one can think of such urban-derived vari ants as the following: a) kerosene, coal oil, lamp oil, carbon oil, paraffin; b) baby carriage, baby cab, baby coach, baby buggy, pram; c) sidewalk, pavement, banquette; d) rubber band, rubber finder; e) parking strip, boulevard, tree lawn, parkway (for what may be described periphrastically as the grass strip between the sidewalk and the curb); f) vacant lot, pririe; [sic] g) political influence, pull, clout; h) neighborhood store, confectionary; i) row house, Baltimore flat, town house k) office building, block; 1) fire house, fire hall; m) highway underpass, subway; n) night-stick, espantoon; o) shoulder of a highway, berm; p) center strip (of a divided highway), median, berm; q) service plaza, service area, oasis; r) viewing (Minneapolis "reviewal")— for the ceremonial display of the result of the mortician's cosmetic technology, as a part of the funeral services; •^"The Second Round of Dialectology in North American English," Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association, VI (Fall 1960), 108-109, quoted in Pederson, "The Pronuncia tion of English," p. 54. 49 s) or such important and complicated everyday lexical matters as the lexicon of the soda fountain and the terminology of cuts of meat. (p. 54) Suggestions from several other linguists served to pro vide other changes in the work sheets (pp. 54-55). The additions, which Pederson found provided the greatest vari- 20 ety of phonological evidence, fell into twelve categories: 1. Parts of the automobile: this section on p. 17 was intended as a substitute for parts of the wagon. . . . 2. Kinds of heating units: p. 19. 3. Terms relative to the highway system: p. 25. 4. Household pets: this section on p. 27 was intended as a substitute for barnyard fauna. 5. Street games: pp. 28-28A. 6. Taboo terms (I): bodily processes and organs of elimination and reproduction, pp. 29-29A, 30-30A. 7. Calls: calls to children were a useful substitute for calls to farm animals, p. 31. 8. Expressions of contempt and disgust: p. 31. 9. Place names: pp. 32-34. 10. Foods: baked goods, p. 35; cuts of meat and kinds of sausage, p. 36; fruits and vegetables not in cluded in the "Short Work Sheets," pp. 38-40. 11. Epithets for ethnic groups: p. 43A. 12. Taboo terms (II): sexual abnormalities, pp. 47- 47A. (pp. 56-57) Since the work sheets are designed to elicit one-word responses or short phrases, a section to elicit free ^Square brackets in the questionnaire in Appendix B designate the additions in the work sheets. Page numbers in this list refer to page numbers in the work sheets. 50 conversation from the informants was added to the Los Ange les questionnaire. The questions which dealt with fighting, accidents, and illness were taken from the Detroit Dialect 21 Study. In addition to the questionnaire, an Informant Data Sheet which was completed by the field worker prior to the interview was also used. The Data Sheet included in formation used to classify the informants, including the informant's name, sex, and age; the informant's address and length of residence in the neighborhood; the informant's birthplace, length of residence in Los Angeles, and place of residence prior to Los Angeles. The Data Sheet also elicited information about the birthplace of the informant's parents; their length of residence in Los Angeles; their 22 residence prior to Los Angeles, and their occupations. The Informants The forty Negro informants for this study were volun teers from two different Teen Posts located in South-Central Los Angeles; one Teen Post was located in Watts and the 23-Shuy et al., pp. 48-49. This addition to the work sheets is included with the questionnaire in Appendix B. ^The informant Data Sheet is included with the ques tionnaire in Appendix B. For short biographies of the in formants see Appendix C. 51 23 second in Green Meadows. The informants lived over the entire geographic area that has heen delimited as South- Central Los Angeles . They ranged in age from eleven to eighteen, and included hoth males and females. This study differs appreciably from the others dis cussed in the manner of classification of the informants. The basis for classifying informants into three types for the Linguistic Atlas of New England was given in Kurath1s Handbook of the Linguistic Atlas of New England: Type I: Little formal education, little reading and restricted social contacts. Type II: Better formal education (usually high school) and/or wider reading and social contacts. Type III: Superior education (usually college), cul tured background, wide reading and/or extensive social contacts. (p. 44) The informants are then further typed according to age: Type A: Aged and/or regarded by the fieldworker as old-fashioned. Type B: Middle-aged or younger, and/or regarded by the fieldworker as more modern. (p. 44) The study of the speech of the Negro in Memphis used this basic classification with some modification. The p O There were origxnally fifty-four informants, one for each participant in the Institute. Fourteen of the inform ants were eliminated from the study because the interview was not completed, or because of age or place of residence. 52 informants in Memphis were placed into categories primarily on the basis of education. Those who had less than an eighth-grade education were classified as Type I; those who had a high school education, Type II; and those who had a college education, Type III. There were also three age classifications: informants above sixty-five were classi fied Type A; informants between forty-five and sixty-five, Type B; and under forty-five, Type C (Williamson, pp. 4-5). The Chicago study expanded the three basic education types into ten categories, and then ranked the informants within each educational class into a social class on the basis of their occupation, source of income, house type, and dwelling 24 area. Since age (eleven to eighteen), educational level (no informant had more than a high school education), and social class (all the informants lived in the segregated ghetto area of Los Angeles), were not important variables in the present study, the informants were classified according to length of residence in South-Central Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a long history of in-migration of the Negro population, and a major variable in the dialects of the ' 24 Pederson, "The Pronunciation of English," pp. 34-37. 53 informants was thought to be the length of residence in South-Central Los Angeles. The informants were randomly- classified into three groups as follows: Group I: Native-born Angelenos: This group was com posed of fourteen informants— seven males and seven females (Nos. 1-14). Group II: Informants who had lived in South-Central Los Angeles for a period of five to ten years: This group was composed of thirteen informants— seven males and six females (Nos. 15-27). Group III: Informants who had lived in South-Central Los Angeles for a period of less than five years: This group was composed of thirteen informants— eight males and five females (Nos. 28-40). The Interviews All interviews were carried out at the University of Southern California. All the interviews were completed in two sessions and lasted from four to six hours. None of the field-workers completed more than one set of work sheets . Tape recorders were set up in separate classrooms, and the field-workers tried to put the informants at ease by talking to them and explaining the entire procedure prior to 54 beginning the interview. The tape recorders did not seem to make the informants ill-at-ease and did not affect the naturalness of the situation. A total of approximately 200 , 25 hours of tape were collected during the interviews. The Phonetic Transcription The phonetic transcription used to record the responses was an adaptation of the transcription used in the Detroit Dialect Study (Shuy et al., pp. 33-34), with additions from the system of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Vowel Chart Front Central Back Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Unrounded Rounded High Lower-high l I u U Mid Lower-mid e e Low Lower-low S3 SB ^The tapes are in possession of the author. Further analysis of the materials is contemplated at this time. Modifications: off-glide Vi ) Vs, vu, vY 55 on-glide wVj yV (strong); uVj 1V (weak) fronted v< backed V> raised VA lowered VV nasalized V (strong); V t (weak) length V* (long); V: (extra long) S tops: Consonant Chart p t k b d g Affricates: v v C 3 Fricatives: f S s s v S z z h Nasals: m n g Lateral: 1 Non-fricatives: w j Retroflex: r Modifications: strongly aspirated ch aspirated Cc unaspirated c unreleased cl 56 retracted C flapped V c voiced Q devoiced c o dental S fronted c< backed c > compensatory lengthening C- (long) % C: (extra long) It is this system which was used to describe the pho nemic structure and allophonic variations of the vowels and consonants of the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles. The description of the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles began with an analysis of the pronunciation of the vowel phonemes, in Chapter IV, and continued to an analysis of the pronunciation of consonant phonemes, in Chapter V, and of incidence and distribution in Chapter VI. CHAPTER IV THE PRONUNCIATION OF VOWEL PHONEMES The pronunciation of the vowel phonemes is discussed in this chapter under three headings: The Free Vowels in Stressed Syllables, The Checked Vowels in Stressed Sylla bles , and The Vowels of Weakly Stressed Syllables. The in cidence of the vowel phonemes will be discussed in a subse quent chapter. The vowel phonemes of the speech of the Negro of South- Central Los Angeles were established on the basis of con trast of minimal pairs. For purposes of this study the vowel phonemes have been classified as: (1) free vowels, those vowels which occur either before a consonant or in a word final position, and (2) checked vowels, those vowels which occur only before consonants.'*' A unitary -*-For a discussion of the free and checked vowels of English, see Hans Kurath, A Phonology and Prosody of Modern English (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1964). 57 58 interpretation of the vowel phonemes, which makes possible the uniting of related phones of both monophthongs and diphthongs into allophonic variations of the same phonemic unit rather than separate sequences of phonemes [el, e, ef], was adopted for this study since the monophthongal phones do not contrast with the diphthongal phones in the speech of 2 the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles. 3 The Free Vowels in Stressed Syllables There are eight phonemes which occur as free vowels in the speech of all the informants of South-Central Los Ange les . They are: /i/ as in three, street, bean /V as in new, suit, tooth A/ as in cake, afraid, April A/ as in coat, post, volk A/ as in moth, fros t, daughter For a discussion of an argument m favor of a unitary interpretation of vowel phonemes rather than a binary in terpretation see Kurath, "The Binary Interpretation of Eng lish Vowels," Language, XXXIII (April-June 1957), 111-122. 3In the tables of phones which follow, a dash (-) in dicates that no response was elicited from the informant or that another response was given. A phone in parentheses (l) indicates a phone substitution. 59 /ai/ as in twice. nine, five /au/ as in house, tower, mouth /o 1/ as in boiled, oil, joined The phoneme /i/ The vowel /i/ of three, grease. street, yeast, cheese, wheat, theatre, greasy, teeth, and bean occurs phonemicaIly in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I, native-born Angelenos, /i/ occurs most frequently as an unrounded high-front long monophthong [i*]. The phone [i-] occurs sixty-two times in the possible 140 responses elicited from the informants in Group I (that is, in 45 per cent of instances). The next most frequent variants are the short monophthongs [i>, iV, i>] j which collectively appear a total number of twenty-seven times in this group (19 per cent of instances). An upgliding diph thong, [ii], occurs twenty-one times (15 per cent of in stances). Other diphthongal variants of this phoneme which occur are [ivi, iv1, iVi, i1, iiv, i^, iV^, i>9], but none of these occur with statistically significant frequency and 4 some appear to be idiolectal. ^This statement may be assumed to apply to such Filmed as received without page(s) 60 UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. to I —* I —1 I —1 I —> I —* I —* I —1 I —1 I —1 I —, O l D ( X ) ' v J C r i L n d 5 » G J t \ J M O l 0 C O ' J ( y > U l 4 s > W t O | - ' M M « ^ p* M p» F- H- H- V • F- • pi- M - p. F- F- < « F- V H- F- P- N t p i - M p i - p i - • p. . p i . . V M M ^ p- M F- F- F- V H- F- F- < ~ < V F- H* F* F- < H- H- H- < - • F- F- F- F- y F- « • • F- F- < • • • H- F- H- H- >- F- F- < F- F- F- F- F- F- F- H- F- F- < F- F- ~ • y f* • h- . y . y . • • • • y • p. F- F- F- F- < F- ~ < F- F- F- F- F- « < V . p. p. < . V • F- F* p. p. _ p. < F- p- • — p. p. • p i - • f t F- I F- p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. y y y . . v . y . p. „ p. p. p. p. „ p. F- V V V F- • F- < F- F- F* F- F- F- « H- < V < • < « F- p. p. * - • V i - i » y I - . p. p. p. p. (Dp. » p. p. p. F- • < F- F- V • p. _ _ p. p. p. • H* H* m * < F- F- F- F- V I £ • ' F- - < V F- « I F- F- < p. i - i i - i V F- F- F- < F- < V F- < F- p. « F- F- F- < p. p. < F- F- F - F- p. p. p. p. < p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. V V V V F- F- * V V * * . < . . p. y . . p. p. p. p. > p. | „ | p- | p. p. p. p. < p. < p. < „ p. p. y F - V F* < • V • • F ‘ • F" • F - F* • • Informant three grease (verb) street yeast cheese wheat theater greasy teeth bean < T i F> PHONES O F /i/ 4 * > CO CO CO U) CO CO CO CO CO CO M to to to to to to to to O 00 •o 01 cn 4 * > CO to p* o < 4 0 00 'O Cl C J 1 4^ CO to PJ M p- p- p- P H • - i • - * P- p- Cl I - I Cl p* P- P- P- p- > p- P‘ p- p- P- • > p- P- ( 0 < P- A p- p- p- P- p- p- H- P- P H p- M < P H H 4 < p- < P- < < < P H < _ p- P- < P- P- < P- p- P- P- p- • p- • p- p- P- p" p- < • P- P- p- p- p- P- P H P H P- p- V M p- p- P- P- < p- P- p- < p- P- p- H- P- p- Q l < < D P- P H P- • • • p- < • • < < • P- P- Cl p- M Cl Cl 1 P- P- P H P H P- _ P H P H p- p- P H P- P H P- p- • P- p- P- > • P- P- p- P- P- < P- • P- P- p- P- 1 p- < p- M P- P- P H P- P- P- < P H P- p- P- P- < P- P- • P- P- • P H H" V < p- P- p- » - < 1 1 < M 1 P- p- 1 p- P- • P- 1 P- P- P- P H P- P- P- P- P H • V • p- • p- $ t • P- p- p- M 1 1 P- M P- H H p- 1 P H P H P H P H t < p- P- P- 1 P- P- C J. P- < P- C J. < P- p- P- p- P H • < P- P- P- P- p- P- p* P- M 1 P- M - < < p- < P- < < < P- 1 P- P- M P H P- t —i P- < p- P H p- < P- P- P H P- P- P- P- < P- P- P- p- V P- • V • < P- Informant three grease (verb) street yeast cheese wheat theater greasy teeth bean 0 1 to TABLE 1— Continued 63 off-gliding triphthong, [ii1], occurs in the word three in the speech of informant 37. Other variants which occur in this group are [i^, iV'S i*i, iV*, iV, i>, i>9, i9, i-1, i1, ivi, i1] . Summary♦— In Group I, then, /i/ occurs most frequently as [i*]j in Group II [i-] and [ii] are of about equal fre quency; and in Group III [ii] is the most frequent allophone of the phoneme /i/. The phoneme /u/ The phoneme /u/ of beautiful, music, shoes, Tuesday, tube, new, suit, spoon, tooth, two, and dues occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I the /u/ phoneme occurs most fre quently as a monophthong. The rounded high-back vowel [u], sometimes [u-] or [u:], occurs eighty-five times in the pos sible 154 responses (that is, in 55 per cent of instances), and the centering or lowered monophthonga1 allophones [u<, uV, u<, «, «•, «<] occur thirty-seven times (24 per cent of instances). The diphthongal allophones which occur sporad ically in the responses are [iu, u<u<, !u, Ivu, uVu, u®<, uAu•, u®, u<u, 9u, *u]. The centering diphthong 64 [u9] occurs before the alveolar nasal in spoon in the pro nunciation of informants 6, 8, 11, and 14. A nasalized monophthong, [u,] or [u], is prosodically limited before the nasal in spoon in the pronunciation of informants 2 and 5. The phoneme /j/ is intruded between /t/ and /u/ in Tuesday in the pronunciation of informants 2 and 7 and in the word tube in the pronunciation of informant 7. The phoneme /j/ is not intruded between /d/ and /u/ in the speech of any informant in this group. Group II.— In Group II /u/ occurs most frequently as a monophthong. Of the 143 responses, the high-back vowel [u], sporadically [u*] or [u:], occurs seventy-one times (in 41 per cent of instances), and the monophthongal allophones [u>, u<, «, u<, u^, ua] occur twenty-nine times (in 21 per cent of instances). The centering diphthong [u9] occurs before the alveolar nasal in spoon in the speech of inform ants 16, 21, and 24. The nasal monophthong [u<] before the alveolar nasal in spoon appears only in the speech of in formant 27 in this group. The phoneme /j/ is intruded be tween /t/ and /u/ in the words Tuesday and tube in the speech of informants 19 and 23, and /j/ appears between /d/ and /u/ in the word dues in the speech of informant 15. 65 A number of positional diphthongs combining allophones of the phonemes /i/ and /u/ are the only ones which appear with any regularity in the responses of Group II. These variants are [iu, iu, is>, *u, *u<, *■& <] . They occur a total number of nineteen times in the elicited responses (in 13 per cent of instances). The other diphthongal vari ants of /u/ are [ju, j«:> u*9, u9, u9<, uu, uvu, «•«, uuV, 0u, «u, uAu]. The triphthongal phones [*UyU] in beautiful and [lu^A] in Tuesday appear in the speech of informant 21, and [iuu>] in music in the speech of informant 27. Group III.— In Group III the /u/ phoneme occurs most often as a diphthong. In the possible 143 responses elic ited from the informants, there are fifty-three occurrences of a diphthong (30 per cent of instances). In Group I, diphthongs occur twenty-seven times in a possible 154 re sponses (10 per cent of instances), and in Group II there are thirty-five occurrences of a diphthong in a possible 143 responses (24 per cent of instances). The diphthongal vari ants which occur in the words beautiful, music, shoes, Tues day, tube, new, suit, spoon, tooth, two, and dues are [u^u>, u^u, u^u, uu, u<u, u<u, w<«, u>u, uu<, u>a, u0, 9u, u9<, ««>, «Att, uVtt, u<«, u<u, u1 *, !»<, lu, !u, lu<, i Vu, it s , *u] . M H U> to O^DfflslWUl^UW c d d l A A A d d I d d d d l p j f d d d d < A A < c > * C A (|!d$|jdddb < ! d d d b d A • A A • ff A A i _ i . < —i i —j . « d d d d d d d d d f c d d d • • • • # • • d d d d d d d d d d d $ d • < A • • • • i d d d d t f d d d i p d d d I d d d d t f i d d d d d d d © • A # d d d d d , d © dt d d d d A © i> © A • i* • ipddd dd dd rt dd dd A A A • ddddd dd tf dd tp dd A A A u i 4 5 » w t o H O v o c o - v i c r i u i i ( s > c C H C C C <A H C cT 0 £ $ £ A C A V A j p C C C C C C C C ^ ^ 4 ^ $ ^ V A A> V t . $ A< > c 3C C CC < C£ t CC C Cf f ■■ ■ A< C A A< £ C C # C «J- « f f « r j - © « © a) A > £ Cl f£ £ $ C j|i | sf d! £ $ £ £ < A A "A I £ ( £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ # # £ A A A A> I CstCdtfCCCCCCCC A A A A A C j c c J C P C G C C f f C i . d C A Ad) © • C • a) © £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ * £ £ £ £ £ A A • •• 19 Informant beautiful music shoes Tuesday tube new suit spoon tooth two dues TABLE 2— Continued ^ U U U W U U U W U W M W o i o a j ^ f l ' u i ^ u M H O v o m dj ►-« m (jj « <V n c - « 0 ^ >V C f C < A A C 0 0 < A C 0 Pi fp V < 0 • c v • - 4 H4 [Ij j|] w w N |H g £ A ip fp A V C # c c S c f f d c J t f c c <fc i pi p: 0 p: < a < d $ a e G > y 4 a V cs 4 i i. ft *- 0 + p: p: fp <$ p: jp <d jp cJ d Jp C C . " A C • > C 0 0 I 0 0 i-i pi ff C 1 5 A > A C p! • (p • * * Pi Pi A Pi C i A fp fp £ fp I ip fp 4 fji Pi I ^ 4 A A c pi p i p i p i p i p i J p i p i J V 1' 0 0\ 0 0 00*0 0 pi 0 >0 p i p i p i y p i ^ p i p i f l i f p p j p i p i 0 0 • 4 • A A A A 5 e * i ? I ■< a -«f 4 C a c e a p 0 Aj> 0 Pi pi > 7 \ ft c <-* p: <± fji > y \ ^ 4 i £ ^ ^ ^ 1 dPi C i 89 Informant beautiful m u s i c shoes Tuesday tube new suit spoon tooth two dues TABLE 2— Continued 69 The high-back vowel [u], sporadically [u*] or [u:], occurs thirty-seven times in this group (in 25 per cent of instances). The monophthongs1 allophones [u, «<, »<*, uV] also occur thirty-seven times (in 25 per cent of instances). The centralized diphthong [u9] in the word spoon which oc curs in the speech of four informants in Group I and three informants in Group II, occurs in the speech of six inform ants in this group; informants 28, 32, 35, 37, 39, and 40 use the centralized diphthong before the alveolar nasal. The nasalized monophthong [ut] or [u], which is limited be fore the nasal in spoon, appears in the speech of informants 30, 34, 36, and 38. Only one informant in this group, 35, has /j/ intruded before /t/ and /u/ in the word Tuesday. However, in the speech of this informant a diphthong occurs after /j/, /jwu/. In Groups I and II where /j/ appears, /u/ occurs as a monophthong. A triphthong occurs in the speech of inform ant 28 in the word music [iuVu] and in the word Tuesday [I«u]. Informant 33 uses a triphthong, in the word Tuesday, and informants 32 and 37 have the triphthong [!u^u] in their pronunciation of the word beautiful. Summary.— To summarize, the pronunciation of the 70 phoneme /u/ occurs most often as [u] in Group I, as [u] in Group II, and as an upgliding diphthong in Group III. The phoneme /e/ The phoneme /e/ of eight, April, bracelet, tomato, pail, cake, Pennsylvania, and afraid occurs in the speech of all the informants of South-Central Los Angeles. Group I.— The upgliding diphthong /ei/, beginning un rounded higher mid-front and gliding up to a lower high- front position, occurs most frequently in the speech of the informants in Group I. In the possible 112 responses [el] occurs thirty-seven times (in 33 per cent of instances). Of less frequent occurrence is an upgliding diphthong, [el-], which glides from the mid-front position to a lower high- central position. This allophone occurs twenty times in the 112 elicited responses (in 18 per cent of instances). Other diphthongal variants which occur in this group are [ei>, eVi, eAl, ei>, eI;>, e1, e>i, ^e, £e>, eV*, eAf, e*] . A centralized diphthong, [e8], occurs before /l/ in pail, in the speech of informants 5 and 11. And /e/ occurs as a monophthong, [e*], in the words eight and April in the speech of informant 8. 71 Group II.— In Group II four upgliding diphthongs are of almost equal occurrence. The upgliding diphthong [£e], be ginning in an unrounded lower mid-front position and gliding up to a higher mid-front position, occurs twenty times in the possible 104 responses elicited (in 19 per cent of in stances). A diphthong, [eVf], which has a lower beginning than [el-], occurs sixteen times in the possible 104 respon ses (in 15 per cent of instances). The diphthongs [el] and [ef] each occur fourteen times (in 13 per cent of instances). The other diphthongal variants which occur in the speech of this group are [£eV, e^, eV^, e>i-, e>b, eA*-, e*- , e>i, e>i, e1] . A centralized diphthong, [e9], occurs before the /l/ in pail in the speech of informants 18 and 25. A monoph thong, [eV], occurs in pail in the speech of informant 22. Informant 19 has [eV] in eight and April; informant 22 has [e] in eight; informant 25 has [e*] in eight, and informant 26 has [e*] in eight, April, and afraid. Group III.— The upgliding diphthong [£e] occurs most frequently in Group III. It occurs twenty-two times (in 21 per cent of instances) in the possible 104 responses elic ited from the informants for the phoneme /e/. The diphthong 72 [eV*-] occurs fourteen times (in 13 per cent of instances) . The diphthong [el] occurs in only five instances in the speech of informant 29, and [ei-] occurs in only four in stances in this group. The other diphthongal variants are [ee^, ee>, eeA, eV5, eAC, e£, e>i-, eA*-, eV*, eV*, e*A, e1", e1^, e1] . A monophthongal phone occurs in ten instances in eight and April in informants 28, 32, 36, 37, 39, and 40. The phones in eight are [e*] in informants 28 and 29, and [e] in informants 32, 36, and 37. The phones in April are [e*] in informant 39, [eV] in informant 40, and [e] in informants 28, 32, and 36. In Group I a monophthong occurs in two in stances in the speech of informant 8, and in Group II it occurs in nine instances in the speech of four informants, 19, 22, 25, and 26. The centralized diphthong [e8] in pail and cake occurs in the responses of informants 32 and 38. This is the only group in which triphthongs occur in relation to the phone /e/. There are twelve instances of triphthongs in bracelet, pail, Pennsylvania, and afraid. Informant 35 has [Ge8] in bracelet and pail: informant 36 has [Ce*"] in the same words j informant 37 had [Ce^] in bracelet and [Ce0] in Pennsylva nia and afraid: informant 39 has [Ce0] in bracelet, pail. to I-* I-1 I-1 1 — 1 H -1 M M f— 1 1 — 1 I-1 O C O 00 05 cn CO to H 6 7 8 9 0 C D C D C D C D 05 C D C D C D C D C D C D 05 C D C D C D ~ < < « C D v< « n > < n C D M » f « 4 > 4 - V * ■ * V V cn C D C D C D 05 C D C D C D C D C D C D 05 C D 05 C D C D < < ~ C D v< ~ * - • > < 'M V C D C D < 4 « + V 4 * V + C D C D C D C D C D c d c d C D C D 05 C D 05 C D 05 C D M ^ M 4 - V > 4 - y “ • •+ C D V> C D • * fr C D + C D C D C D C D 05 C D C D C D C D — C D C D C D — C D - < 4 - < V> C D M « > D • - * — v> 4 - 4 * Q > e e e e 05 C D C D C D e e e C D C D C D C D « < 0 ) • C D l | l M i - h 0 5 M M — V V> C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D C D 4 * •+ 4 - - > v< - « > + • M + ■ + 4 < M v> + C D C D I 1 C D 05 C D C D ] 1 C D C D C D 05 | I C D C D 4 - •+ V M C D v< ~ 4 * • h < M > > - 4 V> C D M IH C D C D (D |! 05 C D C D C D 05 C D C D C D C D C D C D » < < C D » f « M M C D < M » - H t | < M 4 - 4 * V M v> U1 U W H Informant 05 (D C D C D C D ( D M M eight C D C D C D C D C D < « - + < — + + April C D C D C D C D C D M M M M bracelet 05 C D C D C D C D (D M M M M C D C D C D C D C D 0 M M > ) < M tomato pail HO it o B M cn > D* D O is lO C D C D C D C D C D » f « » - 4 M M M cake C D C D C D C D C D Pennsylvania C D C D C D C D C D 4 * + ■ — X afraid CO 4 * > LJ LO CO CO CO LO LO LO LO LO to to to to to to to to to O VO CD cn Ln 4 * « CO to ( - ■ O CD CO cn Ln u> to h - 1 0 ) C D C D C D C D C D © © © ro CO © © © © © © © © ro < • < > < < < © • * « • < • • co < 4 * 4 - CO + 4 * CO 41 C D C D C D C D C D CO © © ro © CO © © © © CO r o r o CO r o < • < © • < * r o < • © < r o < 4 * + CO 4 - P , CO C D CO CO CO © © co © CO © CO © r o r o CO © CO ro V C D + C D C D © > © ro + ro © © < ► + < ro © 4 * * 0 ) < a ) V 4 * © 4 - >V V + • + C D C D C D CO © r o CO CO © CO © CO ro ro ro ro V Q > < a © V M Q © © © > ro * - 4 Q *4 < 4 * + + + 4 * 4 - co C D C D CO CO © © ro ro CO © © © © r o CO ro ro ro < C D a ) < C D © V < © < © > - > ro V> V © ro M • 4 - + a ) < D * * + © ► + + ► f > v >v 4 * + C D C D C D C D CO CO © ro ro i CO ro © © CO ro CO ro CO ro < < © < C D © < < © ro < < ro V< ro ro < + 4 > + + + 4 * * + C D . co C D CO C D CO © CO CO CO CO © i © CO © CO © CO ro < C D + ■ C D C D © > ro © © r o • h © + © M ro 4 * 4 « • © © > 4 - C D . C D C D CO C D ro © CO © CO co © i © © CO CO © ro ro < cn CO C D C D co > © + © © > • r o ro M 4 * C D V> < © V> • + > >v < Informant eight April bracelet tomato pail cake Pennsylvania afraid 75 and Pennsylvania, and informant 40 has [e>*9V] in bracelet and [eVj-8] in pail. Summary.— The /e/ phoneme occurs most frequently in Group I as [el] and [et]; in Group II [£e, eV*-, e*, el] are of about equal occurrence, and in Group III [£ej is the re sponse which occurs most often. Group III is the only one in which triphthongs appear. The phoneme /o/ The phoneme /o/ of ago, coat, post, yolk, shoulder, froze, home, ghost, and hotel occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I, /o/ occurs most frequently as an upgliding diphthong [ou] . The diphthong [ou] begins in a rounded higher mid-back position and glides up to a rounded lower high-back position. Of the possible 126 responses elicited from this group, [ou] occurs forty-two times (in 33 per cent of instances). A diphthong with a short upglide to a higher high-back position, [ou], occurs in fourteen responses (in 11 per cent of instances). The rounded mid-back monophthong [o], or positional variants [o<, oA, o^], occurs under secondary stress in the 76 word hotel. Of the fourteen informants in this group, eleven responded using this monophthong. [o] occurs only sporadically under primary stress in Group I. Diphthongal variants of the /o/ phoneme in Group I. are [o<U<, 0 < U i 0 < u < , O ® , O C U , oU<, oU, O I K , 0 < u V , O U < , ° A U * o U V , O C u V , 0 < U < ] . Group II.— In Group II, /o/ occurs most frequently as the upgliding diphthong [ou]. It occurs thirty-seven times in the possible 117 responses elicited from the group (in 31 per cent of the instances). An ingliding allophone, [o ], occurs in thirteen responses ( 1 1 per cent of in stances ) . The monophthong [o] or the positional variants [ o A j o V , o<, Oy, o^] occurs under secondary stress in hotel, in the speech of seven of the thirteen informants in this group. Under primary stress, the monophthong occurs eleven times in the 117 responses. The mid-back vowel [o] occurs a total number of eighteen times (15 per cent of instances). In this group the diphthongal variants of the phoneme /o/ are [o<tt, ou, o<u<, ou£, o^u, ou<, oU<, ou, o^uv, o<u-<, o<u, °^U<, ou^ o<uA] • Group III.— In Group III the phoneme /o/ occurs most 77 frequently as an allophonic rounded mid-back monophthong [o] ; it occurs in twenty-six responses of the possible 117 (24 per cent of instances). In this group only four inform ants have the monophthong under secondary stress in hotel, the rest of the informants have the diphthong [ou] under primary stress in this word. The off-gliding diphthong [ou] occurs in nineteen re sponses (16 per cent of instances), and the upgliding diph thong [ou] occurs in seventeen responses (15 per cent of instances). The triphthong [ou<9] occurs in the speech of informants 32, 33, 35, and 40 in ago; in coat in the speech of informants 28 and 32; in yolk in the speech of informants 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, and 40; in shoulder in the speech of informant 35, and in ghost in the speech of informant 33. Informant 28 has the triphthong [ou<0] in yolk. The allophonic variants of /o/ in this group are [ott, o0, ou<, oU, 0U<, o<u<, o< u<, ou, o<ua] . Summary.— In Group I the phoneme /o/ occurs most fre quently as the upgliding diphthong [ou] • In Group II, /o/ occurs in 31 per cent of instances as the diphthong [ou] ^ and in 1 1 per cent of instances as the ingliding diphthong [o9]. In Group III, it occurs most frequently as the t v > I —1 I —■ I —1 I —* I —1 I —1 i —1 I —* I —■ I —1 0 <£ > 0 0 ' ' J C T i U l £ > U j r o h - , 0 '£> 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 © <A c c d © c c A> < O © o o o. d e c o o o o o o o o o o o o A <A c e d A e d A G C C e e e A < A 0 0 A A c e A 0 e o c O A c A O 0 0 0 0 0 A I d e c c c >A O O O c < A c A c O O © c O O © d o o < A e e < o e o o A c d o o o de e A o A c 0 c o c o o d c o c o c o o A c c O e O e © O e O e O c o o o c e e A O e o o c c A O d o e O e O e o o A e O O < > O e 0 0 0 <A O A O e no >no >no 00 •v] CTi Ln 4^ U ) to 0 0 O O 0 O 0 0 < d e <A e © <A e A c A c A A 0 0 O 0 0 0 0 0 e d e <A c A <A c A > e A e e A A o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 < e c A A A <A c e c e e A < A 0 0 O O 0 0 O 0 c d e © e d< A c A c A o 0 0 O 0 0 0 o d c e d e c A c A A e o O 0 0 O O O 0 c > A e A c e e e e c A O 0 0 0 0 0 0 i c e < A e c A c A e e A A O o O O O i c d 1 A d e 1 < c A 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 c > A > Ae > A Informant ago coat post yolk shoulder froze home ghost hotel ffl o a H cn O CO £ A< 'J 00 O OJ VO OJ 00 OJ OJ Cv OJ U 1 OJ 4^ OJ OJ OJ to OJ OJ o to VO to 00 to vj to as to < J 1 to 4*. to OJ to to to H Informant 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 C O J C O O J C C C C C A A A A d j a ) © © 0 0 0 0 c < d e 0 0 0 0 0 0 © d © >A c © c A A ago 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 G >A c £ £ A e c c G c c e c c A © > © A 0 0 0 0 0 c C >A A c A coat 0 0 0 G > A c c > O O O G G A O O c o c 0 0 0 0 G c c o c O O O c > A e A post 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 c c c c c c G e e A A A A A A A <D © © © © © © 0 0 0 0 c c c A © 0 0 0 0 0 >A © © c c c > A A > © yolk 0 0 0 © > A c c > — O O > c G © A ^ © O 0 © c 0 0 0 0 G c c O O O O c © C c 0 c shoulder 0 0 0 © c c O O O G G A O O O c A O c O c O 0 c c froze 0 0 0 G >a G c > 0 G O O O © © O c O O O O c © c 0 0 c c O O O c c c A © home 0 G o O c > A A c © A O O O c O O O c c c O c ghost 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 >A >A > >A >A c c > A > A c c c c A c A > A A A O O O O G A c A A O O O O O O < A c >A > A < A > A >A c c A A hotel •'J vd TABLE 4— Continued 80 monophthong [o], and as the upgliding diphthongs [ou] and [oil] (16 per cent and 15 per cent of instances respec tively) . This is the only group in which triphthongs occur in relation to this phoneme. The phoneme /o/ The phoneme /o/ of dog, moth, office, strong, frost, crawl, always, often, and daughter occurs in the speech of all the informants in this study. Group I.— In Group I, /o/ occurs most frequently as a rounded higher low-back monophthong [o], or a somewhat lengthened monophthong [o*]. In the possible 126 responses for this phoneme the monophthong occurs in fifty responses (40 per cent of instances). A lowered monophthong, [oV], occurs in seventeen responses (13 per cent of instances), while a centering monophthong, [o<], occurs in fifteen re sponses (12 per cent of instances). The nasalized monoph thong [ot, o] occurs in the speech of informants 3, 5, 6 , 7, 10, 11, and 12, constituting a positional variant occurring only with a contiguous nasal in moth or strong. The only diphthong which occurs with any frequency in this group is the centering variant [o®]j in one instance [o8A], in the response of eight informants. This centering 81 diphthong occurs in thirteen responses (10 per cent of in stances ) . The variants of the phoneme /o/ in this group are [oyj o<u, D$, DC, da, oVd]. Group II.— In Group II the phoneme /o/ occurs most fre quently as the monophthong [o] or the lengthened [o*]. The low-back monophthong occurs in thirty of the possible 117 responses (26 per cent of instances). The next most fre quent variant which occurs in the speech of this group is the centering diphthong [o9]— in some instances [o9/s]— which occurs in twenty-three responses (20 per cent of instances). The centering monophthong [o<] occurs in twenty-one re sponses (17 per cent of instances), and the lowered monoph thong [oV] occurs in fifteen responses (12 per cent of in stances) . The nasalized monophthong [ot, o], which occurs only with the contiguous nasal in moth or strong, appears in the speech of informants 16, 18, 20, 21, 24, and 26. The variants of /o/ in this group are [oy, d<, o11, dV] . Group III.— In Group III the most frequent occurrence of the phoneme is the centering diphthong which occurs with approximately equal frequency as both [o9] and [o9A]. The ingliding diphthong is used in forty-nine responses of the to I —■ | —1 1 —1 I —1 I —1 1 —1 I —1 | —1 I —1 | —1 Informant o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o < D © < © < D • <A © > <A © © A © > c dog O O O O o o o o o i o o o o O O O O © • - © I © < A I <A © <A * | © © • © moth o o a o o o o o o o o a o o o o o o o o A • A o A< A A • > < <A • A < > office O j O O i O O O O O O O Oi O O O O Oi O O O O _ J . _ _ . _ _ © © <a A < ■ . a - strong © f f l O !2 td cn ts O O O O O O O O O O o o o o o o o I • • A < © > frost o Ol O O O O o o o o o o o o o o o o o A A I often o o a o o o o o o o o o a o o o o o a o A © A A • < < < • < < < > A A a A • A> > < © daughter co to 4^(jO(jO(jOCOU)U)U)LJU)(jJNJrOtOMtOK>N3fOfO O'£)(l)'J(5'Ul^UMHO«)(l)Njfl\UlJi.U[0H Informant o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o © © © © © • < ©A < D < D A <A <A ( D <A <A A < D © dog > > © > > > c > o o o o o o © • A 3 © I © I © © > O OJ o o © A © I > > O O O o o © • © I © • > • > moth o o o o o o o o o © ® c © © © < ©A > > O O O O © A © > > O O O O I <A A A < o office OJ O O O OJ OJ O OJ O O OJ O OJ O OJ O O O O OJ A © © - A © < • ®o a strong A O O O O O Q O O O O © © © © © © < © a > > A> o o o o o o o o o o <A < < A <A A frost o o © A I > O O O © © • A> > o o o o © <A I <A I o o o o o > o o o > A o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o © > < e A © © | © A A >A A A C often © > — o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o , , . © <a © © © <a © © A < < A ®<A © < a < A © daughter < > > > > > > 00 OJ TABLE 5— Continued 84 possible 117 (41 per cent of instances). The monophthong [o] or [o-] occurs in only fifteen responses in this group (11 per cent of instances), and the centering monophthong [o<] in fourteen responses (11 per cent of instances). The lowered monophthong [oV] is not used with any great fre quency in Group III. The nasalized monophthong [ot, o] occurs with the contiguous nasal in moth or strong in the speech of informants 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 40. In formant 36 has the off-glide [ow9] in moth. The allophonic variants of /o/ in this group are [oyU, 0U, 0§, oV, D, D<, 0®^, DA®, DA]. Summary.— In Group I, the most frequent occurrence of the phoneme /o/ is as a monophthong, [o], with the occur rence of a centering diphthong [o9, o9^] in 10 per cent of instancesj in Group II it occurs as the monophthong [o, o*] in 26 per cent of instances and as the diphthong [o®, o®A] in 20 per cent of instances; and in Group III it occurs most frequently as a centering diphthong [o®, o9A], with the occurrence of a monophthong [o, o*] in 11 per cent of in stances . The phoneme /al/ The phoneme /a l / of nine, twice, library, wire, China, 85 nice, and five occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I, /ai/ occurs most frequently as an upgliding diphthong [ai]5 beginning low-front and gliding quickly to a high-front position. There were ninety-eight possible responses elicited for the phoneme in this group, and the diphthong [ai] occurs in thirty-seven responses (37 per cent of instances). A diphthong which has the same be ginning and has a short upglide [a1] occurs in sixteen re sponses (16 per cent of instances). An unrounded lengthened low-front monophthong, [a»] or [a:], occurs sporadically in the speech of this group. Informant 8 has the triphthong [aii] in nice, and informant 10 has the triphthong [ai9] in nine ♦ The other variants of the phoneme /ai/ which occur in Group I are [ai-, a*A, a*<, ai, a*9, ai, ai<, ai, a*, a*e, a*<, a>*, a!>, a<x, aAi, a<i, aA+]. Group II.— In Group II the upgliding diphthong [ai] is the most frequent phone of the phoneme /ai/. It occurs thirty times in the possible ninety-one responses elicited (32 per cent of instances). The short upgliding [a1] occurs in eleven responses (12 per cent of instances). Although the monophthong occurs in ten responses, it occurs in four responses in the speech of informant 27 and only sporad ically in the speech of the rest of the members of this group. Informants 16 and 26 have [ai^] in wire, informant 18 has a triphthong which begins with a low-central vowel [Qi9] in nine and wire, and informant 19 has [a*3] in China. The variants of /ai/ which occur in this group are [a:>, a-i>, ai, ai:>, aiv, a*, a:* ai, a>i, at, a>i>, a*<0, a>*, a*^A, a<9, aiA, at<, ad* a-8, aiA, a£A, a<i, a*^]. Group III.— In Group III a low-front lengthened monoph thong, [a-] or [a:], is the phone of /ai/ which occurs most frequently. The monophthongal phone occurs in thirty-two responses of the possible ninety-one (36 per cent of in stances). The upgliding diphthongs [ai, a1] do not occur with great regularity in this group; [ai] occurs in only six responses, and [a1] in only nine responses. Informants 29 and 35 have [ai9] in nine, informant 30 has [ai9] in nine, informant 35 has [ai0] in five and [ai1] in twice and China, and informant 37 has [ai0] in wire. The other phones of /ai/ in Group III are [a-^, a*9, a*eA, a£A, at, ai<, ai0, ai>, aiA, ax>, a*, a*>0, a:>, a*, a] • Summary.— In Group I the most frequent occurrence of to I —1 1—• | —1 | —• | —> | —* I —• | —> | —1 ] —1 O^OO'JmUl^UMHOWfflsI fU51)D fUpjjpjfU(UfU{P){UftlfU{fU • • • M p* • • M ^ I M M M M M n < d v ~ © > f U ( U Q f U f U P J f U f U f U p j ( U Q (U M M M p* • M M A** M M • | M + — A A © © © © © © © © © q © © © I VV • — A • • • “ H- ~ « ■— W ' > > V H- C J © Q © © © © © © © © Q © /\ • *{« M M M • M • • W | M M M © A « © + A © © © f U © © © © © © Q H- M • " > A — — * 1 P- < LJ- M — 00 ( U f U f U f U f U f l J f U p j f U f U Q M M M M M M >f< M M • pi* A © © M H- © © © Q V ~ +. © © © © © © © © M V © © © © M M A O' Ul U M H Informant pj pj pj JU pj pj nine pi pj pj pj pi p M Njl »p M M M A > twice Q © © © © © pi- M M >f« M M pj p) pj pj pJ pj • pi- M • • M M © a © © © © © pi- pi- M MM *•« library wire K o a H Ui o © M \ > to c H C T i china © © © © © • I • | • • M M nice p j © © f U © © M M M M M M A five oo "J ^ U U U U U U U U U U M I O I O M M t O l O t O l O OlDfflvjmUl^UMpOafl)slWUl(iUMH fU © ©{ © © © © © © © Q © © © ©J © ©i © fU ©{ • • • • M • •• M (H •• n M |j» M • • •• C O IH M M M a) V < D O ) V > A > QfDPfUfUajfUJUpjJUfUajJUjUPCU(UJUfU0j H- V 05 A © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © W •• •• | «• •• M t •• M | • M • • M IH M M W a) > V > A iU O J O J O J O J O J © © © © © © © © © © © o © © • • • < D M V © • V © • C D © • © • • © V • C D • C D • M LJ. • C D M > • © M M wire O J O J O J O J O J O J © © © © © © © © © © © © © china • • M • • M H- M V • • • 1 M A * ■ « • M M c O J O J O J O J © © © © © © © © © © © © © © V • • • • • • • V • • H- • • • • M M M • n > • • A H- M 1 + A A nice O J O J O J D O J O J © © © © © © © © © © © © © © five • • • V M © + . • • 00 V V cn > Co • M M > V M V m4 Informant nine twice library co oo TABLE 6 — Continued 89 /ai/ is the upgliding diphthong [ai]; in Group II it occurs most often as [ai]j and in Group III the most frequent phone is the monophthong [a*] or [a:]. The phoneme /au/ The phoneme /au/ of cow, house, mountain, tower (Watts), towel, fountain, and mouth occurs ih the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I, /au/ occurs most frequently as an upgliding diphthong [au] which begins in an unrounded low- front position and glides up to a lower high-back position. The phone [au] occurs in forty-five of the possible ninety- eight responses (46 per cent of instances). An upgliding diphthong with a higher low-front beginning, [aeu], or with a somewhat lengthened first element, [ae*u], which occurs with regularity in Groups II and III, occurs sporadically in three instances in the speech of informants 5 and 9 in this group. Informants 2, 4, 5, and 12 have a centering triph thong [au9, au9] in towe1, and informants 7 and 11 have an off-gliding triphthong [auu, auu] in the same word. Towel is dissyllabic in the speech of the other informants in this group. The other diphthongal variants of /au/ in Group I are 90 [au<, au<, au<, au, a<u<, a<u, aAu, a>:u, a<u, auV, aAuA, a<u, at0A, auA, a:0]. Group II.— In Group II the phoneme /au/ occurs most frequently as the upgliding diphthong [au], occurring thirty times in the possible ninety-one responses elicited from the group (33 per cent of instances). A diphthongal phone with a lower beginning point, [asu, as*u], occurs twelve times in the possible responses (13 per cent of instances). The centering triphthong [au®, au®] occurs in towel in the speech of informants 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, and 26; it is dissyllabic in the speech of the other informants in this group. The variants in this group are [a*u, a*0A, au, a:u, au<, au<, a>:u, a>:8>, aAu, aAu, auA, a>u, aAu<, a<u, au]. Group III.— In Group III the phone of /au/ which has the greatest occurrence is the upgliding diphthong [a3U, ae*u]. This phone occurs thirty-one times in the possible ninety-one responses in the speech of this group (35 per cent of instances). The next most frequently occurring phone is the upgliding diphthong [au], which occurs twenty- three times in the informants 1 responses (25 per cent of instances). The word towel is dissyllabic in the speech of 20 19 18 t - 1 !-■ (S \ (-■ Ln 14 13 12 11 10 VO 00 C h Ln 4^ U) to i — 1 Informant O J O J a O J 0 1 a O J O J O J O J O J 8 3 O J O J O J a O J O J O J O J V c • c c • G V G c G • G c A V c G G cow • • A< c G • • c A c G • • c G c 0) O J a O J 0 & O J O J 0 1 O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J v c • G c G G G G A G c > G G G V A G c house A G c c c G c A > A O J O J 0 1 O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J o O J O J 0 1 O J O J O J O J V G • • c G c C C C G G A G c G c c G c mountain • • c > 0 G A A G > O J O J O J 0) O J O J O J O J O J O J 0) O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J c' c • G • • c • • G c G V c G G G V A c c tower (Watts) © e G c 0 A c A c G A A 0) 0 G O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J Q O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J c G • • G • 0 G G c £ c • V G G G c G G G towel © c 0 c A> A 0 c A c c G < 0 0 0 0 O J O J O J O J 0) O J 0 1 O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J O J G c • • c c c c c c c G i c G G c 1 A G c fountain c A A c A A a 01 8 3 O J 0 8 3 O J O J O J O J O J a 0) O J O J O J O J O J O J O J c c • c G c c c c c c c c c c • V > c c mouth A< c A A c c c A PHONES O F / a u / CO CO CO CO CO CO CO CO CO CO to to to o 1 £ > 00 -J cn cn CO to o CD 00 -J a E 8 pj a pj £8 pj a a p > J U pj a a • c c c V • V • V C V • c • • G c c < c c c G c G p> a pj a a a PJ a a p> PJ pj a q > G c • • c • G C V C £ G c G G < < c A c c a a PJ Q a PJ PJ Q PJ PJ PJ Q PJ • G G G c p G c £ c G c £ c a a PJ a PJ pj pj PJ a pj PJ pj a pj • • c • • • c • • c • G c c • c c c c G <D c G A A £ a a PJ a Q PJ pj a a PJ pj PJ a o • c • A • • V t c c G P p c c c • ( D c c < D < D < 1 ) G c A PJ Q PJ a PJ PJJ p j PJ D PJ PJ PJ PJ PJ > > c £ c • • c c A C c C V c c c £ G a a PJ a a a p j a a PJ p j a a PJ • c c • • c c • c c P • c c c C cz c A C to to to to to to cn cn CO to I-1 pj PJ a pj PJ PJ c • • G V V A c c A c > 0 V PJ PJ PJ Pi PJ a A G > V c < G c c • G PJ PJ pj PJ PJ PJ • V > V c > G c G G • A G PJ PJ PJ PJ pj P) A V • • V c V G c G G • • < D V PJ Q PJ PJ pj pj C A C C £ c <D c CD e 0 P) PJ PJ PJ PJ A V 1 V c C c c G PJ pj a PJ PJ a c V • > > • c c C c C Informant cow house mountain tower (Watts) towel fountain mouth > a a M -j i A 0 P r+ H* P £ ( D Oi co to 93 all the informants in this group except in the speech of informants 28* 29, and 31, who have the triphthong [au9] or [au9] in their pronunciation of this word. The other variants which appear in the speech of this group are [a*u, a>u, ati<, a<u, se^u, auV, a:u, a>:u, a:0, a:, a<:u<, aAu]. Summary.— The phoneme /au/ appears most frequently in Group I as the diphthong [au] in Group II as [au] and the upgliding diphthong [aeu, se*u]; and in Group III as [aeu, se*u] and [au]. The phoneme /oI/ The /oi/ phoneme of oil, joint, joined, poison, and boiled appears in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I, /oi/ is most frequently pro nounced [o*], an upgliding diphthong, beginning from a lower mid-back rounded position and gliding up to a lower high- central position. The phone [o*-] occurs thirty-three times in the possible seventy responses (47 per cent of instances). Although a diphthong which glides from the lower mid-back position to a higher high-back, slightly lowered, position [oiV] occurs in ten instances in this group, it is pro 94 nounced only by informants 1 and 6 in all the responses elicited. Informants 9 and 14 pronounced joint and joined with the phone [oi]. A monophthongal variant, [o*], or a centralizing diph thong, [o®A], creating homophones of oil-all and boil-ball, occur in the speech of only three informants. The other variants of the phoneme /oi/ which occur in this group are [o-*", o:1, o*V, oi<, o!<, o *^ ] . Group II.— In Group II, /oi/ occurs as an upgliding diphthong, [o*], most frequently. Of the sixty-five re sponses elicited from this group, the diphthong occurs twenty-four times (37 per cent of instances). A monoph thong, [o*, o:], or centralizing diphthong, [o0A], which create homophones of oil and all and boil and ball, occur in the speech of informants 15, 18, 21, 24, and 25, almost half of the thirteen informants in Group II. The variants of the phoneme /oi/ which appear in this group are [o*V, o*, oi, o*>, o *<, oi, oiA, o *^ ] . Group III.— In Group III the most frequent occurrence of the phoneme /oi/ is the upgliding diphthong [o*]. The diphthong is pronounced twenty-three times in the possible sixty-five responses (35 per cent of instances). A to o VO 00 H H OV Ln H H to P* to VO CO cn ui >£> u> to Informant o o o ' -i 0 cn A o P- o o o • + o o • • « cn o o M A o o o 4* o P- < o 0 > o + o * + o o + P- < oil P J o o M M »fl — A o P- O + o 4 « o p- o 4* o + o o 4- ~ < A o p- o • + o 4- o p- < o + o 4* o 4- < o o + p- < oT o O o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o M M 4 - P- 4 - 4 - P- 4 - 4 * 4 * P- 4 * 4 * p- 4 - 4 * 4 * 4 - p- > A < A < < < joint joined ► a ffi o a Cd cn O na o > w t1 M 00 o 4* A o 4- V o 4* o 4 - C J 4 * o + o 4* o 4 « o 4 * < o 4 - o p- < o 4 * o o p. « o 4 * o P- < poison o o cn > o o 4 * V o 4 * o to > o A a ) > o o o o cn a A o 0 » > C J 4 - o P- < o a) > o 4 - o o o 4 * P- 4 * < boiled VO U1 o co CO CO CO CO CO co Ul co 4^ CO CO CO to CO CO o to CO to 00 to to cn to Ul to 4^ to CO to to to I-1 Informant o o o o o 00 o o + A o CO o o o o H- ~ o o o o * cn * o o H- o + o oil o •+ o o o + o + o •+ o + A o •+ o o 1* • + o o H- — o + o o o 4 * o 4 * V o H- o 4 * o joint o 4* o o o 4 * o 4 * o 4 * o 4 * A C J 4 * o + o 4 * o o H- « o + o + o 4 * o o 4 * V o H- o 4 * o joined o 4 - o o p- - o + o + o a> > o + A o o o o H- — o 4 * o 4 - o (D > o + o + V o H- o 4 * o + poison o o o o o CO o o 4 * < o o o 4 * o o p. « o o o CO o +■ o o o o + . 0 > boiled CD C T i TABLE 8— Continued 97 monophthong, [o, o-, o:], is pronounced thirteen times (20 per cent of instances). The monophthong which creates homophones of oil and all and boil and ball occurs in the speech of informants 28, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, and 40, over half of the thirteen informants in the group. The variants of the /oi/ phoneme in Group III are [oi, oi, 0*, o9A, o.E, o*V, o+<, o*V]. Summary.— The phoneme /o i/ is most frequent as the up- gliding diphthong [o*] in Group I. In Group II, [o*] is the most frequently occurring allophone. Almost half of the informants in this group have the monophthong [o’ -, o: ] or the centralizing diphthong [o9A] in the pronunciation of oil and boil. In Group III the most frequent phone of /oi/ is [o+]. The monophthong [o, o*, o:] occurs with regularity in this group, and over half of the group pronounce oil and all, and boil and ball as homophones. Free vowel summary In terms of length of residence in Los Angeles, newer arrivals seem to have forms different from residents of long standing. Chronologically, then, upgliding diphthongs ap pear to move toward monophthongs, or at least to lose length. On the other hand, two of the three lengthened FREE TABLE 9 VOWEL (STRESSED) SUMMARY Vowel Group I Group II Group III Altered Characteristics /V [i * ] [i-3 / [ii] [ii] +length +upglide +diphthong /V [u] [u] [uu] [iu] [it*] +upglide +diphthong +rounding /e/ [el] [ei-] [£e] [eV i ] [ C e ] +upglide +diphthong [ei] [et] /o/ [ou] [ou] [os] [ou] +upglide +diphthong / * / [o] [o.] / [o8] [o®] +centering +diphthong /ai/ [ai] [ai] [a-] +length +raonophthong /au/ [au] [au] [ a e u ] [ a u ] +lower initial /oi/ [oi-] [oi-] [0 -] [oi-] [0 -] +length +monophthong CD CD 99 monophthongs seem to acquire length and a second upgliding element to become diphthongs. Obviously, these observa tions only indicate tendencies numerically suggested from among a limited group of informants. Of course, in a static study like this one, it is impossible to speak of movement. Yet the obvious generalizable differences among the groups do tend to suggest either gradual change or difference in point of origin and in external influence, both of which may be viewed as movement. The Checked Vowels in Stressed Syllables There are six phonemes which occur as checked vowels in the speech of all the informants in South-Central Los Ange les . They are: /i/ as in whip, six, fist /u/ as in pull, wood, push /£/ as in ten, chest, egg /a/ as in brush, shut, such /ae/ as in bag, man, calf /a/ as in watch, pot, crop The phoneme /1/ The phoneme /i/ of whip, chimney, Michigan, Christmas, 100 sycamore, minnows, Billy, rinses, fifth, six, and fist appears in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I the phoneme /i/ occurs most fre quently as an unrounded lower high-front monophthong [I]. Of the 154 possible responses elicited from the informants the monophthong appears ninety-five times (in 62 per cent of instances). A centralized monophthong, [ i>] , occurs in nineteen responses (12 per cent of instances). A high- central monophthong, [*], which occurs sporadically in the pronunciation of this group, is assigned as an allophone of the phoneme /i/ for all groups, as there is not enough evi dence to indicate that it is a separate phoneme in the speech of South-Central Los Angeles. Informants 10 and 11 have a nasalized monophthong [T] or [T>] in minnows, and informants 4, 9, and 13 pronounce [T] or [Tv] in rinses. The nasalized monophthong is prosod- ically restricted, occurring only with a contiguous nasal consonant. The variants of the phoneme /i/ in this group are [*•>, i A, IV, i 1 *, i0 , +<, +, I V 0 ] . Group II.— In Group II the phoneme /i/ occurs most frequently as a high-front monophthong [i]. Of the 143 101 possible responses elicited from this group the phone [I] occurs ninety-three times (in 65 per cent of instances). The centralized monophthong |>] and the diphthong [i8] oc cur sporadically in the pronunciation of Group II. A nasalized monophthong, [T, it, TV], which occurs only with a contiguous nasal consonant, is used in rinses by inform ants 16, 17, 22, and 27, and in minnows by informants 20, 25, and 27. Informant 18 uses another phoneme, / & / , in whip and Christmas, and the phoneme /G/ is used in rinses by inform ants 15, 18, and 26. The other variants which occur in the pronunciation of this group are [>8, i>, IV, IA, I1*, iA^0, I A8]. Group III.— In Group III, / i / occurs most frequently as an unrounded lower high-front monophthong [I]. The monoph thong was elicited in sixty-eight responses of the possible 143 (48 per cent of instances). Another phone which occurs with regularity in the pronunciation of this group is the centralizing diphthong [i8], which is used twenty-two times by the informants (15 per cent of instances). The central ized allophone [ * - ] occurs only sporadically in the pronun ciation of the informants. to H M 1 - * H I-1 H* 1 —1 o VO CO -O < y \ cn u> to h-1 o VO CO ■ ^ j cn cn CO to ( - ■ > + + + V 0 0 0 0 V V V + 0 A V V M + + M M M M + + M HN + l - H V V V V V A 0 • V M 1 M M 1 1 H4 1 1 1 M 1 1 - 1 < V V M > V V V V V • • < < 0 • > M cn cn cn M M cn M M M m V < < < < < V < ( D a ) < V 0 < V M • 0 0 V M V V • > < V - - - Informant whip chimney Michigan Christmas sycamore minnows Billy rinses fifth six fist o to PHONES OF /i/ ^ U U W U W U U U t O W t O M M M M M M M M O^3CD^J0^Ln4^U)NJI— 1 0 0) 0 © CD > M << v > ® < (U o’ > CD <D 0 V V m | m | m m m | m | m m | | m m m m | m < < *-« m| m m m mJ m) m| m CO m m m| M m m m m m m •* «* «* r* I* > < y m| CO M m{ m{ CO w CO m{ CO K-t Hl{ CO M CO M *-t t—I m{ *-< ^ ** ^ r s —' ' " —* * > w < < < CD CD V © ’ © CD (D <D V V V + V H-. +. (D + (D •+ 0 + •+ 0 00 • > •v>©0<D> © >• Informant whip chimney Michigan Christmas sycamore minnows Billy rinses fifth six fist M o U> TAB L E 10 — Continued 104 The nasalized monophthong [T, I,] is used in minnows by informants 28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, and 40, and in rinses by informants 29, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, and 40, over one-half of the thirteen informants included in Group III. Informants 28, 31, 33, 35, and 39 use the phoneme /£/ in rinses . The other variants are [iA, i>, I*, IV, *9, i1, iA0]. Summary.— In Group I the phoneme /i/ occurs most fre quently as the unrounded monophthong [I]. A centralized monophthong, [i>], occurs with regularity in the pronuncia tion of this group. In Group II the high-front monophthong [i] is also the most frequent allophone. In Group III the monophthong [i] also occurs most frequently. A centralizing diphthong, [i9], occurs with regularity. A nasalized monophthong, which is prosodically restricted, is used by more than one-haIf of the informants in this group in rinses and minnows. The phoneme /u/ The phoneme /u/ of pull, push, hook, wood, soot, hoofs, roof, root, broom, and hoops is found in the speech of all the informants. 105 Group I.— In Group I the phoneme /u/ occurs most fre quently as a rounded lower high-back monophthong [u]. There were 140 responses elicited from this group and the phone [u] occurs in their pronunciation fifty times (36 per cent of instances). A raised monophthong, [uA], occurs with regularity; it occurs twenty-six times (in 19 per cent of instances). All fourteen informants pronounce one or more Of the words with the phoneme /u/. The variants which occur for the phoneme /u/ in this group are [u<, u®, UA8, u^, U*]. Group II.— In Group II, /u/ occurs most frequently as the unrounded monophthong [u]. One hundred thirty responses were elicited and the phone [u] occurs thirty-four times (in 26 per cent of instances). A raised monophthong, [UA], occurs thirty times (in 23 per cent of instances), and a centralizing monophthong, [u<], occurs thirteen times (in 13 per cent of instances). Ten of the informants, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, and 27, pronounce one or more of the words with the phoneme /u/. The variants in this group are [u®, u<, u<8, U*, uu]. Group III.— In Group III the most frequent phone for the phoneme /u/ is [U]. Of the 130 responses, the 106 monophthong is used thirty-six times (28 per cent of in stances). A raised monophthong, [uA], occurs twenty-two times (17 per cent of instances), and a centralizing monoph thong, [u<], occurs sixteen times (12 per cent of instances). An ingliding diphthong, [u0], which occurs before /l/ in pull and before the fronted consonants in push, soot, hoof, roof, and root occurs nineteen times (15 per cent of in stances). This is the only group in which this diphthong occurs with any regularity. Informants 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, and 39 use the phoneme /u/ in one or more of the words elicited. The other variants which occur in this group are [uu, U*]. Summary.— In Group I the most frequent occurrence of the phoneme /u/ is the monophthong [u] • a raised monoph thong, [uA] , also occurs with regularity. In Group II the monophthong [u] is also the most frequent allophone. A raised monophthong, [uA], and a centralizing monophthong, [IK] , occur frequently. In Group III [u] also occurs most frequently, with [UA] and [u<] occurring with regularity. This is the only group in which the ingliding diphthong [u9] occurs with any frequency. N3 I —1 I —* I —1 I —1 I —1 I —1 I —1 ) —1 [ —1 ) —1 OVOCD'-JCTiLn^OJNJI— Informant > c ' c e c e . c c c e c c e c c c c c c c © © <PA A > A > A A pull CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC + A > A + A> + >A > © > > > © • > © push CCGCGGCGGGGGGCCGGGC A A A > hook cccc ccc ccc A A > A > A c c c c c c c c c A > wood C I C C I > C I © © A © C I > G c c C — < D > — c C I > > © soot c t c d i c c c c e C d G c c hoofs P c c c t c c p c c c c C ^ > — A A >A c c A roof c ^ c f S c G c c c C G c c G c c c c G C r o o t s' broom c c c d c P C d t d P c p c p C P C C c hooos A > > > ' > — > — — — — ’ — F i - * o PHONES O F / u / ^ U U U U U U U U U U M W M I ' O M M W M W O l D t B ' l O ' U l ^ U W H O l D C O N l C T i U l ^ U W H Informant CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC < l) (D • © © © A ® d A d A > A ® p u l l c c c c • c c c c c c e c c c c c c c c > c * * © > { < > © + © ► * > d © + A • > © + © © p u s h CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC A A hook c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c A > A A A A A A • A A > wood e c i c i c c e c i c c i c c c i i c e © . © A © ® > > A > > > © —' A — > ^ > hoofs CCCCCCCdCCC • GCCddCCC roof > A A > © ^ A © > > > > ' - ' * - ' >d c c c c c d d c c d c d c c c d c c c c > > > — ^ — A' — ©A '— > A > > root e d C d c d e c d d d d e d e e c e d c broom > ' ’ A ' > > ' ' • > > > > C d d c c d c d c c d d ' ' > • A> — hoops i - * o co TABLE 11— Continued 109 The phoneme /£/ The phoneme /£/ of bedroom, cemetery. yesterday, genu ine , yellow, chest, kettle, Wednesday, seven, ten, deaf, and egg occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I the phoneme /£/ occurs most fre quently as an unrounded lower mid-front monophthong, [£], occurring 105 times in the possible 168 responses (62 per cent of instances). A raised monophthong, [£A], occurs thirty times in the responses (11 per cent of instances). The nasalized monophthong [£T, £ t, £ tA] is prosodically re stricted, occurring only with a contiguous nasal consonant which is nasalized with the preceding vowel, as in Wednesday in the speech of informants 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 12, in ten in the speech of informants 7, 13, and 14, and in cemetery in the speech of informant 13. Almost half of the informants, 2, 4, 6, 9, and 14, use an upgliding diphthong, [£*, £^A, EA*, £A^, £^>], before /g/ in egg. There are no instances of /e/ occurring in this word. The other allophonic variants are [£V, £>, £*, £>, £>]• Group II.— In Group II, /£/ occurs most frequently as the unrounded monophthong [£] . Of the 156 responses, the 110 monophthong occurs eighty-four times (in 54 per cent of instances). A raised monophthong, [£A], occurs nineteen times (in 12 per cent of instances). Over half the inform ants in this group have a nasalized monophthong, [£, £t, EtA], which is restricted to a contiguous nasal consonant. Informant 17 has the nasalized monophthong in cemetery and genuine, informants 15, 16, 18, 20, 25, and 26 nasalized the vowel in Wednesday, and informants 15, 19, and 27 in ten. Informants 16, 18, 19, and 21 pronounce egg with an upgliding diphthong, [£**, £^, £^A, £V*], and there is one instance of /e/ in this word in the speech of informant 25. More than half of the informants substitute the phoneme /i/ for /£/ preceding a nasal consonant. Informants 15, 18, and 26 have /i~£ / in genuine; informants 16, 20, 22, and 26 in cemetery, and informants 16, 18, 21, 22, 25, and 26 in ten. The other variants which occur in this group are [£A, £>, £V, e*, £$, E6a, £e] . Group III.— In Group III the phone which occurs most frequently is the mid-front monophthong [£]; it is used seventy-three times by the informants in the possible 156 responses (46 per cent of instances). A raised monophthong, [£A], occurs eighteen times (in 12 per cent of instances). } _ _ l l _ J OatOHOVOOO^](T>Ul^(jJtO oo oooooooooooooooooooooooo > > > oo | oo oo oo „ 00 co n oo n « 00 V V > > ~ > 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 V > 00 I 00 00 00 00 I 00 CO 00) 00 I 00 < v< > V -> < > > O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O C O O O 00 < < V < < O O O O O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O > > > v + O O O O O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O < 00 00 00 00 00 00 ) 00 00 00 00 ) 00 00) 00 V > •*> < -> O O O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 00 00 Cl M O O O O O O O O m J O O O O O O 00 > > — > > * ' —' v> > > 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 . CO 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 > 00 00 >00 00.0000 < > + > > > + > HIT Informant bedroom cemetery yesterday genuine yellow chest kettle Wednesday seven ten deaf egg Si O § cn S ' c o ' ! > w to to to to to to to to I —1 I —1 I —1 ) —1 I — • 1 —1 'JCnui^UtOHOUDOO^lO^Ul^ c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o u > c o c o > > < — > . — , /-> co , —% CO _ co | Co + co co co co > ^ V > > M Cn 4< c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o > > > V C n > cn cn < ~ cni cn cn c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n < < < • V> V < CO co CO co co * CO CO + CO CO CO < CO CO CO > CO CO < CO CO I c o c o c o c o c o c o c o c o C o c o c o c o c o CO CO) CO j CO CO CO CO CO) CO CO) CO CO CO) CO V COCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCO V > CO I—I t —4 CO CO W 1-4 CO CO j « > CO «) CO) CO ^ " * —■ * l > CO CO CO COCO H-COCOCOCOCOCOCOCO — > < ~ CO CO CO c o c o y c o c o c o c o c o < COCO COCO CO > v> S > v > + > + > + > v SIT Informant bedroom cemetery yesterday genuine yellow chest kettle Wednesday seven ten deaf egg TABLE 12— Continued ^ W U U W W U U O J W U M I O OVOOO'vlO^Cn^CJNJH-'O^DOO Informant 7Z cn o n™ c nc no n> ono non cno no non V > fl> > b e d r o o m cn m o n > > > — V> an an cn cn cn on > > c e m e t e r y cn c n c n c n c n c n c n c n . cn cn cn on « . . . an y cn y e s t e r d a y o n | h| cn « | cn cn cn > g e n u i n e cn cn cn cn cn ^ c n c n c n c n c n c n c n y e l l o w < < > P n < C n C n cn o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n 0 4* > + « 4* C n > < c h e s t o n o n o n o n o n o n c n o n o n o n o n o n o n k e t t l e < > < < « cnj cn cn cnj ” onj cn cn o n on onj V W e d n e s d a y c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n s e v e n cn cn o n < cn cn a n on a > > > > < '-' t e n I c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n c n i cn d e a f a ) > « > > o n <D CD cn C n > cn cn • >' ® 01 cn cn cn « ~ I V CD < . a> < > > < V CD egg CTT TABLE 1 2 — C o n t i n u e d 114 In this group the nasalized monophthong [£, £ t] appears only in the words Wednesday and ten and is restricted to a con tiguous nasal consonant. Informants 28, 34, 36, 37, 38, and 39 use the nasal in Wednesday and informants 33 and 38 pro nounce ten with the nasal. Seven of the informants substitute /i/ for /£/ preced ing a nasal consonant. This substitution appears in ceme tery in the speech of informants 28, 33, and 37, in genuine in the speech of informants 28, 33, 35, 37, 39, and 40, in Wednesday in the speech of informants 33, 35, and 40, and in ten in the speech of informants 28, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40. There are four instances of /e/ before /g/ in egg in the pronunciation of informants 33, 35, 37, and 39. The diphthongal variants in this group are [*£, £ev, £*>, £C , GA0, £*, £ *9, £Ae, ^£, £e3 £^A] . The monophthongal variants are [£V, £>, £>] . Summary.— In Group I the /£/ phoneme occurs most fre quently as the unrounded lower mid-front monophthong [£]; a raised monophthong, [£ A], occurs with regularity in this group. In Group II, [£ ] is the most frequent allophonic variant and [£A] also occurs with regularity. There is great incidence of /i/ for /£/ preceding a nasal consonant 115 in this group. In Group III, [5] and [£A] are the phones which occur with greatest regularity. Half of the inform ants have an /i~£/ substitution preceding a nasal consonant and there are four instances of a substitution of /e/ for /£/ in egg. The phoneme /9/ The phoneme /a/ of brush (noun), shut, touch (verb), mushroom, bucket, nothing, tusks, and such occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I the phoneme /a/ occurs most fre quently as an unrounded lower mid-back monophthong [ a ] . Of the 1 1 2 possible responses elicited from the informants, [ a ] occurs sixty-one times (in 54 per cent of instances). A centering monophthong, [ a < ] , occurs twenty-two times in the responses (20 per cent of instances). The diphthongal variants [ 3 a , a * , a ® , ^ a ] appear spo radically before /s/, /c/, and /t/ in brush, such, and shut. In all other instances, in this group, /a/ is a monoph- thongal variant. The monophthongal allophones are [ a < , a > , a A ] . Group II.— In Group II, [ a ] is the most frequent phone 116 of the phoneme /s/, occurring forty-eight times in the possible 104 responses (in 46 per cent of instances). A centering monophthong, [ a < ] , occurs twelve times (12 per cent of instances). The diphthongal variants which occur sporadically in brush, shut, touch, and such are [ a ^ , a * , a 0 ] . The monophthongal variants which occur in this group are [ a A , A > , A < ] . Group III.— In Group III the most frequent allophone is the monophthong [ a ] , which occurs thirty-nine times in the possible 104 responses (38 per cent of instances). Diph thongal variants, [ a * , ^ a > , 3 a < , a ^ < , a ^'> , a 0 ] , are of greater incidence in this group than in either of the oth ers. Eight informants, 28, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40, use an in-gliding or off-gliding diphthong in brush; six informants, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, and 40, in touch; six in formants, 28, 33, 35, 36, 37, and 39, in shut; and seven informants, 28, 29, 32, 33, 36, 37, and 40, in such. The other variants in this group are [ a A , a 0/\ a < , a < , A > ] . Summary.— In Group I, /&/ occurs most frequently as the unrounded lower mid-back monophthong [a ] . A centering t ' J 1 —1 1 —1 I —1 I —1 I —■ I —1 t —1 1 —1 I —1 ' I —1 0'Xloo^JO^a^^u)^J^-■ou^o^'JC^u^4i>u)^J^-, t> > ui>s> i> A <^A A A A © + A i> A *+CQf> ^ 0 © '— > A A A > !>!>{>!>!>f>i>>}>>>}>i>!>t»!>!>;>}>t> A A> V C ^ V A A © A > > A A > > • > > > • > * > } > ! > | t>!>!>!>j> [> t > ! > [ > j> A> A > V A > A > A V > • > V A A > I i> t> i> i> i> f> I > > { > | > > | > > | >> |> j> A> A > > :> f> cj > cn ;> ;> > po oi{>>}>t>j>}>f> C^A + +}> A ~ + V "^ ! > A A > © A A> Informant brush (noun) shut touch (verb) mushroom bucket nothing tusks such f —1 PHONES OF /©/ O ! > > A> > + 5> A> > A t > I > A U ) O J O J U ) O J U ) O J ( j O U ) O J t O t O t O K ) N J K ) t O t O f O 'X>CD'-JCTiLn4^(jjK)(-, O y 3 0 0 'JCr'Ul4^U)tOl—1 f > n o ) co > > CO ►> »> + A V V A V V + A> A + > • A v > + > co co co _ ^ > ■ >•»>>■ J> >■ S> CM VA> + <d v V V ^ " A * + a> >A V > 0>— co i > t > > > > > co > V A V + A A t> A > > > co > > > ! > > I i> t> I f> i> t> f> {> > I5>>> > A A > V > A A i > i > f > 5 > i > i > i > i > { > i > > 0 * > t » > I f> > > A d ) A> A A > > V > V A > C3 I > > > I I •> > > ' - ' A A> A A -—■ CO J> co j> > > > CO CO }> f> CO>>CO>{>»>>> "" + V U- -. V > > > > + >> — A A A> A A> Informant brush (noun) shut touch (verb) mushroom bucket nothing tusks such oo TABLE 13— Continued 119 monophthong, [ a < ] , also occurs with regularity. In Group II the monophthong [a] is also the most frequently occurring allophone and the centering monophthong [a < ] occurs with regularity. In Group III, [ a ] occurs most frequently. In this group diphthongal variants occur with greater incidence than in Groups I or II. The phoneme /as/ The phoneme /ae/ of ashes, bag, January, afternoon, blacktop, vacuum, basket, man, bathroom, sack, pasture, calf, and rather occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I the phoneme /as/ occurs most fre quently as an unrounded higher low-front monophthong [ae] . Of the possible 182 responses elicited from the informants the monophthong occurs in 103 instances (57 per cent of in stances). A raised monophthong, [aeA], occurs in twenty- eight responses (15 per cent of instances). The nasalized monophthong [as, aet] is prosodically re stricted with a contiguous nasal. Seven informants, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 13, pronounce man with the nasal, and one informant, 4, pronounces January with the nasalized monoph thong . Diphthongal variants occur sporadically in the 120 pronunciation of this group. The diphthongal variants which occur in only eight responses in the words ashes, bag, Janu- ary, sack, and calf are [aeAe , ae*9, ae*, asA9, aeA33, ] . The monophthongal variants are [ae<, ae<, aeV, ae>] . Group II.— In Group II, [as] is the most frequently occurring allophonic variant. It occurs 108 times in the possible 169 responses (64 per cent of instances). There is no other variant in this group which occurs with any regu larity. The nasalized monophthong [a;, aet] is restricted with a contiguous nasal in man and January; informants 17, 19, 21, 24, and 27 use the nasal in man, and informants 17 and 19 in January. Diphthongal variants of the phoneme occur in nineteen responses in the words ashes, man, vacuum, afternoon, bath room, bag, basket, rather, and calf; only three words, blacktop, sack, and pasture, do not have at least one in- r cidence of a diphthong. The diphthongal variants are [ae> , as*9, ae®, aeA^, as*", ef", ae>*, aa*83, ae9, aeA*] . The monophthongal variants in this group are [ae>, ae<, asA, ae>, ae^, asV] . Group III.— In Group III the most frequent allophone of the /ae/ phoneme is the monophthong [ae], which occurs eighty-eight times in the possible 169 responses (52 per H H H* H U)NJh-‘ OVOOO'~J(TiUl^LONJ EB ( 8 EB • EB EB I A V <D A > EB EB EB & EB EB > A > > eh eh eh eh o j b e b e b e b e b e b e b e b > A > > A • > + A A > > EB eh eb ebj - eb eb eb + > > CU Q) Q) CU CU CD co CD CD CD • A A > 03 03 03 03 CU CD CD CD ttf CD cn EH I I EH (B EH EH EH EH EH A > > > A EH EH EH EH EH A > O EH A A A < > CU CU CU CU 03 ct > CD Cl) CD to A > A > EHi EH EH EB) EB EBJ EB EB r > r» EH EH EH A > A EH EB EH EH > A > EH EH EH A > A > E B E B a J E B E B E B E B E B E B E B A A f t > EB EH EH I EH EH > I EH > V EH EH CM < 1ST EH EB I EB C*) (B EB EH A > > > — > > < EH EH Informant ashes bag January afternoon blacktop vacuum basket man bathroom sack pasture calf rather PHONES O F /»/ t O t O t O t O t O t O t O t O M M M M M M 'JO^ai^U)NJHO(^300^1(T\Ln^ ^ {» ffl 9) > V a? > ffl ffl 8 ffl a V < SB a £8 a (8 f f l f f l 4 A> > A> *> ffl a ffl {8 A V> m Q) ^ (Q Q) CD CD Ct» CD <• w a a a a a i a a a a a a a a a a •KfflfflfflfB a) > > {8 + A I (8 (8 EB (8 {8 (8 > a a > a eb i e« a i A a a a a a a > A a C D a a v a a a A ai a a at a a A a at a a< < » a a a a 0 A a i a i a a i a a a > A a a a i a a i i a a a a i a a a a a a a a + A a a w < •— ^ nr) a a <*> a « + — J ? V a a a a > A > ZZT Informant ashes hag January afternoon blacktop vacuum basket man bathroom sack pasture calf rather TABLE 14— Continued tP»U>OOWOJWOJ<jOU>U>OJtOtO O ^ O O ' J O ' W ^ U W H O ^ I I O EB co 85 I 85 £8 4 * > > * + EB + V 85 O o a f f l a J f f l f f l f f l E B V > > + A ( D EB EB EB A 4* EB EB > + E B ! f B 8 5 £ B f B ! £ B E B ! £ B £ B E B E B E B EB 4< «* > ^ EB EB > . 0 8 ' EB EB • • EB EB > EB EB EB A A EB EB EB EB I EB EB a Q} Q) £U 03 CD t t ) UJ CD A EB V E B E B E B E B E B I • EB I EB 4. > cu 0 EB! EB! EB EB! EB EB 85! EB EB EB EB! EB + o <D 4* EB EB EB EB EB EB EB > A + >0 EB EB EB EB co 4. co ^ 4< EB EB E B E B B L E B E B E B E B E B 4* A f a CM A A EB EB EB I EB A > EB EB E B E B E B E B E B E B I E B E B E B 0 0 0 + co £ST V ' 2 " & EB EB EB A > > 85 85 EB EB EB > Informant ashes bag January afternoon blacktop vacuum basket man bathroom sack pasture calf rather TABLE 14— Continued 124 cent of instances) . No other allophonic variant occurs with great regularity in this group. The nasalized monophthong occurs in the pronunciation of informants 31, 33, 38, and 40 in man and in the pronunciation of informants 30, 33, 35, and 39 in January; one informant, 33, pronounces calf with a nasalized [a]. There is a much higher incidence of diphthongal vari ants in this group than in either of the other two. Diph thongal variants occur in thirty-nine responses, and only the words vacuum and pasture are pronounced with a monoph thongal variant by all the informants. The diphthongal variants which occur in the words ashes, bag, January, afternoon, blacktop, basket, man, bathroom, sack, calf, and rather are [ae1-, ae®, as^> , ae^ , ae®, se0, ae-9, ae>9, a£A, ae^, ae>*] . The monophthongal variants are [aeA, ae<, ae<] . Summary.— In Group I, /ae/ occurs most frequently as an unrounded higher low-front monophthong [ae] . A raised monophthong, [asA], occurs with regularity. In Group II the only variant which occurs with high frequency is the monoph thong [ae], and in Group III this same monophthong is also the allophone of greatest occurrence. In Group III diph thongal variants are of greater incidence than in the other 125 groups. The phoneme /a/ The phoneme /a/ of crop, college, hospital, watch, vomit, palm, pot, and fog occurs in the speech of all the informants. Group I.— In Group I the phoneme /a/ occurs most fre quently as [a], an unrounded low-central monophthong. The low-central monophthong occurs in seventy-six of the pos sible 112 responses (68 per cent of instances). There is no other variant which occurs with high frequency in the pro nunciation of this group. Diphthongal variants of the pho nemes occur sporadically. There are only seven occurrences of a diphthong in the 112 responses; these diphthongal vari ants are [a0, a>8A, a0A] . There is only one incidence of a nasalized monophthong, [a] , with a contiguous nasal in vomit in the pronunciation of informant 12. The other monophthongal variants are [aA, o<, a>, aA] . Group II.— In Group II the low-central monophthong [a], is the most frequent allophone of the phoneme /a/. There are sixty-five occurrences of the monophthong in the 126 possible 104 responses (63 per cent of instances). A cen tering diphthong, [a9, occurs thirteen times in the words palm, pot, crop, and college (12 per cent of instances). Five of the informants, 15, 17, 20, 23, and 25, use the centering diphthong before the bilabial nasal in palm, and four informants, 16, 19, 20, and 25, before the voiceless apico-alveolar stop in pot. The allophone [as] is the only diphthongal variant in the pronunciation of this group. Informants 15 and 24 use a nasalized monophthong, [a*, at], with the contiguous nasal in vomit, and informants 18 and 26 pronounce palm with the nasalized monophthong. The other monophthongal variants in this group are [a<, a>, a<, aA, a£] . Group III.— In Group III the most frequent allophone of the phoneme /a/ is the monophthong [a], which occurs fifty- three times in the possible 104 responses (51 per cent of instances). A centering diphthong, [a9], occurs fifteen times in the responses to the words crop, college, watch, palm, and pot. All the informants pronounce hospital, fog, and vomit with a monophthongal variant. There are only three instances of a nasalized monoph thong in this group. Informants 33 and 37 use the nasalized to I—■ I—■ |—1 I—1 I—1 |—1 |—1 I—1 OlDOOslWUl^WW Informant O O O Q Q Q Q Q O Q l iQQQQlQQQ (DAO) V © V crop a Q a o D Q O Q O Q a a a a a a a a a a V • V • V V • A college O Q O Q Q O Q Q Q Q O Q a a O Q Q QQQ • A A v A > Q Q O Q Q O Q Q Q a a a Q O Q Q Q a a a V A A A > A > > hospital watch TJ o S tPd cn o hd !> Cd £ 1 —* in I q a l o Q i o I a) I a a a I a a a a a a vomit Q O O a O Q Q Q Q O Q Q Q Q Q Q Q O Q a (1) ** (D Q) * * • • (D • i0ii palm Q Q O Q Q Q Q Q Q O Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q <D © 0 • • <D 0 • pot ^ D D Q Q Q D O O Q O 0 O V® O I QQO Q Q Q Q f OCT V> > • • V> > A > V > A > A > < A A A y to 'J ^ U U U U U U U U U U M I O I O I O M M M I O I O OM3Q0^0CTiLn^(jJWf-J O'X>(X)^JCriUlvf^U)tO|-1 Informant Q Q Q Q Q Q I Q Q I Q Q I Q Q Q Q Q Q Q © V a © © ©V V crop Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q • Q Q Q Q O Q Q Q Q Q Q • COllOCTG ©V* ©• v ©V • © O Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q V V V hospital Q Q Q Q O Q Q A> A © A> Q Q Q Q Q Q Q A A> > > q a a a A watch Q Q I al a I I Q i Q Q Q I Q Q Q Q Q I QQ vomit Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q * * >Q QQQ QQ QQ QO Q palm © ® © © • ©• ..© © A * Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q ©• © Q © •© © pot Q O Q A> QO I QO I Q O Q Q O Q O Q Q Q fOCT V A< A © > A < < '— > A< > V> to 00 TABLE 15— Continued 129 monophthong [5, a«] in vomit and informant 34 uses the nasal [a.t] in palm. The other diphthongal and monophthongal var iants which occur in the pronunciation of this group are [qa, a>, a$, a<, aA9, aa] . Summary.— In Group I the phoneme /a/ occurs most fre quently as an unrounded low-central monophthong [a]. in Group II the monophthong [a] is also the most frequently occurring allophone, and a centering diphthong, [a0]* occurs with regularity. In Group III the monophthong [a] and the centering diphthong [a0] occur with highest frequency. The Vowels of Weakly Stressed Syllables Six phonemes which occur in stressed syllables also occur in weakly stressed syllables. These are /i, I, e, u, Oj s/. The phonemes of weakly stressed syllables occur in the speech of all informants and are the same for all three groups. The phoneme /i/ of three and street also occurs in weakly stressed syllables, as in chimney, Indiana, and seventy. The allophones [i, ii, i, iV] are in free varia tion in all three groups. The phoneme /i/ of six and fist also occurs in weakly stressed syllables, as in dishes, bucket and sausage. In a 130 TABLE 16 CHECKED VOWEL (STRESSED) SUMMARY Vowel Group I Group II Group III Altered Characteristics /I/ [i] [I] [i] [i9] -Hipglide ^centering /«/ [u] [u] [u] [u8] +upglide +centering A / [C] [C] [6] [CA] +raising / V [a] [A] [A] +diphthong /»/ [ae] [ae] [ae] +diphthong /«/ [a] [a] [a] [a8] +diphthong +centering 131 weakly stressed syllable the phoneme /i/ is pronounced [*•] in all three groups. The phoneme /e/ of pail and cake also occurs in weakly stressed syllables, as in Thursday, Saturday, and yesterday. The allophone [e] is generally very short and a very short upgliding diphthong [ei] occurs sporadically. The phoneme /u/ of two and shoes also occurs in weakly stressed syllables, as in nephew and mushroom. In an un stressed syllable the phoneme /u/ is pronounced as the monophthong /u/ or the shortened monophthong [u] in all three groups . The phoneme /o/ of post and froze also occurs in weakly stressed syllables, as in yellow, borrow, and tomorrow. In an unstressed syllable the phoneme /o/ is pronounced as a very short monophthong, [o] , or as a short centering monoph thong, [o<], in all three groups. A short upgliding diph thong, [ou], occurs sporadically. In several instances in each group the allophone [o] alternates with the allophone [8] in a weakly stressed syllable. The phoneme /a/ of shut and brush also occurs in weakly stressed syllables, as in ago, address, and sofa. In an un stressed syllable the phoneme /g/ is pronounced [a] in all three groups . 132 Summary In general, the tendency to lengthen and diphthongize seems to be consistent in the allophonic vowel variation. Clearly, some— like the nasalized forms— are prosodically or positionally restricted. There is a great tendency to cen tralize and lower the vowel sounds, changing the quality of the vowels. The charts on the following pages indicate the frequency distribution of the vowel sounds among the three groups. The checked vowels show far less variation in the number of allophones which occur in the pronunciation of the informants than the free vowels. SUMMARY TABLE 17 OF FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF FREE VOWELS* VOWELS Vowel I C. 50% II + - III I C. 25% + - II III I C. 12% + - II III A / [i*] [ii] [i<]V [i*, ii] [i * ] [ii] A / [u] [u] [uu]v [u<]v [u<]v [u, u<]v [iu]v /e/ [ei] [ef] [Ee] [Ee] [ev*] [eV*-] [el, ei-] /o/ [ou] [ou] [o] [ou] [ o 9 3 o ] [oUj ou] A / [o] [O9, 08A] [o, o8] [0V3 0<] [oV] [Oj 0<] [0s] /ai/ [ai] [ai] [a*, a:] [a1] [a1] /au/ [au] [au] [aeu, ae-u] [au] [aeu, s b • u] /oi/ [o *] [ofr] [0 f r] [0, 0-] [o-, o:] [o : ] [o8A] *The symbol v following a bracket* [ ]v, indicates that other positional variants were included in the count. U) G J TABLE 17 — Continued CHECKED VOWELS C. 50% + C. 25% + Vowel III II III II II III [i>] [«<] [£A] [6 A] [A<] [asA] [$a] [°9] [i] [i] [UA] [U, UA] [U, UA] [A<] co CHAPTER V THE PRONUNCIATION OF CONSONANT PHONEMES The pronunciation of the consonant phonemes is dis cussed in this chapter under two headings: The Consonant Phonemes (including consonant clusters), and Morphophonemic //-s// and //-z//.^ The incidence of the consonant phonemes and the environmental differences in the incidence of par ticular phonemes are discussed in this chapter under the heading of the appropriate consonant. The non-environmental differences in the incidence of consonant phonemes will be discussed in a subsequent chapter. The consonant phonemes which occur in the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles are similar among all three groups designated in this study. When the incidence of a phoneme and its allophones are similar among all three ■'"Not enough information was elicited from the question naire to permit a discussion of morphophonemic //-t// and // - a / / . 135 ____ 136 groups, no statement is made concerning group distribution. If, however, an allophone appears exclusively in the speech of any one group, or if the pattern of incidence or fre quency distribution varies from group to group, this is pointed out. The consonant phonemes of the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles were established on the basis of minimal pairs contrast. The Consonant Phonemes There are twenty-four consonant phonemes which occur in the speech of all the informants. They are: /p/ as in post, appendicitis, wasp /b/ as in bag, umbrella, wardrobe /t/ as in two, store, chest /d/ as in door, jaundice, beard /k/ as in kitchen, basket, cork /g/ as in gums, ago, fog /f/ as in fog, sofa, laugh /v/ as in vacuum, seventy, five /s/ as in student, yesterday, twice /z/ as in zoo, music, because /s/ as in shoulder, ashes, brush /z/ as in (Zsa Zsa), measure, mirage 137 / e / as in thirsty, Martha, mouth / » / as in this, mother, with A/ as in chimnev, kitchen, watch /V as in January, oranqes, qarbaqe /m/ as in moth, tomorrow, ram /V as in nine, sunrise, mountain A/ as in drank, nothing A/ as in house, behind /:/ as in veast, barnvard /w/ as in wash, someone / I / as in law, milk, wool A/ as in rinses, library, car The phoneme /p/ The phoneme /p/ of past, people, and whip, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless bilabial stop. The allophones of the phoneme /p/ are strongly as pirated [p*1] , aspirated [pc], unaspirated [p], and unre- leased [pi ] . The strongly aspirated allophone [p ] occurs initially and medially, preceding a vowel under primary stress, as in put, palm, and compartment. The aspirated allophone [pc] occurs most frequently in an initial position before consonants, in an initial position before less 138 stressed vowels, and in a medial position before unstressed vowels, as in please, picket, and apple. In prevocalic clusters with preceding /s/, as in spiderweb, spoon, and hospital, and in medial position before /s/, as in hoops and stops, the unaspirated allophone [p] occurs in the speech of all the informants. The unreleased allophone [pi] occurs medially before consonants other than /s, r, j, l/, as in pumpkin. In word final position, as in crop, whip, and syrup, the aspirated phone [pc] is in free variation with the unreleased phone [pi]. However, in many instances in all three groups, /p/ in word final position is so weakly articulated as to become almost deleted audibly, so that /wip/ sounds like /wi9/. In the postvocalic final cluster /sp/j as in wasp, the /p/ is deleted in the speech of six informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 8 , 9, and 12), in the speech of eight informants in Group II (15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 27), and in the speech of eleven informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40), a total of twertty-five, more than one-half of the forty informants in the study. For these informants the word [wasp] is pro nounced [was • ] . 139 The phoneme /b/ The phoneme /b/ of brush, February, and tub, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced bilabial stop. The phoneme /b/ occurs initially, medially, and finally as the voiced phone [b]. A variant of /b/ which appears sporadically in all three groups is a voiced bi labial fricative [(3] . This bilabial fricative occurs inter- vocalically when preceded by a stressed vowel and followed by an unstressed vowel as baby [bei(3*-] and February [f£(3u£rfr] The phoneme /t/ The phoneme /t/ of top, hotel, and frost, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless alveolar stop. The allophones of the phoneme /t/ are strongly as pirated [t*1], aspirated [tc], retracted [t], unreleased [tl ], unaspirated [t], flapped [t], and voiced [t]. The strongly aspirated allophone [t*1] occurs in word initial and syllable initial position, preceding a vowel, under primary stress, as in ten, taught, and hotel (when primary stress 2The deletion of the phoneme /r/ is not unique to this dialect. It is only one of the many features that combine to make the dialect unique. For a discussion of the phoneme /r/ in the speech of the informants see p. 157 below. 140 falls on the second syllable). An unaspirated, retracted allophone, [t], in which the tip of the tongue is placed against the base of the alveolar ridge, occurs initially or medially before /r/, as in tree [tri*] and pantry [p^sentri] or [pkasntr*] , and medially between /s/ and /r/, as in street [stritl] . In Group II, informants 15 and 18, and in Group III, informants 28, 38, and 39 substituted /skr/ for /str/, so that street is pronounced [skritl]. An unaspirated allo phone, [t], is found almost exclusively after /s/, as in stone and stop, and intervocalically, as in kettle, beauti ful, and Saturday. The variants [t] and [t] occur only sporadically in an intervocalic position. In word final position following a vowel, as in seat, suit, flat, and bucket, /t/ is completely deleted in the speech of five informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 8 , and 9), eight informants in Group II (15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 26), and ten informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40). These words are pronounced [si*, su:, flae:8, bAk*] by these informants. However, it must be noted that this deletion is not consistent, nor is the distributional pattern discernible, for these same in formants have the aspirated allophone [tc] or the unreleased allophone [tl] in free variation in word final position and 141 in the same phonetic environment, as in feet, root, shut, and sat (in many instances the final /t/ is so weakly artic ulated as to be almost deleted audibly). From the evidence, it may be safe to hypothesize that the incidence of the loss of final /t/ following a vowel is high. In the terminal consonant clusters /st, ft, nt, kt, It/, as in frost, post, left, loft, went, student, viaduct, and asphalt, /t/ is completely deleted in the speech of eight informants in Group I (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 12), ten informants in Group II (15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, and 26), and twelve informants in Group III (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40), a total of thirty of the forty informants in the study. For these informants, these words are pronounced [fros, pous, 16f, lof, wCn, studsn, vaisdAk, aesfol, aesfo:]. In a medial position, as in mantle and post office, /t/ is deleted for these same in formants and these items are pronounced [maenel] or [maen9l] and [pous:offrs] or [poUs:ofss]. The phoneme /d/ The phoneme /d/ of dark, bedroom, and wood, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced alveolar stop. The voiced plosive [d] regularly occurs 142 initially before all vowels and all consonants other than /r/, and medially before vowels and when preceded by a con sonant. Medially before consonants, the stop is unreleased, [dl ] . The retracted, voiced variant [d] occurs regularly before /r/, as in drove [drouv]. In word final position following a vowel, as in head, side, feed, and rancid, the most frequent variant in all three groups is the devoiced phone [d], which has the pho netic quality of a weakly articulated [t]. Nine informants in Group I (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 , 9, 11, and 12), eleven inform ants in Group II (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27), and all thirteen informants in Group III (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40), have two or more incidences of [g] in their pronunciation of the words elicited. The deletion of /d/ in word final position follows the same pattern as the deletion of /t/j the dele tion of /d/ is not consistent in the speech of the inform ants, nor is the distributional pattern following a vowel discernible. In word final position, as in road, bread, and yard, the spread of the deletion of final /d/ through the groups is the same as for the deletion of final /t/.. Five informants in Group I (2, 3, 5 8 , and 9), eight informants in Group II (15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 26), and eleven 143 informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40), completely delete /d/ in the above words in word final position. These words are pronounced [si*, rou, brC, j a:, jar] by these informants. The plosive variant [d] also occurs in word final position in all three groups, but with greatest incidence in Group I and with least frequent incidence in Group III. In the terminal consonant clusters /id, nd/, as in gold and hand, /d/ is completely deleted in the speech of eight informants in Group I (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 , 9, and 12), ten informants in Group II (15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, and 26), and twelve informants in Group III (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40). For these informants, these words are pronounced [goul] or [gou^] and [hsen] or [h®n]. In a medial position, as in sandwich, /d/ is deleted for these same informants and pronounced [sasnwitj] or [saenwitj ] . ^ The phoneme /k/ The phoneme /k/ of California, basket, and sack, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless velar stop. The allophones of the phoneme /k/ are strongly 3 See n. 2, p. 139 above. 144 aspirated [k*1], aspirated [kc], unaspirated [k], and un released [kl ] . The strongly aspirated allophone [k*1] occurs initially and medially, preceding a vowel under primary stress, as in cow, college, and because. The aspirated allophone [kc] regularly occurs initially, preceding a con sonant, as in crop, clean, and queer: it also occurs ini tially before less stressed vowels and medially before un stressed vowels, as in kitchen and bucket. The unaspirated allophone [k] occurs medially following /s/ and preceding a vowel, as in skillet and skin, and also before another con sonant, as in squadcar and six. The unreleased allophone [kl ] regularly occurs medially when /k/ precedes another stop, as in blacktop and electric. Preceding a front vowel, as in keep and catch, the fronted palatalized allophone [k<] occurs regularly. In word final position, as in attic, sack, and truck, the aspirated phone [kc] is in free varia tion with the unreleased phone [kl ] . The deletion of /k/ in word final position following a vowel occurs only sporadi cally in all three groups. However, there is a high inci dence of the deletion of /k/ in the terminal consonant cluster /sk/, as in desk. Five informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 8, and 12), eight informants in Group II (15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 27), and eleven informants in Group III (28, 145 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40), delete /k/ from the cluster and pronounce [dCsk] as [dCs*] . The word ask, which contains the /sk/ cluster, presents a double pronun ciation pattern. Some of the informants pronounce the word with metathesis as [aeks], and some of them delete the final /k/ in the cluster, pronouncing it [ass*]. In Group I, in formants 2, 5, and 9 pronounce the word as [aeks], and 3, 8 , and 12 delete the /k/, pronouncing the word [s b s*]; in Group II, informants 16, 19, and 23 employ metathesis, and 15, 20, 21, 25, and 27 delete the second element; in Group III, in formants 30, 33, 35, 38, and 40 employ the former pronuncia tion, and 28, 29, 32, 36, 37, and 39 the latter. The phoneme /g/ The phoneme /g/ of gift, ago, and bag, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced velar stop. The phoneme /g/ regularly occurs initially and medially as the voiced phone [g] . Preceding a front vowel, as in gaso line and guess, a fronted palatalized phone [g<], occurs regularly. In word final position following a vowel, as in bag, fog, log, keg, rag, and egg, the most frequent variant in all three groups is a devoiced phone, [g], which has the phonetic quality of a weakly articulated /k/. Eight 146 informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 7, 8 , 9, 11, and 12), ten informants in Group II (15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27), and all thirteen informants in Group III (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40) have two . or more incidences of [g] in their pronunciation of the O words elicited. There is no deletion of /g/ in word final position in Group I; three informants in Group II (17, 20, and 26) and five informants in Group III (28, 32, 35, 39, and 40) delete /g/ in word final position, pronouncing dustrag, bag, and bug as [dAS :ras, bas», bA»] . The voiced phone /g/ also occurs in word final position in all three groups, but with greatest incidence in Group I, and with least frequent incidence in Group III. The phoneme /f/ The phoneme /f/ of forty, coffee, and wife, which oc curs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless labio-dental fricative. The phoneme /f/ regularly occurs initially, medially, and finally as the voiceless phone [f]. Three informants in Group III (28, 39, and 40), very spo radically use a labio-dental stop, [p], in word initial /N position, as in forty and fence. 147 The phoneme /v/ The phoneme /v/ of vegetables, seven, and five, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced labio-dental fricative. The phoneme /v/ regularly occurs medially and finally in the speech of all the informants as the voiced phone [v]. In word initial position, as in Ver mont Avenue, very, and vest, two informants in Group I (5 and 9), four informants in Group II (15, 19, 20, and 27), and six informants in Group III (29, 31, 33, 37, 39, and 40), use a voiced labio-dental stop, [b], pronouncing these words as [bsrmantc] , [b9mantc] or [bsman] , [b£ri-], and [b£stc] or [b£s*]. All the other informants regularly have the voiced labio-dental fricative [v] in word initial posi tion . The phoneme /s/ The phoneme /s/ of second, yesterday, and house, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless alveolar fricative. The phoneme /s/ regularly occurs ini- 4 tially, medially, and finally as the voiceless phone [s] . 4 See p. 159 below for morphophonemic considerations of //-*//• 148 The phoneme /z/ The phoneme /z/ of zoo, Tuesday, and cheese. which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced alveolar fricative. The phoneme /z/ regularly occurs ini- 5 tially, medially, and finally as the voiced phone [z]. The phoneme /s/ The phoneme /s/ of shoulder, bushel, and wash, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced alveolar-palatal fricative. The phoneme /z/. regularly oc curs medially and finally as the voiced phone [ 3 ]. This phoneme does not normally occur in word initial position; it does, however, occur in the name Zsa Zsa. The phoneme /9/ The phoneme /0/ of Thursday, bathroom, and mouth, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless interdental fricative. In word initial position preceding a stressed vowel, as in think, thank, Thursday, thousand, theatre, and thirty, the voiceless fricative [ 0] alternates with a voiceless dental stop, [t], or with an affricated ~*See p. 159 below for morphophonemic considerations of //-*//• 149 variant, [t®], in all three groups. The allophone [t] is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth (almost interdentally), and sounds like a weakly articulated /t/, and the affricated allophone begins with the tongue in the position of [t] and ends with the tongue in the position of [0]. The allophone [t] regularly occurs in initial position before /r/, as in three and throw, in the speech of five informants in Group I (2, 5, 8 , 10, and 12), seven informants in Group II (15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, and 27), and ten informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40). Medially, following a consonant, as in something, seven-thirty, and Martha (when postvocalic /r/ is pronounced), the voiceless fricative [ 0] usually occurs in all three groups, with [t] occurring spo radically. Intervocalically, as in nothing and Martha (when /r/ is zero), and medially, following a vowel, as in bath room and Southwest (morpheme final position), the phoneme /f/ is substituted for the phoneme [0], [nAf-tn, ma:fs, bsefrum, baefrum, saUfwGs*], in the speech of five informants in Group I (2, 3, 9, 11, and 12), six informants in Group II (15, 18, 22, 24, 26, and 27), and seven informants in Group III (28, 29, 30, 33, 38, 39, and 40). In word final posi tion following a consonant, as in month and health. [0] 150 alternates with [t] in all three groups. In final position following a vowel, as in mouth, both, tooth, (but not teeth), bath, path, and moth, the phoneme /f/ is substituted for the phoneme [ 0], [mauf, bouf, t u*f, baef, pmf, mof ], in the speech of seven informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 12), eight informants in Group II (15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, and 26), and nine informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, and 40). The rest of the in formants have [0] or [£] in this position. It would appear, from the evidence, that the /f~0/ substitution is phoneti cally limited following low-front vowels, back vowels, and upgliding diphthongs in which the second element is the high-back vowel /u/. In the words fifth and sixth, the final / 0/ is generally deleted to become /fif, siks, sik/, in all three groups. The phoneme /3/ The phoneme /3/ of this, mother, and smooth, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced interdental fricative. In word initial position, as in the, their, that, they, and them, the voiced fricative [3] alter nates with a voiced dental stop, [d]. The allophone [d] is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the back of 151 the upper teeth (almost interdentally); e.g., as the voiced counterpart of [t]. Intervocalically, as in mother, brother, weather, and other, the phoneme /v/ is substituted for the phoneme /3/, [mAve, mAvsr, brAva, brAvsr, wGvs, wCvsr, Ava, avGT] , in the speech of five informants in Group I (2, 3, 9, 11, and 12), six informants in Group II (15, 18, 22, 24, 26, and 27), and nine informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40). The rest of the inform ants alternate [3] and [d] in this position. In word final position (which does not occur frequently in this study), as in smooth and bathe,^ the phoneme /v/ is substituted for the phoneme /3/, [smuv, be-i-v], in the speech of seven informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 12), eight informants in Group II (15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, and 26), and nine in formants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40) . The rest of the informants alternate [3] and [d] in A this position. The phoneme /c/ The phoneme /c/ of chair, kitchen, and watch, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless 6The word with has the following alternate pronuncia tions : [wi3, wi0, wiv, wif, wig, wit]. 152 alveolar-palatal affricate. The phoneme /c/ regularly occurs initially, medially, and finally as the voiceless phone [tj ] . v The phoneme /j/ The phoneme / j / of June, oranges, and college, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced alveolar-palatal affricate. The phoneme /j/ regularly oc curs initially, medially, and finally as the voiced phone [d3l • The phoneme /m/ The phoneme /m/ of Monday, hammer, and room, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced bilabial nasal. The phoneme /m/ regularly occurs initially, medially, and finally as the voiced phone [m]. The phoneme /n/ The phoneme /n/ of nice, minnows, and ten, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced alveolar nasal. The phoneme /n/ regularly occurs initially, medi ally, and finally as the voiced phone [n]. In medial posi tion and word final position following a vowel, as in min nows , rinse, man, and ten, the allophone [n] is frequently 153 heard as a nasalization of the preceding vowel. It almost never is completely deleted, but its acoustical value is conditioned by the degree of nasalization of the preceding vowel. This nasalization is not treated as an allophone of /n/, but rather as nasalization of the vowel. Neither was the nasalized vowel treated as an allophonic variant because of the current'linguistic indecision about how to treat nasalization. In the preceding chapter, the nasalized vowel, when it occurred, was counted along with the monoph thong. What discussion there is occurs under the appropri ate vowel under monophthongs with heard nasalization. A syllabic [n] in word final position often occurs I - after stops that are homorganic with [n], as in kitten. The phoneme /n/ The phoneme /q/ of drink, strong, and laughing, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced velar nasal. The phoneme /q/ does not normally occur in word initial position, but occurs regularly in medial and final position, except in words which end in -ing, as the voiced phone /q/. In words which end in morphemic -ing, as in laughing and living, /q/ alternates with /n/ in the 154 7 speech of all the informants . Medially and finally follow ing a vowel (except in words which end in morphemic -ing), the allophone /g/ is frequently heard as a nasalization of the preceding vowel, and has been treated like the nasaliza tion of /n/. The phoneme /h/ The phoneme /h/ of house and forehead, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiceless glottal fricative. Since /h/ is made with the articulators in the position of the vowel which, follows it and since it thus assumes the allophonic quality of that vowel, there are an indefinite number of allophones for this phoneme. An allo phone of the phoneme /h/ regularly occurs initially and medially before vowels in stressed syllables. The phoneme /h/ does not occur in word final position. The phoneme /h/ before /w/, as in whip, wheelbarrow, and wheat. alternates g with /w/ in all three groups . The phoneme /j/ The phoneme /j/ of yard and music, which occurs in the 7 See n. 2, p. 139 above. ®See n. 2, p. 139 above. 155 speech of all the informants * is a voiced frictionless pala tal. The phoneme /j/ regularly occurs initially, and medi ally after a consonant, as in music, beautiful, onions, and few (but only sporadically in new), as the voiced phone [j]. The phoneme /j/ does not occur in word final position. The phoneme /w/ The phoneme /w/ of one and twelve, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced labial velar non fricative. The phoneme /w/ regularly occurs initially, and medially after a . consonant, as the voiced phone [w] . The phoneme /w/ does not occur in word final position. The phoneme /l/ The phoneme /l/ of Los Angeles, college, and pull, which occurs in the speech of all the informants, is a voiced alveolar lateral. In word initial position, as in livingroom, log, and laundry, it regularly occurs as the voiced phone [1]; preceding high front vowels in initial position, it is usually "clear 1_." Medially, following a consonant, as in closet, plastic, flower, and bracelet, it is most frequently velarized or "dark JL, " [1]. Intervocali- cally, medial /l/, as in jelly, yellow, electric, and skillet, is the velarized form and it occurs most frequently 156 in Group I; "clear" [1] and "dark" [±] alternate in Groups II and III. Medially* in the postvocalic position and pre ceding a consonant* as in twelve* milk, shoulder, cold, and myself, the phoneme /l/ is deleted [tw£*v, mi- ^k* J’ ouds* koud* kouY* ma:s£*f]* in the speech of seven informants in Group I (2* 3* 5* 8 * 9, 10* and 12)* seven informants in Group II (15* 17* 19* 20* 24* 25* and 26)* and nine inform ants in Group III (28* 32* 33* 35* 36* 37* 38, 39* and 40). The deletion of /l/ in this postvocalic position appears to occur especially after the front vowels /i/ and /£/* and back rounded vowels. The rest of the informants use the allophone [1] or [1] in this position. In word final posi tion* following a stressed vowel* as in school, all, tool, and wall* the /l/ is deleted [skY, o*Y* tuY, wo-Y]* by these same informants. The deletion of /l/ in this position ap pears to occur especially after back rounded vowels. Al though they were not elicited in the questionnaire* the words we 11 1 and he ' 1 1 were used by a number of informants. Informants 24 and 26 in Group II and informant 40 in Group III deleted /l/ in we111 [wi*]; and informants 36 and 40 in Group III deleted /l/ in he111 [hi*]; also we111 go and he 11 1 do it, indicating the future tense* became [wi*gou] and [hi*duwi]. In word final position* following a 157 consonant or an unstressed vowel* as in kettle, turtle, bushel, squirrel, and maple, the velarized [1] usually oc curs in all three groups* but a syllabic [i] also occurs in this position. The phoneme /r/ The phoneme /r/ of room, Friday, and door* which occurs in the speech of all the informants* is a voiced retroflexed alveolar. In word initial position* as in room and roof, the phoneme /r/ regularly occurs as the voiced phone [r]. Also in medial position* following a consonant and inter- vocalically* as in froze, April, broom, January, clearing, and parents * it regularly occurs as [r]. A flapped allo phone* [r]* occurs after the voiceless interdental fricative /9/* as in three; and an alveolar fricative* [a]* occurs after /t, d/* as in tree and drought. In Group I* /r/ in preconsonantal position* as in March* morning, beard, scarce, and garbage, occurs with great frequency; the deletion of /r/ in this position in the speech of this group is sporadic. Following weakly stressed vowels medially and in word final position* as in yesterday, Saturday, afternoon, father, flower, and water, the phoneme M occurs most often as the allophone [ s r] * a constricted 158 retroflex, with [9] also occurring. In words like first, third, bird, and nurse, /r/ is realized most frequently as the allophone [3*] in all three groups, with [ 3 ] also occur ring in the pronunciation of informants in the three groups. In word final position, following a stressed vowel, as in car, war, door, four, chair, and far, the incidence of the deletion of /r/ after /a, 0, o/, and the substitution of the allophone [9 ] after / i , €, as, 0, o, u, ai, au/ is high. These words are pronounced [ka:, wo:, wag, dos, dos, fo:, f 09', tJ £ 9, tjes, fa;] by seven informants in Group I (2, 3, 5, 8 , 9, 11, and 12). "Intrusive r" occurs in China [tja^sr] and wash [warj, worj] in the speech of informants 9 and 12. By contrast, in Groups II and III, the incidence of the deletion of /r/ is frequent. In preconsonantal position, as in March, morning, beard, scarce, and garbage, eight inform ants in Group II (15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 26), and ten informants in Group III (28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, and 40), delete /r/ after /a, 0/ and substitute the allophone [s] after other vowels, [ma:tj, mo*ntn, mo-nin, bisd, skasss, skSss, ga:bfrd3]. These same informants have [9] medially and in word final position, as in yesterday [jSstsde], Saturday [ssetsde], afternoon [asftsnun] , father 159 rfa:3 9 . fa:ds, fa:vs], flower [flauw©l, and water Twote, /S ■ I “ I I - ■ wat0]. These informants also delete /r/, or substitute [ 0 ] in word final position following a stressed vowel, as in car [ka;], war [wo:, wo*s, wo*s], door [do*s, do*s], four [fo*s, fo*s], chair [tjes, tjes], and far [fa:]. "Intrusive r_" occurs in the speech of four informants in Group II (15, 23, 25, and 26), and six informants in Group III (28, 31, 35, 36, 39, and 40). Those speakers in all three groups who delete /r/ in word final position do not use a "linking r" in a phrase in which /r/ in word final position is followed by a word which begins with a vowel, as in four o 1 clock [fo:sklak], or your aunt [jo*sant, jo*ant, jo*asnt]. Morphophonemic //-s// and //-z// Although morphophonemic //-s// and //-z//, which in English indicate the third person, singular, present form of the verb, the plural of nouns, and the possessive, are mor phemic rather than phonemic, the perception of //-s// and //-z// as markers of the above grammatical forms is affected by the pronunication of the consonant and consonant cluster phonemes in the speech of the informants of South-Central Los Angeles . Possessive forms were not elicited in the 160 TABLE 18 GENERALIZED FORMULATION OF SIGNIFICANT CONSONANT PHONEMIC VARIATION* A/ A/ /p/ #_V « — ♦ r h, [P ] A/ #-V — ¥ [th] /p/ ✓ v_ [Ph] A/ #-r —♦ /p/ #_C [PC] A/ _r — ♦ [t] • /p/ #_V [P°] A/ s_r - 4 [t] • /p/ _v [PC] A/ s_r — ♦ [k] /p/ s_V [p] A/ s_ — ♦ [t] /p/ _s [p] A/ V_V [t] A/ _ c [pi] A/ v _ # - 4 [ 0 ] A/ v _ # - [tc- tl ] A/ s _ # ' N f_# I n_# V - [ 0 ] A/ _ # [ P C ~ P ” l ] k _ # A/ V s _ # ■ * A# /t/ C_V - |$] /P/ _s [pC] 161 TABLE 18— Continued A / A / /b/ V_V - E 3 ] A / #_V - [kh] A / _v - [kh] A / A / #_C - [kC] /a / #_v - [d] A / #_V - » [k°3 /a / #_c - [d] A / _v - [kc] /a / _v - [d] A / S_V - [k] /a / c_ - [d] A / _C - * [k] A / _c - [dl] A / _Ci - [kl ] A/ _r - [d] r— i V X. T 1 —1 * /a / v_#- [d] O A/ _#- [ k c~kl] /a / _#- 10] A/ s_# [ ^ ] /a / _# - * [d] A/ 1_#' [0] /g/ n # > /g/ _Vi - [ g < ] /d/ C_C -* [0] /g/ v_ - [ ?] /g/ V_# - [ / t f ] A/ /g/ v_# " * [ g ] A/ #_ - I R ] A/ A/ " * t b3 A O ~ q ] - m. / q / A/ [u ~&] < - # I A/ [ p ~ g ] - #~ /fi/ A/ [A] - #_ / fi/ [ p ~ g ] < - a""a /s/ [ U ] « H - #_ A/ [A] - a"' a /fi/ A/ [ p ~ e ] - A" '# /a/ I A/ [*] - #“ A/ [ = E ] A A/ [5-0] . 1 - #A / e / U ] - #~D A/ [? ] ^ # a" / e / [I] - #“A A/ [5~e] ♦ - #” ‘o / e / [0] « - $ A / A/ [j] - A- ♦ — / e / [gf] « - D_A A/ [j ] Z A" 'A / e / [T HE] « - A~A A/ [ 5-0] « — ' d / e / [*] - D A/ [5] ♦ - oT'# /e / [I] - - 2 a- # A/ [0q ~ 5 ~ e ] - a" / •# /e/ /I/ /e/ penu-rquoD— si siavi 163 TABLE 18— Continued A / A / #_ - [r] A / c_ " * [r] A / v_y ■ * tr] A / Q_ - [*] A / t_ j d_ j - ^ A / _c - [r] *Those consonant phonemes which remain constant in all positions are not listed. The symbols used in this table are: V— primary stress; V— secondary stress; v— weak stress; — a stop consonant; C2— a homorganic consonant; — a front vowel; V2— a high front vowel; #_— word initial position; _#— word final position; a symbol following a pho neme which is not enclosed in phonemic slashes indicates a phoneme and not an orthographic symbol, A / s_j indicates that the phoneme /s/ preceded the phoneme /t/; the arrow indicates that the phoneme in the shown position yields the allophone which follows; the symbol ~ indicates an alter nating allophone, and the reversed arrows 7- indicate a merging of sounds. A / A / —C [0 ~ 8 ] A / v_ ' ► -* [sr ~ g] / • A / V_ [31 ~ 3 ] A / V _ # - A / V _ # - [r] 164 questionnaire, and the following comments are limited to the noun and the verb functions. The plurals of nouns and the third person, singular, present tense of regular verbs are formed, by all the in formants, as they are in other dialects of American English. The allomorph //-*-z// or //-az// is added to the base of words which end in /s, z, s , z, c, j / , as in purses, houses, dishes, mirages, watches, and judges. The allomorph //-s// is added to the base of words which end in voiceless con sonants, except /s, s, c/, as in costs, hoops, and students. The allomorph //-z// is added to the base of words which end in any vowel or a voiced consonant, except /z, z, j/, as in rooms, trousers, berries. Nouns whose singular form ends in /st/, as in post, /sk/, as in desk, and /sp/, as in wasp, differ in the forma tion of the plural. Those informants who delete /t/ in post (informants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 , 9, 12 in Group I; 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26 in Group II; and 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40 in Group III) form the plural, in most instances, by adding the allomorph //-i-z// or //-az// to the base form, [pousfrz, pousaz]; this form alternates with [pous:], in which the final /s/ is lengthened, [s: ], and functions as 165 the plural allomorph //-s//. Informant 6 in Group I and informant 22 in Group II have the same shape for the plural as for the singular, /post/. The other informants have the plural [pousts]. The pronunciation of the plural of wasps and desks is approximately the same as for posts. The plurals for wasps and desks are [wasfz, was:, wasp, wasps, wos:, d£s*z, d£s:, d£sk, d£sks] . When /t, k, p/ are deleted from the consonant clusters /st, sk, sp/, the plural forms [pousfrz, wastz, d£s*-z], appear to develop by analogy with words which normally end in /s/, as in [hors, hors*z]. The plural of house, in isolation, is [hauz*-z] ; how ever, when a quantifier is used before the noun, two houses, the plural frequently has the same shape as the singular, /tu haus/. This may be extended to other nouns, for there appears to be a tendency to delete redundant plural markers. The third person, singular of the verb costs is most frequently formed with the allomorph //-s//, [kos:]. It costs too much is most frequently [I :kos:tumAtJ]. There are _ v several incidences of [khos*z] in each group, with [k ost] and [k^osts] also occurring. The third person, singular of the verb rinse is most frequently the uninflected form [rints] or [rTns]. Two 166 informants in Group I (2 and 10) and three informants in Group III (28, 36, and 40), pronounce the singular of rinse [rintj, rCntJ]. For these informants the third person, sin gular is [rintj’ *z, r£ntj‘ *z]. The pronunciation [rintsfrz] also occurs in all three groups. Summary To summarize the pronunciation of the consonant pho nemes in the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Ange les, it may be concluded that the phonemes /b, f, v, s, z, s, z, c, 3, m, n, q, h, j, w/ have little or no variations in frequency distribution or in environmental differences in the incidence from most other American dialects. The phonemes /p, t, d, k, 0, 3, 1, r/ have great variations in frequency distribution and in environmental differences in the incidence of the phonemes. It is in the incidence of the phonemes in a dialect, both environmental and non-environmental, that its most distinguishing and easily recognizable features occur. The following chapter takes up incidence along those two dimen sions. CHAPTER VI THE INCIDENCE OF THE PHONEMES For purposes of this study, the differences in the incidence of the phonemes have been classified as either environmental or non-environmental. Environmental differ ences are defined as differences in the incidence of pho nemes which are limited to specific phonological environ ments, such as the incidence of /i/ and /£/ before nasal consonants as in /tin/ for ten and /r£ns/ for rinse. Non- environmental differences are defined as differences in the incidence of phonemes which are not determined by the phono logical environment in which they occur, such as the inci dence of /n/ and /q/ in the final syllable of laughing and 1 singing. The incidence of the phonemes is discussed in this ■^■Environmental differences may affect an entire range of morphemes; non-environmental differences do not affect a range of morphemes. _______________________ 1 6 7 _____________________________ 168 chapter under three headings: Environmental Differences of Vowel Phonemes, Non-environmental Differences of Vowel Pho nemes , and Non-environmental Differences of Consonant Pho- 2 nemes . The differences in the incidence of the phonemes are discussed by group under the heading for the phoneme in which they occur. When it is necessary* two vowels are dis cussed under the same heading* as in the incidence of /u~u/ of /rum/ and /rum/. Environmental Differences of Vowel Phonemes The phoneme /I/ The incidence of the phoneme /£/ instead of the phoneme /i/ before a nasal consonant* as in minnows, rinses, and since, occurs in the speech of seventeen of the forty in formants in the study* and with greatest frequency in Group III. There are twenty-five occurrences of /£/ in the elic ited words* with six instances in the speech of four in formants in Group II and twelve instances in the speech of eight informants in Group III. The frequency distribution of the incidence of /£/ instead of /i/ in this environment 2 Environmental differences of consonant phonemes were discussed in Chapter IV above. is: TABLE 19 THE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF THE INCIDENCE OF / Z / INSTEAD OF /i/ 169 /mCnoz/ /m£no/ /rSns iz/ /r£nsez/ /rSns/ /rSns i z/ /sC ns/ Group I none 8 , 14 ( 2 ) 2 , 8, 1 0, 14 (4) ( 6 ) Group II none 15, 18, 26 (3) 15, 19, 25, 26 (4) (7) Group III 31 28, 31, 33, 35 (4) 28, 31, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40 (7) ( 1 2) ( 1 ) (9) (15) (25) The incidence of the phonemes /e/ or /z/ instead of medially stressed /i/ or /i/ when checked by postvocalic /r/ in word final position. as in clear, ear, pier, and year. occurs sporadically in all three groups. The phoneme /i/ occurs most frequently in the word year /iir, iis/, in all three groups, with /i/, /jisr, jis/, occurring infrequently. In clear, ear, and pier, the phoneme /i/ occurs more fre- quently in all three groups, /klisr, klie, isr, is, pisr, 170 2 pie/, with /i/, /klir, klie, ir, le, pir, pis/, occurring in the pronunciation of approximately one-fourth of the in formants in each group. Informants 5 in Group I, 20 in Group II, 30 and 34 in Group III have /e/ in clear /kler/, _ y ear /er/, and pier /per/ $ informants 25 in Group II and 31 in Group III have /£/, /klCr, £r, p£r/, in the same environ- ment, and informants 25 and 31 also have /£/ in year /j£r/. The phoneme / v / The phoneme /u/ alternates with the phoneme /u/ in all three groups when it occurs medially preceding /m, p, f, t/ 5 as in broom, hoops. root, roof, and hoofs. The incidence of /u/ and /u/ in the speech of the informants varies from word to word in all three groups. However, the frequency distribution pattern appears to indicate that preceding a bilabial consonant, /m, p/, the phoneme /u/ occurs with greater incidence than the phoneme /u/. The frequency ^When /i/ occurs in this environment, it is always fol lowed by / & / or /sr/, since /i/ never appears in the same syllable with /r/ in the speech of any of the informants. ^When morphemic -ing is added to a word like clear, the base form remains the same and intervocalic /r/ is always pronounced. ^The alternation of /u/ and /u/ is not unique to this dialect. 171 distribution by group is: broom hoops Group I /brum/ 1 0 /brum/ 4 /hups/ 1 1 /hups/ 3 Group II 7 6 6 7 Group III _ 8 5 7 6 25 15 24 16 Preceding a labio-dental or a dental consonant, /f, v, t/, the phoneme /u/ occurs with greater incidence than the pho neme /u/. The frequency distribution by group is: root roof hoofs /rut/ /rut/ /ruf/ /ruf/ /hufs/ /huvz/ /hufs/ /huvz/ Group I 9 5 1 1 3 8 6 Group II 9 4 9 4 7 5 Group III 9 4 12 1 1 0 2 27 13 32 8 25 13 Only two informants, 7 and 10 in Group I, have /u/ in soot /sut/; all the other informants have /u/ in this word. 172 The phoneme /£/ The incidence of the phoneme /i/ instead of the phoneme /£/ before a nasal consonant, as in cemetery, genuine, ten, fence, Wednesday, Pennsylvania, and appendicitis. occurs in the speech of twenty of the forty informants in the study, with greatest frequency in Group III. The incidence of / \ / is most frequent before the nasal consonant /n/. Of the seventy-six instances of /i/ in these words, eleven occur in the speech of four informants in Group I, twenty-nine occur in the speech of eight informants in Group II, and thirty- six occur in the speech of eight informants in Group III. The frequency distribution of /i/ instead of /£/ in this environment is shown on the charts on the following pages. The incidence of the phoneme /e/ instead of /£/ pre ceding a voiced consonant stop, as in egg, leg (leg of lamb), keg, and bedroom, occurs in the speech of five of the forty informants in the study. The pronunciations /eg/ in egg, /leg/ in leg, /keg/ in keg, and /bedrum, bedrum/ in bedroom have no occurrences in Group Ij they all occur in the speech of informant 25 in Group II and informants 33, 35, 37, and 39 in Group III. The incidence of the phoneme /e/ instead of the phoneme /£/ in polysyllabic words with /r/ in an intervocalic TABLE 20 THE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF /i/ INSTEAD OF /£/ cemetery / s im9t£ri/ /simiteri/ qenuine / j injuin/ /jinjuain/ ten / t i n / fence /fins/ Group I 2, 8 , 14 (3) none 10 ( 1) 2 , 8 ( 2 ) ( 6 ) Group II 16 , 2 0, 2 2, 26 (4) 15, 18, 26 (3) 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 25, 26 (7) 16, 18, 2 1, 26 (4) (18) Group III 28, 33, 37 (3) 28, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40 ( 6 ) 28, 35, 37, 39, 40 (5) 28, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40 (7) ( 2 1) ( 1 0) (9) (13) (13) (45) 173 TABLE 20— Continued Wednesday /winzde/ Pennsylvania /pins Ilvenja/ appendicitis /spindisaitis/ /apindasaitis/ Group I none 2, 8, 14 (3) 2, 14 ( 2 ) (5) Group II none 15, 16, 18, 2 0, 2 1, 2 2, 26 (7) 16, 2 1, 2 2, 26 (4) (ID Group III 33, 35, 40 28, 33, 35, 28, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40 37, 39, 40 (15) (3) ( 6 ) ( 6 ) (3) (16) ( 1 2) (31) i —* 175 position, as in Mary, dairy, cherry, and merry, occurs in the speech of fifteen of the forty informants in the study, with the greatest incidence in Group III. Of the forty-six instances of /e/ in these words, twelve occur in the speech of four informants in Group I, fifteen occur in the speech of five informants in Group II, and nineteen occur in the speech of six informants in Group III. TABLE 21 THE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF /e/ INSTEAD OF /£/ Mary /meri/ /mer1/ dairy /deri/ /deri/ cherry /ceri/ /ceri/ merry /meri/ /mer i/ Group I 2, 5, 7, 9 (4) 2, 5, 7, 9 (4) 2 ( 1 ) 2, 5, 9 (3) ( 1 2) Group II 15, 18, 19, 23, 26 (5) 15, 18, 23, 26 (4) 15, 18 ( 2 ) 15, 18, 19, 26 (4) (15) Group III 28, 29, 36, 38, 39, 40 ( 6 ) 28, 29, 38, 39, 40 (5) 28, 38,. 40 (3) 28, 29, 36, 39, 40 (5) (19) (15) (13) ( 6 )- ( 1 2) (46) 176 The incidence of the phoneme /e/ instead of the pho nemes /£/ or /ae/ in monosyllabic words preceding postvocalic /r/ or the substitution of /a/ for /r/, as in chair, care, scarce, and fair, is sporadic in all three groups. Inform ants 5 and 12 in Group I, 21 in Group II, and 28 and 39 in Group III have /e/ in this environment in all of the words above. The phonemes /£/ and /as/ occur with approximately equal frequency in these words in the speech of the rest of the informants in all three groups. An example of the var ious pronunciations is [keia, keisr, k£r, k£a, kasr, kaea] . The phoneme /ae/ The incidence of the phoneme /a/ instead of the phoneme /ae/ before fricatives and nasals, as in ask, laugh, calf, dance, and chance, is sporadic in all three groups. The phoneme /ae/ regularly occurs in these environments in the pronunciation of all the informants in all three groups ex cept in the speech of informant 13 in Group I, who has /a/ in laugh /laf/ and chance /cans/; informant 27 in Group II, who has /a/ in calf /kaf/ and dance /dans/, and informant 37 in Group III, who has /a/ in ask /ask/. The word aunt shows a different distributional pattern than any of the other words in which /ae/ usually occurs 177 before the nasal consonant /n/. In aunt, the phoneme /a/ occurs more frequently than /ae/. Of the forty informants, twenty-seven have the Southern pronunciation /ant/ or /anti/; however, the greatest incidence of the pronunciation /sent/ or /aenti/ occurs in Group I (six instances), with five instances in Group II, and three instances in Group III. The frequency distribution is: /asnt/ or /aenti/ Group I 1, 4, 5, 8 , 10, 11 Group II 15, 20, 21, 23 Group III 29, 30, 40 The incidence of the phoneme /e/ instead of the phoneme /ae/ before the nasal consonant /n/ in can11 /kent, ken/ oc curs in the speech of thirty of the forty informants in the study. The frequency distribution is: /kent/ or /ken/ Group I 1, 2, 5, 7, 8 , 9, 10, 12 ( 8 ) Group II 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 (11) Group III 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 (11) 178 The phoneme /sb/ regularly occurs before intervocalic /r/, as in barrel, married, and wheelbarrow, except in the speech of informants 10 and 13 in Group I, informant 17 in Group II, and informants 31 and 34 in Group III, who have /£/ in this environment /b£rel, m£rid, wilbGre, wilb£ro/. There is one occurrence of /a/ in wheelbarrow /wilbQra/ in the speech of informant 26 in Group II, and one occurrence of /o/ in wheelbarrow /wilbore/ in the speech of informant 30 in Group III. The phoneme /a/ The incidence of the phonemes /a/ and /o/ is consistent in the speech of all the informants in certain environments, while in other environments the incidence varies from word to word. The phoneme /a/ usually occurs before the voiced stop /g/, as in fog, log, hog, and frog. In these words /a/ occurs in the speech of all the informants in all three groups except that of informants 5 and 13 in Group I, 24 and 25 in Group II, and 29, 32, 35, and 39 in Group III, who have /o/ in these words. However, in the word dog the pho neme /o/ occurs in the speech of all the informants. The phoneme /o/ usually occurs before the voiceless 179 fricatives /f, 0, s/, as in office, coffee, moth, frost, and costs. In office, /o/ occurs in the speech of all the in formants except that of 2 and 3 in Group I, 16, 18, and 24 in Group II, and 29 and 36 in Group III, who have /a/. In coffee, /o/ occurs in the speech of all the informants ex cept that of 1, 6 , and 9 in Group I, 16, 18, and 26 in Group II, and 29, 34, 36, and 39 in Group III, who have /n/. In moth, /o/ occurs in the speech of all the informants in all three groups. In frost, /o/ occurs in the speech of all the informants except that of informant 35 in Group III, who has /a/. In costs, /o/ occurs in the speech of all the inform ants except that of 1, 6 , and 9 in Group I, 16 and 18 in Group II, and 29, 34, and 35 in Group III, who have /a/. The exception to /o/ preceding /s/ occurs before the con sonant cluster /sp/ in the word hospital, in which the pho neme / a / occurs in the speech of all the informants in all three groups. The phoneme /a/ usually occurs preceding the voiced fricative /z/ in closet; all the informants have /a/ in this word except informants 10 and 13 in Group I, 23 in Group II, and 28 and 35 in Group III, who have /o/. The phoneme /a/ usually occurs before the stops /p, b, t, d, k/, as in crop, cob, pot, God, and rock. The phoneme 180 /a/ occurs in the speech of all the informants in all three groups in crop, pot, and rock. In cob and God, /a/ occurs in the speech of all the informants except that of 13 in Group I and 28 and 35 in Group III, who have /o/ in these words. The phonemes /a/ and /o/ vary in distribution preceding the nasal consonants /m, n, q/, as in palm, on, and strong. In palm, /a/ occurs in the speech of all the informants in all three groups. In on, /a/ and /o/ occur with approxi mately equal frequency in all three groups. In strong, the phoneme /o/ occurs more frequently; only informants 13 in Group I and 36 and 39 in Group III have /a/ in this environ ment . There are eight instances of /o/ in the speech of in formants 13 in Group I, 18 in Group II, and 30 and 34 in Group III in far and garbage. The rest of the informants in all three groups have /a/ preceding /r/ or the substitution of /e/ for /r/ in either word final or preconsonantal posi tion. Preceding intervocalic /r/, as in tomorrow and bor row, /a/ and /o/ occur with approximately the same frequency in all three groups. The phoneme /a/ usually occurs medially in all environ ments, except preceding /r, 1, s/, in which initial /w/ is 181 followed by orthographic a, as in wasp, want, and watch. All the informants have /a/ in wasp and want, and all the informants have /a/ in watch, except 25 in Group II and 33 in Group III, who have the phoneme /as/. Preceding /r, 1, §/, as in war, wall, and wash, the phoneme /a/ alternates with /o/. In war and wall, /o/ occurs more frequently^ only informants 10 and 13 in Group I and 33 in Group III have /a/ in these environments. In wash, /a/ and /o/ occur with approximately equal frequency in all three groups. Preced ing intervocalic /l/, as in college, /a/ regularly occurs in the speech of all the informants. In words in which the syllabic is derived from au, as in sauce, jaundice, haunted, and sausage, the phonemes /a/ and /o/ occur with approximately equal frequency in all three groups. However, in faucet the phoneme /a/ occurs more frequently than /o/j only informants 2, 5, and 13 in Group I, 18 and 21 in Group II, and 32 in Group III have /o/ in this word. The phonemes /o ~ o/ The phonemes /o/ and /o/ alternate freely and occur with approximately equal frequency in all three groups medi ally preceding /r/ or the substitution of /s/ for /r/ in 182 words like four, boar, door, born, corn, horse, hoarse, morning, and mourning. An example of the various pronuncia tions in this environment is [foe, fo:, foar, fo:, foa, for] . Non-environmental Differences of Vowel Phonemes The phoneme / 1 / The one incidence of the phoneme /a/ instead of the usual phoneme /i/ in whip /wap/ occurs in the speech of in formant 18 in Group II. The phoneme /i/ occurs in this en vironment in the speech of all the rest of the informants. The phoneme /a/ instead of the usual phoneme /i/ in Christmas /krasmis/ also occurs in the speech of informant 18 in Group II. All of the other informants have / \ / in Christmas. The phonemes /£/ and /a/ alternate with the phoneme /i/ in stirrup and syrup. The pronunciations of these words £ are: /sirap, s£rap, sarap, stirap, stGrap, starep/. In Group I the incidence of /i/ is greatest: /i/ occurs in the speech of nine informants, and /£/ or /a/ in the speech of ^Unstressed /i/ alternates with unstressed /a/ in the unstressed syllable of these words. 183 the others. In Group II, seven informants have /i/ in their pronunciation and the other six have / Z / or /e/. In Group III, five informants have /i/ and the other eight have / Z / or /©/ The phoneme /u/ bushel /bsssl/ /bus0 1/ butcher /becar/ /bucar/ Group I 13 all other informants 13 all other informants Group II 18, 26 all other informants 18 all other informants Group III 28, 35 all other informants 28, 35 all other informants The phoneme /Z / All of the informants have / Z / in deaf except informant 22 in Group II. This informant has the phoneme /i/ in deaf /dif/. The phoneme /ae/ instead of / Z / in bedroom /baedrum, baedrum/ occurs in the speech of informants 16 in Group II and 39 in Group III. The rest of the informants have the phoneme / Z / in this word. 184 The phoneme /e/ There are four instances of the phoneme /£/ instead of /a/ in shut. Informants 9 in Group I, 16 and 21 in Group II, and 32 in Group III have /£/ in shut /s£t, s£/. All of the other informants have /a/. There are five instances of the phoneme /£/ instead of /a/ in such. Informants 9 and 13 in Group I, 26 in Group II. and 35 and 39 in Group III have /£/ in such /s££/; all of the other informants have /a/ in this word. Only informant 39 in Group III has /£/ in tusks /t£sk/. All the other informants have /a/ in this word. The phoneme /m/ The phoneme /£/ instead of the usual /ae/ occurs in rather /r£3ar, r£dar/ in the speech of informants 8 and 13 in Group I and 20 and 22 in Group II. The incidence of /£/ in catch /k£c/ and radish /r£dls/ is the same as in rather. Informant 13 in Group I has /£/ in blacktop /bl£ktap/; informant 25 in Group II has /£/ in January /5£nju£rl/; and informant 38 in Group III has /£/ in sack /s£k/. All the other informants have /ae/ in these words. 7 This informant also deletes the plural morpheme marker //-s// in this word. 185 The phoneme /i/ The phoneme /i/ in creek /krik/ instead of the usual /i/ occurs in the speech of informants 13 in Group I and 29 and 33 in Group III. The rest of the informants have /i/ in creek. The phoneme /u/ The incidence of the phoneme /o/ instead of medially stressed /u/ or /u/ in sure /so/ and your /jo/ occurs in the speech of twenty-two of the forty informants. There are thirty instances of /o/ in these words; nine instances occur in the speech of six informants in Group I, ten instances in the speech of seven informants in Group II, and eleven in stances in the speech of nine informants in Group III. The frequency distribution of /o/ instead of /u/ or /u/ is: Group I Group II Group III sure /so/ 2, 8, 12 13 15, 20, 25, 26 28, 33, 38 39, 40 your /jo/ 2, 3, 8 9, 13 15, 16, 19 21, 25, 26 28, 29, 31, 35, 36, 40 186 The phoneme /e/ The phoneme /a/ in tomato /tamcito, temate/ instead of /e/ occurs in the speech of informants 7 and 11 in Group I, 24 in Group II, and 32, 36, and 39 in Group III. The rest of the informants have /e/ in this word. ' The phoneme /e/ alternates with /i/ and / 1/ in the word theatre in all three groups. The various pronunciations are: /Bietar, Bieta, tieta, Bitar, Bite, Bitar/. The phoneme /o/ The one instance of /a/ instead of /o/ in shoulder /sadar/ occurs in the speech of informant 36 in Group III. All of the other informants have the phoneme /o/ in this word. The phoneme /ai/ Informants 6 , 9, and 13 in Group I, 18, 20, and 24 in Group II, and 28, 31, 36, and 39 in Group III have the pho neme /ai/ in the third syllable of genuine /jCnjuain, jinjuain/. The rest of the informants have /i/ or /a/. The phoneme /oI/ There is one instance of /ai/ in joint /jaint/ and one in joined / j a m d / . Both of these pronunciations occur in 187 the speech of informant 20 in Group IIj all of the other informants have /oi/ in these words. Non-environmental Differences of Consonant Phonemes The phoneme /p/ Two informants, 13 in Group I and 19 in Group II, have /p/ in word final position in lamb /laemp/. All the other informants have /m/ in word final position in this word. Informants 4 and 10 in Group I, 27 in Group II, and 32 in Group III have the phoneme /f/ in diphtheria /difQirie, difirie/. All of the other informants have /p/ in this word. The phoneme /b/ There are ten occurrences of the archaic pronunciation g of chimney. Informants 2, 9, and 13 in Group I, 15, 17, 24, and 27 in Group II, and 28, 36, 38, and 40 in Group III have the pronunciation /cimbli, cimbsli/. The rest of the informants pronounce the word without / b/ . Q Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconven tional English, 6th ed. (New York, 1967), cites this pronun ciation as common dialect since the mid-eighteenth century. Dickens puts it in the mouth of Joe Gargery, the Kentish blacksmith of Great Expectations (1861) . The phoneme /k/ instead of /t/ in vomit /vamik/ occurs in the speech of informants 2, 7, 9, and 13 in Group I, 15, 17, 21, and 27 in Group II, and 31, 33, 35, and 38 in Group III. All the other informants have /t/ in word final posi tion in vomit. The phonemes /s ~ z/ 188 Informants 5, 8, and 13 in Group I and 37 in Group III 9 have /v/ instead of /b/ in curb /ksrv/. The rest of the informants have /b/ in this word. The phoneme /t/ The incidence of the phonemes /s/ and /z/ in grease (verb) and greasy varies from group to group. The occur rence of /s/ and /z/ in these words by group distribution is as follows : Group I Group II Group III crrease /gris/ 11 . .1.0 4 /griz/ 3 3 9 creasy /grisi/ 8 6 6 /grizi/ 6 7 7 g This pronunciation may be a lexical confusion rather than a phonemic confusion. ____________ 189 The phoneme /&/ instead of the phoneme /s/ in rinse /ri.nc, rGnc/ occurs in the speech of informants 2 and 1 0 in Group I and informants 28, 36, and 40 in Group III. All of the other informants have /s/. The phoneme /c/ The phoneme /£/ instead of the usual /c/ in kitchen /kisin/ occurs in the speech of informants 16, 18, and 2 2 in Group II, and informant 33 in Group III. All of the other informants have /c/ in this word. The phoneme /m/ The phoneme /g/ and the sequence /mp/ in pumpkin /pegkin, pempkln/ alternates in all three groups. The phoneme /n/ The phoneme /g/ instead of the usual /n/ in kitchen /kicig/ occurs in the speech of informants 21 and 27 in Group II and informant 30 in Group III. The phoneme /n/ occurs in the speech of the rest of the informants. The phoneme /i/ The incidence of the zero phoneme in yeast /ist, is/ all occur in Group III in the speech of informants 34, 36, 38, and 39. The rest of the informants have the phoneme 190 /j/ in the word initial position in this word. 1 0 Summary To summarize, the incidence of the phonemes in the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles, which creates homonyms of words like pin and pen, idea and ear, sure and shore, and which merges the phonemes /f/ and / 0/, is not unique to this dialect; it is rather the distribution of the phonemes and the frequency of occurrence of the in cidence of the phonemes which make the dialect of the Negro a "distinct entity." The implications of the incidence of the vowels and consonants are discussed in the concluding chapter. ^■®The phoneme /j/ is not deleted in word initial posi tion in yolk or yes in the speech of any of the informants. CHAPTER VII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION This study set out to answer a number of critical ques tions in regard to the linguistic entity, sometimes identi fied as "Black English," of the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles. It appears rather clear from the data presented of the phonemic and allophonic structure in the preceding chapters that there are indeed some differ ences between most "standard" American dialects of English and the dialect of the Negro in this area, which may be classified by the nominalism "Black English." At the same time, it has been pointed out that few of the characteris tics of this dialect are exclusive to it. Rather what has been demonstrated in the data is the fact that— while cer tain distinctive features overlap with other social and regional dialects— the configuration of distinctive features in total is unique to this dialect. Each of the chapters 191 192 which specifically contains analyses of data'*' contains sum maries of the significance of particular pieces of data. It is unnecessary in this chapter to reiterate the particular statements. Suffice it to say that a great many of the features examined are extremely similar to or identical with comparable features in most other dialects of American Eng lish. A very small number of features are completely unique to this particular dialect. In an urban area like Los Ange les, among those features which identify the dialect as being specifically an ethnic dialect because of their dis tribution and frequency of occurrence are the inability to distinguish /i/ and /S/ before nasals, the distribution and deletion of /l/ and /r/, the weakening or deletion of final consonants, the reduction of consonant clusters, the merging of /f/ and / 0/ and /v/ and /3/, and the formation of the 2 plurals of nouns and the third person, singular of verbs. In the review of the literature concerning systematic studies antecedent to this one, presented in Chapter II, it ^"See pp. 57, 135, and 167 in Chapters IV, V, and VI. ^These features also occur with different distribution and frequency of occurrence in many ethnic and non-ethnic rural dialects. 193 was pointed out that there has been considerable disagree ment among linguists about the very existence of such a dia lect, let alone about the distinctive characteristics of the dialect. This study, while it systematically discusses similarities and differences between the dialect and a "gen eralized standard," undoubtedly will not serve to resolve all of those differences. It does, however, contribute to the definition of the dialect under discussion, to the evi dence substantiating the existence of such a dialect, and to a detailed knowledge of the specific characteristics of that dialect. Furthermore, the study differs from the others which have been examined in that it systematically investi gates and analyzes the speech of the largest number of young Negro informants to date and in the classification of the informants into groups in which the variable is the length of residence in the community under investigation. Perhaps, now that a detailed description of the dia lect, at least as present in the speech of the specific in formants who constitute the base of this study, has been provided above, it may be possible to speculate about the implications of those features both in a sociological and in a linguistic sense. Whether or not there is linguistic evidence for the existence of a "Black dialect," there is 194 clear "mythological" evidence for the existence of that dialect. Many individuals, for example, feel that they are able to distinguish a black person on the telephone with no other available evidence than the phonation discernible 3 through the earpiece of the telephone. William Labov has stated that: Many features of pronunciation, grammar, and lexicon are closely associated with Negro speakers— so closely as to identify the great majority of Negro people in the Northern cities by their speech alone. The match between this speech pattern and membership in the Negro ethnic group is of course far from complete. Many Negro speakers have none— or almost none— of these features. Many Northern whites, living in close prox imity to Negroes, have these features in their own speech. But this overlap does not prevent the features from being identified with Negro speech by most listeners: we are dealing with a stereotype which provides correct identi fication in the great majority of cases, and therefore with a firm base in social reality. Such stereotypes are the social basis of language perception; this is merely one of many cases where listeners generalize from the variable data to categorical perception in absolute terms . Someone who uses a stigmatized form 20 to 30 percent of the time will be heard as using this form all of the time.^ The mythological view has gradually built up a set of ■^Kenneth Johnson, in a talk delivered at the NCTE re gional meeting in Las Vegas in November 1969, made specific reference both to his own ability to do so and to the al leged ability of secretaries in governmental offices to do so. ^"Some Sources of Reading Problems," pp. 33-34. 195 cultural and linguistic expectations in many individuals across the United States which are linked with ethnic rather than geographical identification of an individual. While many of the characteristics of the dialect under discussion also occur in geographic "Southern" speech among communities of white speakers, the characteristics in the abstract do not tend to identify the user as Southern, but rather tend to identify him as black. Furthermore, the presence of only random pieces or incidences of pieces of the dialect tend to become abstracted in the cultural and linguistic expectations of listeners so that the individual speaker is mythologized to possess all of the characteristics believed to be identi fied with the non-standard dialect, which in turn is mythol ogized into ethnic representation. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the generalized characteristics are not the result of linguistic research, but rather are stylizations derived from years of stereotyping in movies, television, and other mass communication media. The evidence presented in this study indicates that most of the characteristics of that mythological dialect do not in fact exist in the speech of at least some of the in formants interviewed. This study, to some extent along with its predecessors, does define the parameters of the real as 196 opposed to the mythological dialect. The implications of the mythic dialect are widespread, and being widespread tend to influence both the social re actions and the critical decisions of school administrators and of teachers. Still more seriously, they tend to influ ence the materials included in textbooks and in curriculum in the schools. The existence of hard-data evidence for the real characteristics of the dialect may make possible for the first time the modification of existing pedagogical materials and the production of new ones specifically di rected at the real linguistic problems of speakers of the dialect. Quite aside from mythological influences, there are some very real considerations which affect the learning of children from the ghetto when these children are enrolled in schools outside the ghetto, under the supervision of teachers who are ignorant of the characteristics of the dia lect, and in situations where the dialect is, pro forma, deprecated as "sub-standard." There has been an obvious kind of response among speakers of the dialect to this situ ation. They have risen in anger at the threat to their in dividual and collective identities implicit in the assump tion of sub-standardness. It is anthropologically and 197 linguistically evident that, since a language is at least in one sense the ideal means for the community of its speakers to identify themselves with and to interpret for themselves and for other members of that particular speech community the phenomenological world in which they live, the accept ability and equality of every language and every dialect is critical to its speakers. There is ample historical evi dence that individuals in various polylinguistic areas of the world have been ready to die, quite literally, for the identity of the culturo-linguistic systems. The black per son, while he has been somewhat slower to respond, has ultimately responded no less vehemently. Many elements in the black community, not only the more radical militant elements, have created a pressure for the acceptance of that dialect as standard. The complexities raised by their de mands for linguistic equality are beyond the scope of this 5 study. The real linguistic problems are indeed a part of this study. The data demonstrate that the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles may be described within the framework of a single phonemic system. The phonological 5 See, for example, Kaplan, pp. 386-389j James Sledd, "Bi-dialectalism: The Linguistics of White Supremacy," English Journal. LVIII (December 1969), 1307-1315. 198 differences in the speech of the Negro which are divergent from "standard" English are created by the distribution of the phonemes in their dialect. The patterning of the pho nemes results in the creation of homonyms, in the speech of many of the informants, which are different from the homo nyms of "standard" English. Such words as since and cents, ten and tin, sew and sore, cold and coal, oil and all, owl and A^L, mist and Miss, seed and seat, hold and whole, dug and duck, and seed and see may become homonyms in the speech of the informants; the merging of / 0/ and / £ / , particularly in word final position, creates the homonym Ruth and roof and further creates the problem of the recognition of ortho graphic th in thing but not in mouth. Phonological differ ences may also create morphological differences in the speech of the informants; the deletion of /t/ in word final position results in the plural form /posiz/ for /posts/, and consonant cluster simplification results in the plural form /was:/ for /wasps/. Thus, the distribution of the phonemes in this dialect may result not only in pronunciation prob lems for the speakers of the dialect, but also problems in auditory discrimination and in turn problems with spelling and reading, since the speaker's pronunciation and percep tion of so many words do not coincide with the standard 199 spelling. There is considerable evidence that falling be hind in reading accumulates, so that students one grade- level behind at age six tend to fall progressively further behind until by age fourteen the gap is tremendous. In a society in which literacy, the ability to spell, and the ability to speak the socially accepted standard of a community constitute criteria which have enormous economic implications, the speaker of any non-standard dialect is relegated to economic and social segregation. When those problems are linked with issues of race buried deeply within the linguistic system of the host culture, the social schism may become so great that its bridging may require efforts far beyond the capabilities of individual teachers, individ ual schools, indeed even beyond the capabilities of massive and relatively wealthy school districts like those in Los Angeles and New York. Evidence of the actual characteristics of the dialect rather than its mythologized characteristics are essential to any attempt at academic reform. Again, it is beyond the scope of this study to recommend specific pedagogical re forms. It is, however, within the scope of this study to call attention to areas in which mythologies are responsible for contemporary problems. Many teachers appear to believe, 200 for example, that black children are restricted in language or that they lack language. The data clearly demonstrate that in any linguistic sense they do not lack language. This study does not, as a manifestation of its specified limitations, touch on semantic issues. However, in the col lection of the data which are the basis for this study, it became perfectly obvious that no such deprivation does in- g deed exist. It has also been alleged by some educators that the dialect, while it may not be deprived in a lin guistic sense, is indeed deprived in a cognitive sense. There is no reason to believe, either on linguistic or on psychological grounds, that any language which indeed con tains a complete phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical system can lack cognitive affinities— and every known language does indeed contain all of these linguistic elements. It is entirely true that cognitive abilities vary among individuals within any culturo-linguistic system, and it is indeed true that the "intelligence" instruments ^It is my intention in the near future to examine in greater detail the connected speech elicited in data collec tion both for verification of the findings here presented on the basis of elicitation of isolated items and for analy sis of a number of important syntactic and semantic prob lems still very much at issue in regard to the dialect. 201 specific to any particular linguistic or cultural system will fail to make significant distinctions in any other linguistic or cultural system. But there is no evidence of cognitive deprivation. The data presented in this study demonstrate the existence of a complete and operational phonological system and touch on the existence of a morpho logical system. Other studies attest to the clear existence of the other critical features of language. There is no basis for an assumption of cognitive deprivation outside of the mythological evidence. There is some evidence, too, that historical character istics significant to the development of English play a role in the features of the dialect. The Great English Vowel Shift, a phenomenon much described by historical scholars, is conceded by some to be still in progress. This influ ence, however, is difficult to trace in contemporary popu lations because it would be significantly related to the English-speaking linguistic stock with whom slave popula tions were originally associated and with the exact point in linguistic history at which the association took place. Furthermore, it would be necessary to consider the influence of the African languages of which those slaves were native speakers as a part of such an analysis of historical 202 7 implications. Suffice it to say that the characteristic movement of vowels as described in the Great Vowel Shift* /o* o/* shows evidence of being present to some degree in the changes in vowel allophones occurring in this dialect. It is pointless to speculate whether such changes are iso lated to the dialect or are indeed occurring generally in contemporary American English. There is some evidence that the process is a natural and continuous one occurring in all Indo-European languages from time to time— or pheraps con tinuously* becoming evident only from time to time. It is* however* worthwhile to call attention to the fact that both the vowels and the consonants most susceptible to change historically are exactly those which demonstrate the great est degree of divergence in this study. Once again* it is necessary to reiterate that the in dividual characteristics of this dialect are not necessarily unique to it. It has been noted in footnotes throughout the data presentation that certain features are indeed common to many of the dialects of American English* whether those are 7 For a short discussion of the language of the early African slaves see William A. Stewart* "Sociolinguistic Factors in the History of American Negro Dialects*" The Florida FL Reporter, V (Spring 1967)* 2-4. 203 isolated along geographic or along sociological lines. How ever, the total "profile" of the individual characteristics as they are combined in this dialect— that is, the incidence and distribution of the distinctive features— does identify the dialect as a distinct entity, sufficiently different from any dialect or language to be characterized as distinct and sufficiently consistent in distribution and incidence to be recognized as an entity. Furthermore, the data presented clearly show that there is not one single isolated dialect, but rather that the characteristics of the dialect, in some critical features, differ from each other in terms of duration of residence in this geographic area, point of origin, and perhaps along some sociological features for which conclusive evidence is presently lacking. That duration of residence in the com munity tends to alter the characteristics of the speech of the informants is demonstrated, particularly in the pronun ciation of the vowel phonemes, in the distribution and fre quency of occurrence of the phonemes from group to group; the tendency appears to be that the alteration of the speech pattern is in the direction of the existing dialect. How ever, the movement takes place in both directions, for many characteristic features of Southern speech appear in the 204 speech of informants who were born in Los Angeles and have never been in the South. For example, the lack of distinc tion of /i/ and /£/ before nasal consonants, the Southern pronunciations of aunt /ant/ and grease /griz/, and the fre quent occurrence of the deletion of the phoneme /r/; on the other hand, a number of Southern features are disappearing from the speech of the informants who were born in the South and in-migrated to South-Central Los Angeles. An example of this is absence of distinction of horse and hoarse and [norning and mourning, which normally contrast in Southern speech. Perhaps what we are witnessing is the deterioration of a regional dialect and the growth of an ethnic dialect. The many similarities found in the speech of the Negro in research in New York and Washington, D. C. and the speech of the Negro in South-Central Los Angeles would tend to indi cate that we are dealing with a non-regional dialect which is not localized to the area under study. It is entirely possible that some characteristics of these dialects are related to economic factors and are in- 5 leed manifestations of the culture of poverty. Other ^Forthcoming dissertations by George O'Neill and Steven toss of the University of Southern California Program in Linguistics are in part concerned with these factors. In 205 features may be related to "maturity" in a psychological rather than a chronological sense and perhaps to educational level.^ It has not been within the definition of this study to be concerned with these issues in any specific sense. Quite aside from the studies cited in the footnotes in this section, this area constitutes one in which much additional research is needed. Recommendations for further research include: 1. Studies of the speech of the Negro in other urban centers. 2. Studies in the morphological, lexical, and syn tactic systems of the speech of the Negro. 3. Age-graded studies of the speech of Negro children. 4. Studies of the speech of comparable social groups in urban and rural areas in the same geographic region. 5. Studies of suprasegmentals, paralanguage, and kinesics on the basis of social levels. both cases, the studies are not sufficiently near completion to indicate what the findings may be. ^Work being done by Professor Eugene J. Briere under a contract with the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs indicates that there are certain cognitive factors in lan guage acquisition related to maturation. The terminal re port of this project should be published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the next year._____________________________ 206 6 . Studies of the speech of other ethnic groups, such as Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Caucasians on the basis of age, education, and social levels. 7. Studies of language inter-change among ethnic groups who live in close proximity. In summary, there appears to be clear evidence that there is at least one and probably more than one dialect, which may be classified as a distinct entity, spoken among the informants who constitute the base for this study. If indeed those informants may be considered typical of the population of South-Central Los Angeles, and insofar as they are, it may be generalized that such a distinct entity ex ists among black people in that area. It is demonstrable that, while the features of that dialect are not in them selves unique, their incidence and distribution are both unique and systematic. It is further demonstrable that, although the features described occur in the speech of the informants, they do not always occur in the speech of any particular informant. It may be posited, however, that they occur with sufficient regularity and frequency that they are mythologized by the host culture to a large enough extent to be stereotyped and to cast the speaker into a distinct so cial role. It is also demonstrable that the existence of 207 these features in the speech of any individual does, among unsophisticated listeners, tend to classify the speaker as a member of a class and therefore as sharing the stereotyped characteristics of members of that class, both linguistic and non-linguistic. These factors, in turn, create a socio logical and economic pressure on speakers of that dialect different in significant ways from pressures on individuals who are not speakers of that dialect. It is demonstrable that these distinctive features have specific, identifiable, predictable, and consistent effects upon the language acqui sition capabilities of speakers of that dialect in the sense that they constitute areas and points of linguistic contrast which inhibit the acquisition and apprehension of the con trasting features from the socially accepted dialects of this area. It is demonstrable that these points of contrast specifically affect the acquisition of reading and writing skills, which in turn constitute another set of social and economic pressures upon members of this speech community different from the pressures on members of the socially accepted speech community. It is demonstrable, though not from this study, that the attitudes of teachers are strongly influenced by the mythology surrounding the dialect and that valid and reliable information, such as that here presented, 208 is necessary to the amelioration of teacher attitudes and of pedagogical practices. It is demonstrable that, while this study makes some modest contribution to the general fund of knowledge surrounding the problems of Black English, there still exists a vast and stultifying ignorance and that huge areas for significant research remain available not only in direct linguistic study but in psychologically and sociologically related fields. In concluding this study of the speech of the Negro of South-Central Los Angeles, it is the opinion of this writer that many of the questions which exist concerning the prob lems of Black English will best be answered through an analysis of the surface structure of the language rather than through an analysis of the base structure of the lan guage j that is, although some morphological and an even smaller number of syntactic variations can be demonstrated, the great majority of variation appears to lie in the area of frequency and distribution of allophonic items and in the distinctive features of those allophones. It is highly probable that these allophonic variations are indeed the cause for the morphological and syntactic effects reported. Thus, the dialect is a distinct entity, but only on rather restricted— though significant— grounds. 209 GLOSSARY 210 APPENDIX A GLOSSARY I. Linguistic notations / / phonemic notation* indicates phonemes [ ] phonetic notation* indicates speech sounds orthographic notation* indicates spelling / / / / morphemic notation* indicates morphemes II. Linguistic terms affricate: a consonant articulated as a stop* immedi ately followed by release of the breath stream through the constricted position of a fricative. allophone; a class of distinctive speech sounds which belong to the same phoneme and do not distinguish meaning. allophonic: not involving phonemic distinction. alveolar: a consonant produced by placing the tip or blade of the tongue in contact with the ridge of the upper gums. backed: a retracted variant produced with the tongue drawn back from a given position. 211 212 back vowel: a sound made with the arch of the tongue in the back of the mouth. bilabial: a sound produced with both lips . centering: a vowel sound produced by the gliding of the tongue toward a central vowel from a less cen tral position. consonant cluster: a group of two or more consonants in sequence. constricted retroflex: a vowel sound made with the tongue muscle constricted and the tip of the tongue curled. contrast: two phonemes are in contrast when they may appear in the same environment with a resulting change of meaning. devoice: to pronounce without vibration of the vocal cords a sound voiced in other positions. dialect: regional or social variety of language spoken by members of a speech community. diphthong: the combination of two vowels pronounced in one syllable; a sound made by gliding continuously from the position for one vowel to the position for another vowel. distinctive feature: the qualities of speech sounds, voiced-unvoiced, which place them in a phonemic class . distribution; the entire set of environments in which a phoneme appears. free variation: the use of non-contrastive variants in the same environment by the same or different speakers. frequency: the number of occurrences of a given pho neme . 213 fricative : a consonant produced by friction caused by the breath stream passing through a narrow con striction in the mouth. fronted: a sound made with the tongue advanced from a given position. front vowel: a vowel sound made with the arch of the tongue in the front of the mouth. glottal: a sound produced in the larynx by narrowing the vocal cords. high vowel: a vowel made with the tongue raised toward the roof of the mouth. idiolect: a speaker's personal variety of the commu nity language system. informant: a person supplying linguistic information to an investigator. ingliding: a vowel sound ending in a mid-central glide. interdental: a consonant sound made by placing the tip of the tongue between the teeth. intervocalic; a consonant or consonant cluster between two vowels . kinesics : the study of non-vocal bodily movements used in communication. labio-dental: a consonant sound made with the lower lip touching the upper front teeth. lateral: a consonant sound produced by releasing the breath stream over the sides of the tongue. lexical: relating to words, word formatives, and vocabulary; not related to grammatical forms. 214 linguistic geography: the study of language differ ences in a given speech community and the charting of their distribution. lowered: a vowel sound made with the tongue lowered toward the vowel sound below it. low vowe 1: a sound made with the tongue low in the mouth. metathesis: the transposition of the order of sounds within a word. mid vowel: a sound made with the tongue midway between the position for the high and low vowels. minimal pair: two words which sound alike in all but one feature* and used to classify phonemes and allo- phones. monophthong: the simple vowel of a syllable. monosyllabic: a word of a single syllable. morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit in language; it may be a word or part of a word* such as a pre fix . morphemic: pertaining to morphemes. morphophoneme: a class of phonemes belonging to the same morpheme. nasal: a sound produced by allowing the air to escape through the nasal cavity* so that the nasal cavity and oral cavity act as resonators. nasalized: a sound produced with breath released through both nose and mouth. off-glide: the final element in a complex vowel sound; the first element in the sound is syllabic and the final element is transitional. 215 on-glide: the initial element in a complex vowel sound which is transitional and precedes the syllabic. orthography: the conventional representation in writ ing of the spoken word; spelling. palatal: a consonant sound produced by placing the front, or blade, or the tongue against the hard palate. paralinguistics : the study of those parts of speech events which are not linguistically structured; these include gestures, facial expressions, and vocal qualifiers, not including pitch level or in tonation . phone: a minimal speech sound; a phone does not exist until it is physically produced, and its function in the structure of the language is not considered. phoneme: the minimal functional unit in the sound sys tem of a language which distinguishes one morpheme from another. A phoneme is not a sound; it is real ized only through one of its allophones.; it is an ideal, and an allophone is the performance a speaker achieves. phonetic transcription: the written representation of a phoneme, speech sound, or longer utterance in a phonetic alphabet; close transcription is the repre sentation of all the identifiable features in an utterance. plosive: a consonant produced by completely closing the nasal and oral passages, blocking and retaining the breath, then suddenly opening the oral passage and releasing the breath with an explosion. positional variant: an allophonic variant due to dis tribution or environment. postvocalic: a speech sound following a vowel. preconsonantal: a speech sound preceding a grapheme used to represent a consonant. 216 prevocalic: a speech sound preceding a vowel. prosodically restricted: a speech sound which is re stricted to a specific environment by a supra- segmental feature. raised: a vowel sound made with the tongue raised toward the vowel sound above it. retroflex: a sound produced with the tongue tip curled up and back. stop: a synonym for a plosive consonant. suprasegmental phonemes; the distinctive features of stress, juncture, or pitch. syllabic: the sound that has the maximum degree of sonority in a syllable. syntax: the study of sentence construction. triphthong: a combination of three vowel sounds func tioning as a single speech unit. variant: alternative allophones. velar: a consonant formed by the back of the tongue against the soft palate or velum. voiced: sounds produced with accompanying vibration of the vocal cords. voiceless : sounds produced without vibration of the vocal cords. zero phoneme: the lack or absence of a speech sound. a p p e n d i x b INFORMANT DATA SHEET AND QUESTIONNAIRE 217 APPENDIX B INFORMANT DATA SHEET AND QUESTIONNAIRE The Data Sheet In most instances the information requested on the data sheet was completed by the investigator. However, there are a number of cases in which the information was filled in by the informant. The-investigators were requested to obtain the background information on the informant prior to begin ning the interview. This gave them an opportunity to become acquainted with the informant and make the situation as in formal as possible. The investigator number listed on the data sheet does not correspond to the informant's number in the study. The data sheet appears on the following page. The Questionnaire Pederson developed two sets of symbols in the 218 219 Investigator number___ INFORMANT DATA SHEET Name_________________________________ Sex______ Age Address_______________________________________________ How long in this neighborhood?_________________ How long in the same apartment or house?_______ Is it a house or an apartment?_________________ Highest grade level reached in school_______________ Birthplace____________________________________________ How long living in Los Angeles?________________ Residence prior to Los_Angeles?________________ Parents' birthplace Father__________________ Mother________________ How long have they been living in Los Angeles?______ Residence prior to Los Angeles Father__________________ Mother________________ Occupations Father____________________Mother________________ 220 compilation of his questionnaire.'*' The "primary symbols" appear on the worksheets of the questionnaire, and the "secondary, or editory symbols" distinguish between the questionnaire of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada and the questionnaire which Pederson used in his study. Those symbols which are applicable to the study in South-Central Los Angeles have been maintained. The "primary symbols" are: 1. Items which were not to be recorded by the investi gator are separated by parentheses in the text. 2. Items which are underlined indicate their impor tance for phonological analysis. 3. Information for the investigator is indicated by slanting lines. The "secondary symbols" are: 1. Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which these items appear in the worksheets of the Linguistic At las ; the pages of the questionnaire being used in this study are not in parentheses. ^■"Pronunciation of English," pp. 196-197. Those items which dealt specifically with the Chicago area and items not appropriate to this study were deleted; the deletions are not noted. Items which have been added to the questionnaire are indicated. See n. 18, p. 47 above. 221 2. Square brackets indicate the material added by Pederson which does not appear in the Linguistic Atlas. 3. An asterisk preceding a word indicates that this word was added to the questionnaire for the study in South- Central Los Angeles. Items eliciting connected speech were 2 also added to the present study. The Items Elicited 1 . (1-2 ) one. two. three, four. five. six. seven, eight, nine. ten. eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. 2 . ( 2 ) twenty, twenty-seven, thirty, forty, seventy, hundred, thousand, the first man. the second man. the fifth man. the sixth man. all at once. twice as good. 3. (3) January. February. April. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Saturday, good morning /how late?/, afternoon /before supper/, evening /after supper/. We started to work before) sunrise, fortnight. *month. 4. (4) The sun) rose (at six /When did the sun rise?/. We worked until) sunset, yesterday, tomorrow, a gold) watch. half past seven. *seven-thirtv. guarter to eleven. 5. (5) this year. a year ago. The weather is) clearing o See n. 21, p. 50 above. 222 up. *clear. thunder storm. The wind) blew (hard, fog. foggy. 6 . ( 6 ) drought. The wind is) picking up. The wind is) letting up. We had a) frost. The lake) froze over (last night, living room /where guests are entertained/, chimney. 6A. ( 6A) A list of rooms in the house. 7. (7) hearth. andirons, mantel, back log. kindling wood. soot, white ashes. chair. furniture. *bathroom. *bath. *bathe. *tub. 8 . ( 8 ) sofa /describe/, bedroom, window shades /rol ler shades/, clothes closet /built in/, wardrobe /movable/, garret, attic, kitchen, summer kitchen, pantry, bureau /de scribe/. 9. (9) She) cleans up (every morning. *the room is) clean, broom. The broom is) behind the door. Who does the) laundry, porch /at front door/ /at back door/ /describe con struction for all/. Shut the door. I) drove (in a nail, clapboards /on the side of a house/. 10. (10) I) have driven (many a nail, roof. gutters /built in or suspended?/, shed /for wood, tools, etc.; separate and built on/, privy /describe/. I have heard (it lots of times. *a) few (times. I haven't done (it /stressed and unstressed/. He) does. 11. (11) He doesn't care. I have been thinking (about 223 it. house, houses. *two houses. /get all/, town house. [flat /distinguish between flat and apartment/.] barn /what is it used for?/, corn crib /building for storing corn/, granary, loft /upper part of barn; describe or make sketch/, [sidewalk, sidewalk /between dwellings; gangway?/]. 1 2 . ( 1 2) /places for hay in the barn; describe/, ground mow. hay stack /shape and size/ /out of doors or in barn?/, haycock /in the field/, cow barn /shelter for cows; describe/, hog pen /shelter and enclosure for hogs and pigs; describe/, dairy [/room or building where milk and cream are kept and made into butter and cheese/ /is the primary mean ing "milk company"?/] . barnyard /where stock is kept and fed/. 13. (13) pasture /where cows, sheep, etc., graze/, picket fence /describe/, barbed wire fence, [steel fence /metal mesh fence enclosing a playground, factory, or mili tary installation, etc./]. post(e)s /plural form/, stone wall /of loose stones/, china /record also china egg/. 14. (14) bucket /wooden vessel; shape and use/, pail /large open tin vessel for water, milk/, [/tin or plastic vessel for housework/ scrub bucket]. garbage pail /de scribe/. [garbage can /large galvanized refuse cans/] . fry ing pan /flat or round bottom; iron or sheet metal; legs/. 224 [electric frying pan]. kettle /heavy iron vessel with large opening] shape/ /get meaning of kettle/, spoon, vase. [/permanent, usually concrete, refuse constructions serviced by city garbage collectors/]. *bushel /basket for produce/. 15. (15) I must) wash the dishes. She) rinses (the dishes, dish rag /for washing dishes/, dish towel /for wip ing dishes/, bath towel. [hand towel, wash cloth /for wash ing hands and face/]. faucet /at kitchen sink/, spigot /on a barrel/, [/get names for faucet outside of house for watering yard/], funnel [/always diagram/], whip /for driv ing horses/. 16. (16) bag /made of paper] size] record paper bag/, [shopping bag /describe/, plastic bag /stressed vowels/]. sack /made of cloth/. *dustrag♦ [vacuum cleaner /get names for attachments for collecting dust]. burlap sack, barrel /for flour/, armful, part load /of a truck or wagon/, clothes basket [clothes hamper /describe/], keg, harmonica. Jew1s harp. 17. (17) hoops. cork /made of cork for bottle] [also made of glass for bottle]/, hammer [/list different kinds/] . tongue /of a wagon/, [automobile accelerator /on floor] on dash/]. shafts /of a buggy/, [automobile instrument panel /get this before reference to hand throttle/, glove 225 compartment /small compartment on the right side of the dash/]. whiffletree /on a one-horse rig/, [automobile with two doors, automobile with more than two doors] . evener /on a two-horse rig/, [trunk /luggage compartment in the back end of the chassis/, pick-up truck /vehicle for milk, pizza, cleaning, and parcel delivery/]. *garage, garages. 18. (18) He was) hauling (wood, dirt, or coal in his wagon), plow, [small clawed garden tool /for breaking dirt in the garden] describe or sketch/]. harrow /describe/. [rake /distinguish lawn and garden, also metal or wooden tines/], stone boat /for transporting stones from the field/, [lawn mower /manual/, lawn mower /power/] . sled /describe several types used/, saw-buck /for firewood/ [saw horse] . brush /the noun [and the verb]/. [Record names for fast-moving amusement park rides on rails] . 19. (19) strop /for sharpening razor/, cartridge /transcribe contexts/, seesaw, juggling board /a limber plank/, merry-go-round /homemade or playground/, coal hod. [/Question the informant and record types of home heating units/]. wheelbarrow, whetstone /portable sharpener/, grind stone. [hot-water heater /describe/]. 20. (20) grease (the car. [The car needs a) grease (job], greasy /record contexts/, oil. kerosene. *gasoline. 226 inner) tube /or what toothpaste comes in/, [flat tire]. rowboat. They are going to) launch (the boat. I am going (today /is the auxiliary verb omitted?/ We . . . ; They . . . ; Am I going) to get some? Are they going (to get some? *to make a) guess. *1 ) think (so. 21. (21) Here are your clothes, /mother to child, etc./ I am not (going to hurt him; He is not (going to hurt him; They are not (going to hurt him. I'm right) am I not? We were (going to do it; You were (going to do it; They were (going to do it. No, it wasn't me. Be you going? /Record phrases like "How are you?" with be/, apron /describe dif ferent kinds/, [smock]. 2 2 . ( 2 2) coat. vest. trousers, [shorts /knee-length outer garments; distinguish men and women/]. I have) brought (your coat. His coat) fitted (me. new suit. The pockets) bulge. The collar) shrank. *The material is) smooth. 23. (23) purse, *purses /describe/, bracelet. Put it on! umbrella. bed-spread, quilt /washable/, bed on the floor. It goes) clear (across. 24. (24) loam, meadow /low-lying grassland/, swamp /inland/, marsh /along the lake/, /along the sea/, creek /small fresh water stream; order by size/, mountain /other designations for high points of land/, [prairie /Determine 227 how many vacant lots constitute a prairie/] . 25. (25) wharf /where ships are unloaded/. fNavy Pier, oasis]. *path. cement road, [blacktop /road/, street, ave nue, road, and boulevard /distinguish/, side street, toll road, tollway, expressway /distinguish/] . He threw) a stone (at the dog. [/Distinguish between rock and stone/, curb parking, diagonal parking /describe/, road shoulder, center strip, cloverleaf /expressway or tollway exit/, viaduct, parkway /is it distinguished from lawn?/]. He isn't) home. toward (s) . without milk; with milk /followed by a voiced sound/. 26. (26) I) ran across (him /met him/. We named the child) after him. dog, call to a dog to attack another dog. call to summon a dog. [call to summon a cat] . mongrel. [stray cat]. He was) bitten (by a dog. *kitten. *zoo. 27. (27) [/Kinds of dogs you have owned or seen around/. /Kinds of cats you have owned or seen around/. /Kinds of fish that are kept and fed/. /Kinds of birds you have owned or seen in the yard/. /Places where fish and birds are kept/], bull /special terms used by farmers; special terms used in the presence of women/, cow, calf /terms for male and female/, two yoke (s) or oxen. Daisy is going to) have a calf. [Lady is going to) have puppies] . 228 horse /taboos or euphemisms/. I have never) ridden (a horse. 28. (28) He fell) off (his bicycle, horseshoes. hoofs. ram, ewe. wool. [Street Games /Record line games, ring games, hiding games, etc./]. [28A. Street Games, addenda.] 29. (29) boar /special words/, hog, trough. troughs. *tusk. tusks. bristles. castrate /horses, bull-calves, and boars [cats and dogs]/, bawl /calf being weaned/. [/The remaining items on this page and the first six items on page thirty are to be asked near the conclusion of the in terview. Terms used in the home should be designated in terms of child-parent, sibling-sibling, and husband-wife usage; terms used among close friends should be designated in terms of same sex, opposite sex, and both sexes; terms used among acquaintances and strangers should also be so designated. Include all jocular expressions. Wherever possible record reactions/. She's) pregnant, the menstrual period, sanitary napkin, urine and urination, excrement and bowel movement, oral and anal air releases). [29A. Taboo addenda.] 30. (30) [milk-producing glands, sperm-producing glands, female sex organ, male sex organ, the act of repro duction /noun and verb/, contraceptives /methods, agents, 229 devices; those used by males and those used by females/] . low /during feeding time/, whinney /during feeding time/, a setting-hen. chicken coop. *coops. wish-bone, harslet /edible "insides" of a pig or calf/, feeding time. *It's time to) feed (the dog. [30A. Taboo addenda.] 31. (31) [calls to children at mealtime, calls from kitchen at mealtime, call to summon a friend from his house, call to request the return of a ball on a playground or in a street, calls to attract attention /yo, hey, etc./ excla mations of contempt and disgust /the worst one ever heard and the worst one ever used by the informant/, calls or whistles to hail a taxi, calls by newsboys]. calls to cows at milking, calls to draft-oxen to make them go left and right in plowing, calls to horses in pasture, calls to urge horses on. 32. (32) calls to stop horses, calls to pigs at feed ing time, calls to sheep in pasture, calls to chickens at feeding time, stirrup. the neigh horse /on the left/, the lines /for driving/, [political influence, city employees who don't work, airport. Midway. O'Hare Field, neighborhood store /describe/, large grocery store, office building. Merchandise Mart, police station, night-stick, squad car. 230 squadrol. fire station, fire truck /Record other pieces of fire-fighting equipment/]. *stop (sign. *stops. 33. (33-34) a little way (over, a long way (to go. You can find that) anywhere. /Record examples of e1er a and ne1er a/. furrows. We raised a big) crop of wheat. We) cleared (the land, a second cutting (of clover, a sheaf (of wheat, forty bushels, a shock (of corn /how many sheaves?/. Oats is thrashed. Two miles is) the farthest (he could go. It's yours. It's ours. It's theirs. It's his. It's hers. *Both (of us. *I'm) sure. 34. (35) When are) you (coming again? /Record singular and plural/. Who-all (was there? [rubber band, paper clip, drinking fountain. fire hydrant]. */Talk about the various areas in Los Angeles; downtown, shopping centers, East Los Angeles, South-Central Los Angeles, the areas of the teen- posts, Watts, the area around their schools, /get term/ Southwest/. 35. (35-36) homemade bread /shape, size, ingredients/, wheat bread /in loaves/, rye bread /varieties/, corn bread /in large cakes/, homemade bread and bought (en) bread, doughnut.„[French doughnut /describe: iced or frosted/, rectangular doughnut /long john/. twisted and sugared doughnut /twist or cruller/, round, sugared or iced, and 231 jelly-filled doughnut /bismark/. sweet roll. /Record varie ties of coffee cake/] . pancakes [/Record ingredients/] . two rounds. a cake of) yeast. yolk. *sandwich. 36. (37) The yolk is) yellow /name of the color/. boiled eggs, poached eggs /how prepared?/, butcher. The meat is) spoiled. The butter is) rancid, sausage. rind, [head cheese /Record other varieties of sausage on 36A/. cuts of pork /Record at least six/, cuts of beef /Record at least six/, kinds of steak, kinds of packed fowl, cuts of lamb]. [36A. Meat addenda.] 37. (38-39) curdled milk, cottage cheese, sauce. snack. We) ate (at six o'clock. How often) have you eaten? I'm going to) make some coffee. [coffee made with previously used grounds]. deep apple pie [/Record varieties of pie/]. a glass of water. *drink. I drank (a lot of water. How much have you) drunk? Sit down! I sat down. Help yourself (to some potatoes. I don't care for any /when declining food/. 38. (40-41) warmed-over food. chew, mush, hominy /ground/, hominy /not ground/, vegetables /home-grown/, vegetable garden, genuine. maple syrup. jelly. Give me an apple /Record examples of a^before vowels/. Those boys. It's! over there. Do it) this way. What's that? /failing to hear someone/. He's the man) who owns the orchard. /Record 232 omissions of relative pronouns/. 39. (41-44) He's the boy) whose father (is very rich, pit /of a cherry/, stone /of a peach/, freestone peach, clingstone peach, core /of an apple/, snits /pieces of dried apple/, walnut shell /hard outer cover/, walnut hull /outer cover/, peanuts /distinctions between those bought shelled and those in the shell/, the oranges are all gone. radishes. tomato. *pumpkin. green onions, to shell beans, butter beans-, [lima beans, wax beans], string beans, greens /edible tops/, husk /on an ear of corn/. 40. (44-46) sweet corn /served on the cob/, tassel /on a corn stalk/, silk /on an ear of corn/, muskmelon. [canta loup] . mushroom. toadstool. squash. [cauliflower]. He couldn't) swallow it. She was) singing and laughing /Record examples of n final and a prefix/. I can't /stressed/. I done worked all day. He hadn't ought to /negatives of ought to/, screech owl /Record kinds of owls/, crawfish, varmints /define/, gray squirrel /Record kinds of squirrels/, chip munk. woodpecker /Record kinds not already listed on page twenty-seven/, frog /Record kinds and contrasts of bullfrog, spring frog, toad, and toad-frog/. 41. (46-48) earthworm, nightcrawler. dragon fly. oysters . moth. moths. lightning bug. wasp /size, shape, 233 color/ /Record names of other stinging insects/, minnows. spiderweb /indoors and outdoors/, root(s). turtle /water and land/, sycamore. cherry tree, poison ivy. sumach, straw berries . raspberries. Some berries are) poisonous. 42. (48-51) sugar maple, maple grove. I must ask) my husband. I must ask) my wife, widow, father. *brother. What do, or did you call your father? /usual terms and terms of affection/. What do, or did you call your mother? /same treatment/, grandfather /same treatment/, grandmother /same treatment/, parents . daughter. girl. baby carriage. midwife. The boy) resembles (his father. She has) raised (three children. Bob) grew (a lot in one year. 43. (51-53) You've) grown. bastard /illegitimate child/, nephew, guardian /note stress/, orphan. her rela tives . Mary. Martha. Mrs. Cooper /slow and fast forms/, your aunt. General (Meyers, jackleg preacher. Judge (Thayer, student, secretary, the selectmen [aldermen]. an American, [ward]. *judges /plural/. [43A. /Record derogatory terms for Negroes, whites, Catholics, *Jews, Protestants— especially fundamentalists— as well as European, Asiatic, and Latin American nationality groups/.] 44. (53-56) a rustic /neutral and derogatory terms/. 234 postman, [garbageman /euphemisms?/, janitor]. Just a minute. How far is it to Chicago? Look here! /exclamation; serious or jesting?/. How often (do you go out? You're not going to do it; well) neither am I. forehead. the) right ear. beard, mouth, tooth. teeth, gums. palm (of the hand, fists. joint. chest. shoulders . She's) quite lively /old or young? both?/. strong [/Record meaning of stout/]. *feet. *head. *skin. *left hand. 45. (56-59) I'm afraid. She didn't used to (be afraid /negative of used to be/, careless. gueer /meaning?/. Don't be so) obstinate, touchy. He got awfully) angry. Keep calm, tired /normal and strong terms/. He is) worn out. She) got sick. He) caught cold. I'm hoarse. He has a) cough. Haven't you) taken (your pills? deaf. He sweat (hard. He took (it. boil /discharging sore/, pus. wound. proud flesh /stress/. *How's your) hea1th? 46. (59-62) I don't know what he) died of. cemetery, [funeral], casket. [bury] . They are in) mourning. Don't worry! Rheumatism, diphtheria. jaundice. appendicitis. vomit /crude, jocular, and neutral terms/. I shall be disappointed We shall be glad to see you. He is courting her. She turned him down, chivaree /noisy burlesque serenade after a wed ding; describe/, best man. bridesmaid, married. 235 47. (62-63) the whole crowd /depreciative terms/, a dance. *school. He skipped class, education. first class. college. library. *desk, desks. office. county seat, railway station, hotel [/Record depreciative terms for inferior pub lic lodgings/], theater. hospital. nurse. *people. [whore /Supplement jocular and euphemistic terms for a prostitute on page forty-seven and 47A/. a procurer of women, a house of prostitution, a sexually indiscreet female, a sexually overactive male, a sexually overactive female, female homo sexuals. male homosexuals, loafers, alcoholics, narcotic addicts]. 48. (62-65) on the) street car. [on the) elevated]. I want to get off at the next stop. Civil War. law and order. Michigan. Illinois. Ohio. Indiana. New York State. Pennsyl-' vania. Kentucky. Canada. Detroit. Louisville. Cincinnati. Washington* D. C. *Los Angeles. *California. *Vermont Ave nue . It seems) like (he'd never pull through. I won't go unless (you go too. I like him) because (he's so funny. He did it) instead (in place) of (doing something else. *It's a) pleasure. 49. (66-69) They) joined (the church. God /as pro nounced in church/, my God /oath/, sermon, beautiful. music. devil. spook. *dark. a haunted house. It's rather (cold. 236 *It's very cold. I'd rather (not certainly! /strong affirma tion/. yes, sir; yes; yes, ma'm; yes. How are you /to inti mate friend; intonation/. Come again! Merry Christmas /Who says Christmas Gift? [age, type, and race]/. Happy New Year. It) costs too much. Money is scarce. The bill is) due. Pay the) dues. borrow, coast lying down, somersault. I) swam. I) dived. 50. (69-73) He was) drowned. He climbed (the tree. I have often) climbed that tree. She) kneeled (down. I'm going to) lie down. He) lay (in bed all day. I) dreamed (all night. I) woke up (early, stamp /on the floor/. May I) take you home? pull. push. I) lugged (the suitcase. Don't) touch it! Go bring (me a knife, goal /in games/. Catch (the ball. Who) caught (the ball. *throw. I'll wait) for you. Give me another chance. in good) humor. I want to get) rid of him. I have) written (the letter, address (the letter. /Record distinctions between address and return address/. I expect) an answer. Who) taught (you that? children's nicknames for one who bears tales. *1'11 get it) myself. *He) went (away. 51. (73-75) to pick flowers. That's the one you) gave (me. He) began (to talk. He) ran (ashore. He) came (over to see me. He) saw (me go in. The road was all) torn (up. He did (it. nothing. *someone. something. It's) such a nice 237 day. always. since. He did it) on purpose, affirmation /stress and pitch/, negation /stress and pitch/, take and spank [spank]. fought, might could [might] . Additional Questions for Connected Speech-* A. What kinds of things do fights usually start about around here? 1. Are there rules for a fair fight? (When is it over? Does the loser say "uncle" or "I give"? If you saw someone kicking someone else on the ground (or using a stick, or a chain, or a lead pipe, etc.), and it was supposed to be a fair fight, what would you do? 2 . Did you ever see anyone get beat up real bad? What happened to him? 3. Did you ever get into a fight with a guy bigger than you? What happened? 4. Do the guys usually fight one-against-one or in ^The investigators were told to delete parts of pages 29, 30, and 47 if the informant was very young or if they felt the informant would be embarrassed by the questions. They were to ask these questions immediately following the last question asked on page 29. The other investigators could use these questions any time they thought it appro priate . 238 gangs? What are the rules for gang fights? B. What is the worst illness you ever had? Describe it (and others). C. Have you ever been in an automobile accident? (Or tell me the worst one you ever saw— draw out details) . D. Were you ever in a situation where you thought you might be killed or die? After response ask— Sometimes peo ple say whatever is going to happen is going to happen. How do you feel about that? APPENDIX C BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE INFORMANTS 239 APPENDIX C BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE INFORMANTS Group I Informant 1 This informant was an eighteen-year-old female. She was born and raised in Los Angeles . Her family had lived in the same house for five years. She was graduated from high school a short time before the interview. Her father, a clerk in a hospital, was born in Texas. Her mother, a clerk-typist, was also born in Texas. The parents came to Los Angeles from Galveston, Texas, and had lived in the city for nineteen years. Informant 2 This thirteen-year-old female was born in Los Angeles and had spent her entire life in the city. She had lived in the same house for ten years. At the time of the interview she was in the eighth grade in school. Her father was born 240 241 in Louisiana. He worked in a pharmacy. Her mother, an employee in a factory, was born in Texas. The informant did not where her parents had lived prior to coming to Los Angeles . Informant 3 Informant 3, a fifteen-year-old male, was born and brought up in Los Angeles. His family had moved into a new house five months before the interview, but they had lived in the neighborhood for over fifteen years. Both his mother and father were born in Louisiana; they had come to Los Angeles from Louisiana twenty years ago. His father was a laborer and his mother worked in a factory as an electronic tester. At the time of the interview the informant was in the tenth grade in school. Informant 4 This informant was a sixteen-year-old male who was born in Los Angeles. He had lived in the same house for four years and on the same street for fifteen years. He had just entered the eleventh grade in school. His father was born in Texas; he worked in a factory. His mother was born in California; she was an employee in the cafeteria of a public- school. The parents had lived in Los Angeles for sixteen 242 years, having come to the city from Bakersfield, California. Informant 5 A thirteen-year-old eighth grader, this informant was born and raised in Los Angeles. She had lived in the same house for thirteen years. Her mother and father were both born in Louisiana and migrated to Los Angeles thirteen years ago. Her mother was a housewife; she did not know what kind of work her father did. Informant 6 . Informant 6 was born in Los Angeles. He was a fifteen- year -old male whose family had resided in the same house for ten years. At the time of the interview he was in the tenth grade. His father, a custodian, was born in New Jersey and moved to Los Angeles from New York twenty-one years ago. His mother, a housewife, was born in Kansas and came to California from that state. Informant 7 This informant, a sixteen-year-old male, was born in Los Angeles; he was in the eleventh grade at the time of the interview. Both his mother and father were born and raised in Los Angeles. His father was a teacher and his mother a 243 housewife. The family had moved into an apartment four months before the interview; they moved from a house in which they had lived for twelve years. Informant 8 A native-born Angeleno, this eleven-year-old female informant was in the seventh grade at the time of the inter view. Her family had lived in the same house for three years. Her mother and father came to Los Angeles eleven years ago from Texas, where they were both born. Her father worked on an assembly line in a factory and her mother worked in a cafeteria. Informant 9 This female informant was a fourteen-year-old eighth grader at the time of the interview. She was born in Los Angeles and had never spent any time outside of the city. Her family had lived in the same house for three years. Her mother and father came to Los Angeles twenty-five years ago from Texas, where they were born and raised. Her father was a bench machinist and her mother worked in the cafeteria of a public school. 244 Informant 10 Informant 10 was a seventeen-year-old female, a native of Los Angeles. She had just entered the twelfth grade. She had resided in the same house for ten years. Her mother was born in Texas and moved to Los Angeles twenty-two years ago; she was not employed at the time of the inter view. The informant did not know where her father was born or what kind of work he did. Informant 11 A seventeen-year-old male, this informant was born in Los Angeles and had lived in the same house for seventeen years. At the time of the interview he was in the twelfth grade. His father was born in Arkansas and his mother was a native of Los Angeles. He lived with his grandparents and had no other information about his parents. Informant 12 This informant was an eighteen-year-old male who had graduated from high school prior to the interview. He was born in Los Angeles and had lived in the same house for five years. His father, a foreman in a factory, was born in Ala bama. His mother, a domestic, was born in Tennessee. His parents came to Los Angeles from Missouri; they had been 245 living in the city for twenty years. Informant 13 Born and raised in Los Angeles, this fourteen-year-old female was in the eighth grade at the time of the interview. She had lived in the same house for over two years, but had lived in the same neighborhood for fourteen years. She did not know where her mother or her father were born or where they lived prior to coming to Los Angeles. She knew they had lived in Los Angeles "a long time, but not all their lives." Her father worked for the Southern Pacific Rail road; her mother was a housewife. Informant 14 This informant was a sixteen-year-old male who was born in Los Angeles; he was in the eleventh grade at the time of the interview. He and his mother had moved into a new apartment two months before the interview. Both his mother and father were born in Los Angeles. He did not know his father's occupation; his mother was a nurse's aide. Group II Informant 15 Born in San Antonio, Texas, this fifteen-year-old male 246 had lived in Los Angeles for nine years. He had just entered the tenth grade. He lived in the same house for nine years. His father, a postman, was born in Texas. His mother, a housewife, was also born in Texas. His parents had lived in Los Angeles for eleven years; they both came to Los Angeles from Texas. Informant 16 This informant, a seventeen-year-old male, had lived in Los Angeles for seven years and was in the eleventh grade. He was born in Maryland, but had grown up in Kentucky. He moved to Los Angeles from Kentucky. His father was born in North Carolina, his mother in Kentucky. His parents had lived in Los Angeles for seven years; they moved to Los Angeles from Kentucky. The informant did not know his father's occupation; his mother was a home nurse. The in formant had lived in the same apartment for over one year. Informant 17 it M This informant was a seventeen-year-old female. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri and had been living in Los Angeles for six years. She had lived in the same apartment with her mother for two years. Her father was born in Detroit and still lived there. Her mother was born in 247 Missouri; she was not employed at the time of the interview. The informant had come to Los Angeles with her mother from Missouri. At the time of the interview the informant was in the twelfth grade. Informant 18 Informant 18, an eleven-year-old female, was born in Louisiana; she had lived in Los Angeles for five years. She was in the sixth grade. Her family had lived in the same house for four years. Her father, a painter, was born in Louisiana. Her mother, a housewife, was born in Missis sippi. The family had moved to Los Angeles from Louisiana. Informant 19 This informant was a seventeen-year-old male. He was born in Wichita, Kansas and had come to Los Angeles with his parents six years earlier. At the time of the study he was in the twelfth grade. Both his mother and father were born in Oklahoma. His father was a custodian; his mother worked as a hairdresser. The family had lived in the same house for three years. Informant 20 A fourteen-year-old male, this informant was born in 248 Texas. He had lived in Los Angeles for ten years and was in the ninth grade. His family had lived in the same house for two years. His father was born in Texas; he was a laborer. His mother was also born in Texas; she was a domestic. The family had migrated to Los Angeles from Texas . Informant 21 This informant was a fourteen-year-old female; she was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and had been living in Los Angeles for five years. At the time of the interview she was in the ninth grade. She had lived in the same house for three years. The informant did not know where her father was born. Her step-father was born in New Jersey; he was in the service. Her mother was born in Louisiana; she worked as a seamstress. The informant's mother had come to Los Angeles from Louisiana, and had lived in the city for seven years. Informant 22 This informant, a seventeen-year-old male, was born in New Orleans and had lived in Los Angeles for nine years. He had lived in San Diego for a short time prior to coming to Los Angeles. He had lived in the same house-for two years and in the same area for eight years. The informant did not 249 know where his father was born. His father was in the ser vice. The informant did not know where his mother was born. She had lived in San Diego prior to coming to Los Angeles; she was not employed at the time of the interview. Informant 23 Informant 23, a fifteen-year-old female, was born in Virginia but raised in Pennsylvania. She came to Los Ange les from Pennsylvania and had lived in the city for ten years. At the time of the interview she was in the tenth grade. Her father, a salesman, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her mother, a housewife, was also born in Pennsylvania. The family had moved to Los Angeles ten years earlier and had lived in the same house for ten years . Informant 24 This informant was a fifteen-year-old female. She was born in Dallas, Texas and had lived in Los Angeles for ten years. She was in the tenth grade at the time of the inter view. Her family had lived in the same house for six years. Her father was born in Texas; he was self-employed. Her mother was also born in Texas. She worked in an aircraft factory. The family had come to Los Angeles from Dallas, Texas. 250 Informant 25 A seventeen-year-old male, this informant was born in Louisianaj he had lived in Los Angeles for five years . At the time of the interview he was in the twelfth grade. His family had lived in the same house for three years. Both of the informant's parents were born in Louisiana. His father was a construction worker, his mother a housewife. The family had moved to Los Angeles from Louisiana. Informant 26 This informant was a sixteen-year-old male. He was born in Louisiana and had been living in Los Angeles for eight years. He was in the ninth grade. His family had lived in the same house for four years . Both parents were born in Louisiana. His father was a boilermaker, his mother a housewife. The family had moved to Los Angeles from Louisiana. Informant 27 Born in North Carolina, this thirteen-year-old female had lived in Los Angeles for six years . She was in the eighth grade in school. She and her mother had lived in' the same house for three years. The informant had no informa tion about her father. Her mother was born in New York City 251 and had spent many years in North Carolina. The informant and her mother came to Los Angeles from North Carolina. The mother worked as a domestic. Group III Informant 28 Informant 28, a seventeen-year-old female, was born and brought up in Louisiana. She had lived in Los Angeles for four years. At the time of the interview she was in the twelfth grade. Her family had lived in the same house for four years. Both parents were born in Louisiana. Her father was a weliman and her mother worked in the dietary kitchen of a hospital. The family had moved to Los Angeles from Louisiana. Informant 29 Informant 29 had lived in Los Angeles for ten months at the time of the interview. A fifteen-year-old male, he was born in New York City. He was in the ninth grade. His father, a merchant seaman, was born in Florida. The in formant's father was not living in Los Angeles. His mother was born in Washington, D. C. She was unemployed. The in formant had come to Los Angeles from New York City. 252 Informant 30 This informant was a fourteen-year-old male. He was born in Texas and had been in Los Angeles for two years. He was in the ninth grade at the time of the interview. He had lived in the same house for two years . His father, a main tenance man for an airline, was born in Seattle, Washington. His mother was born in Texas ' 3 she worked on an assembly line in a factory. The family had come to Los Angeles from Texas. Informant 31 This informant was born in Detroit, Michigan. Her family left Detroit before her second birthday and she spent her entire childhood in Washington, D. C. A twelve-year-old seventh grader, she had lived in Los Angeles for two years at the time of the interview. The informant and her mother had lived in the same house for two years. Her father was not living in Los Angeles; she did not know his birthplace or his occupation. She did not know her mother's birth place. Her mother worked in a hospital. Informant 32 A seventeen-year-old male, this informant had lived in Los Angeles for three years. He was born in Atlanta, 253 Georgia and had come to Los Angeles with his mother. At the time of the interview he was in the eleventh grade. He had lived in the same house for over a year. His father, born in Georgia, was not living in Los Angeles. His mother was born in Detroit, Michigan; she was not employed at the time of the interview. The informant and his mother moved to Los Angeles from Georgia. Informant 33 Informant 33, a sixteen-year-old female, was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She had lived in Los Angeles for four years and was in the twelfth grade. Both parents were born in Slidell, Louisiana. Her father was a minister. Her mother worked as a domestic. The family moved to Los Angeles from Slidell; they had lived in the same house for three years. Informant 34 This informant was a sixteen-year-old male. Born in Michigan, he had lived in Los Angeles for less than one year. At the time of the interview he was in the ninth grade. Both of the informant's parents were born in Michi gan. His father worked in a factory; his mother did day work. The family had lived in Michigan prior to moving to 254 Los Angeles . Informant 35 A sixteen-year-old male, this informant was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and had lived in Los Angeles for three years. At the time of the interview he was in the eleventh grade. Both parents were born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father was a construction worker, his mother a house wife. The family had moved into a new house one month be fore the interview. They had moved to Los Angeles from New Orleans. Informant 36 This informant was born in Texas. An eighteen-year-old male, he had lived in Los Angeles for four years. He was in the twelfth grade. His father, born in Texas, was not liv ing in Los Angeles and the informant did not know his occu pation. His mother was also born in Texas. She worked as a saleswoman. The informant and his mother had lived in the same house for three years. Informant 37 This informant was born in Dallas, Texas and spent her childhood in Louisiana. A thirteen-year-old female, she was 255 in the eighth grade and had lived in Los Angeles for over four years. The informant did not know where her father was born or what kind of work he did3 he was not living in Los Angeles. Her mother was born in Louisiana; she worked in a laundry. The informant and her mother had lived in the same house for over two years. Informant 38 Born in Birmingham, Alabama, this seventeen-year-old male had lived in Los Angeles for one year. He was in the eleventh grade at the time of the interview. His father was born in Alabama; he was not living in Los Angeles. His mother, born in Michigan, was employed as a day-worker. The informant and his mother came to Los Angeles from Alabama. Informant 39 This informant was a fourteen-year-old male. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee and had lived in Los Angeles for three years. At the time of the interview he was in the ninth grade. Both of the informant1s parents were born in Mississippi. His father was a truck driver and his mother worked in a factory. The family had lived in the same house for two years. They came to Los Angeles from Tennessee. 256 Informant 40 pr. — C Informant 40, a sixteen-year-old female, was born in r-' r i O r, ^ n ■ ■* Jackson, Mississippi. She had lived in Los Angeles for less than one year. At the time of the interview she was in the tenth grade. Both parents were born in Mississippi. Her father, who was deceased, had been a farmer. The inform ant's mother was still living in Mississippi. 257 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abel, James W. "A Study of the Speech of Six Freshmen from Southern University (Negro)." Unpublished Ph.D. dis sertation. Louisiana State University, 1950. Allen, Virginia French. "Teaching Standard English as a Second Dialect," Teachers College Record, LXVIII (Feb ruary 1967), 355-370. Atwood, E. Bagby. A Survey of Verb Forms in the Eastern United States . Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michi gan Press, 1953. Bailey, Beryl Loftman. "Some Aspects of the Impact of Lin guistics on Language Teaching in Disadvantaged Commu nities." In On the Dialects of Children, ed. A. L. Davis. Champaign, 111.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1968. Reprinted from Elementary English, XLV (May 1968), 570-578. ______________________. "Toward a New Perspective in Negro English Dialectology," American Speech, XL (October 1965), 171-177. Baratz, Joan C. "Language in the Economically Disadvantaged Child: A Perspective, " ASHA, X (April 1968), 143-145. ______________ . "The Language Teacher and the Disadvantaged: Testing and the Negro Speaker of Nonstandard English." Mimeographed paper from the Center for Applied Lin guistics . Washington, D. C., n.d. "Basic Statistics: Negro Population, Los Angeles County," compiled by John Davies. Unpublished paper from the Los Angeles Urban League. Los Angeles, January 1967. 258 259 Bass, Charlotta A. Forty Years : Memoirs from the Pages of a Newspaper. Los Angeles: Charlotta A. Bass, 1960. Bond, J. Max. "The Negro in Los Angeles." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California, 1936 . Bottiglioni, Gino. "Linguistic Geography: Achievements, 0 Methods, and Orientations," Word, X (August-December* 1954), 375-387. Brawley, Benjamin G. A Short History of the American Negro. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1931. Brengleman, Frederick. "American English Spoken in the Puget Sound Area of Washington." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Washington, 1957. Brooks, Cleanth, Jr. The Relation of the Alabama-Georgia Dialect to the Provincial Dialects of Great Britain. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1935 . Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts'Institute of Technology Press, 1965 . _____________ , and Morris Halle. The Sound Pattern of Eng lish . New York: Harper and Row, 1967. DeCamp, David. "The Pronunciation of English in San Fran cisco." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, 1953. Dillard, J. L. "The English Teacher and the Language of the Newly Integrated Student," Teachers College Record, LXIX (November 1967), 115-120. "District of Columbia Language Study Project Description." Mimeographed paper from the Center for Applied Lin guistics. Washington, D. C., 1965. Farrison, William E. "The Phonology of the Illiterate Negrc Dialect of Guilford County, North Carolina." Unpub lished Ph.D. dissertation. Ohio State University, 1936. 260 Frank, Yakira Hagalili. "The Speech of New York City." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michi gan, 1948. Frazier, Alexander. "A Research Proposal to Develop the Language Skills of Children with Poor Backgrounds." In Improving English Skills of Culturally Different Youth, ed. Arno Jewett et al.. Washington, D. C.: nU.S. Government Printing Office, 1964. Fries, Charles Carpenter. American English Grammar. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1940. Garvey, Catherine, and Paul T. McFarlane. A Preliminary Study of Standard English Speech Patterns in the Balti more City Public Schools. Report No. 16. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1968. Gillieron, J. L., and E. Edmont. Atlas Linguistigue de la France. 35 pts. Paris: Champion, 1902-1910. Houston, Susan H. "A Sociolinguistic Consideration of the Black English of Children in Northern Florida," Lan guage , XLV (September 1969), 599-607. Howren, Robert Ray. "The Speech of Louisville, Kentucky." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Indiana University, 1958. Hubbell, Alan Forbes. The Pronunciation of English in New York City. New York: King's Crown Press, 1950. Jaberg, K., and J. Jud. Per Sprachatlas als Forschungs- instrument: Kritische Grundlegung und Einfiihrung in den Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Sudschweiz. Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1928. _______________________. Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Sudschweiz. 8 vols. Zofingen: Ringmiret, 1928- 1940. Johnson, Kenneth R. "A Comparison of Traditional Techniques and Second Language Techniques for Teaching Grammatical Structures of Standard Oral English to Tenth-Grade Negro Students Who Speak a Nonstandard Dialect." 261 Unpublished Ed.D. dissertation. University of Southern Californiaj 1968. Kaplan, Robert B. "On a Note of Protest (in a Minor Key): Bidialectism vs. Bidialectism," College English, XXX (February 1969), 386-389. Reprinted under corrected title "On a Note of Protest (in a Minor Key): Bidia lectism vs . Bidialecticism," in "Linguistic-Cultural Differences and American Education," special Anthology Issue of The Florida FL Reporter, VII (Spring-Summer 1969), 84, 165. Krapp, George Philip. The English Language in America. 2 vols. New York: The Century Company, 1925. ___________ . ________ . "The English of the Negro, " American Mercury, II (June 1924), 190-195. Kurath, Hans. "The Binary Interpretation of English Vow els," Language, XXXIII (April-June 1957), 111-122. ____________ . A Phonology and Prosody of Modern English. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1964. ____________ . A Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1949. ____________ , et al. Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England. Providence, R. I.: Brown University Press, 1939. ___________________ . Linguistic Atlas of New England. 3 vols. in 6 . Providence, R. I.: Brown University Press, 1939-1943. Labov, William. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1966. ______________ . "Some Sources of Reading Problems for Negro Speakers of Nonstandard English." In Teaching Black Children to Read, ed. Joan C. Baratz and Roger W. Shuy. Washington, D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1969. Reprinted from New Directions in Elementary 262 English, ed. A. Frazier. Champaign, 111.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1967. Labov, William. "Stages in the Acquisition of Standard Eng lish." In Social Dialects and Language Learning, ed. Roger W. Shuy. Champaign, 111. : National Council of Teachers of English, 1964. ______________ , Paul Cohen, and Clarence Robins. "A Pre liminary Study of the Structure of English Used by Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City." Cooperative Research Project No. 3091. Mimeographed paper. New York: Columbia University, 1965. LaBrant, Lou. "The Goals for Culturally Different Youth." In Improving English Skills of Culturally Different Youth, ed. Arno Jewett et al. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1964. Lloyd, Donald J., and Harry R. Warfel. American English in Its Cultural Setting. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956. Loflin, Marvin D . "A Note on the Deep Structure of Non standard English in Washington, D. C.," Glossa, I (1967), 26-32. McDavid, Raven I., Jr. "Dialect Differences and Social Dif ferences in an Urban Society." In The English Language in the School Program, ed. Robert F. Hogan. Champaign, 111.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1966. . "The Dialects of American English." In W. Nelson Francis, The Structure of American Eng lish, Chapter IX. New York: Ronald Press, 1958. . "The Second Round of Dialectology in North American English," Journal of the Canadian Lin guistics Association, VI (Fall 1960), 108-109. Quoted in Lee A. Pederson, "The Pronunciation of English in Metropolitan Chicago: Vowels and Consonants." Unpub lished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Chicago, 1964. 263 McGroarty, John Steven. Los Angeles from the Mountains to the Sea. 2 vols. Chicago: The American Historical Society, 1921. Negro Californians. San Francisco: State of California Department of Industrial Relations, June 1963. Negroes and Mexican-Americans in South and East Los Angeles- . San Francisco: State of California Department of 'inr' dustrial Relations, July 1966. The Negro Handbook, compiled by the editors of Ebony. Chi cago: Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.,.1966. < ~ ' , * Pardoe, Earl T. "A Historical and Phonetic .Study of Negro Dialect." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Louisiana State University, 1937. •" Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of*Slang and Unconventional English. 6th ed. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. • - ’ * * Pederson, Lee A. "Non-Standard Negro Speech in Chicago." In Non-Standard Speech and the Teaching of English, ed. William A. Stewart. Washington,' D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1964. ______________ . "The Pronunciation of English in Metro politan Chicago: Vowels and Consonants." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Chicago, 1964. Pickford, Glenna Ruth. "American Linguistic Geography: A Sociological Appraisal," Word, XII (August 1956), 211- 233. Pop, Sever. Bibliographie des Questionnaires Linguistigues. Louvain: Chez 1'auteur, 1955. Putnam, George N., and Edna M. O'Hern. "The Status Sig nificance of an Isolated Urban Dialect," supplement to Language, XXXI, iv, pt. 2 (1955). 264 Rothstein, Mignon E. "A Study of the Growth of Negro Popu lation in Los Angeles and Available Housing Facilities between 1940 and 1946." Unpublished master's thesis. University of Southern California, 1950. Sawyer, Janet B. "A Dialect Study of San Antonio, Texas: A Bilingual Community." Unpublished Ph.D. disserta tion. University of Texas, 1957. Shuy, Roger W., Walter A. Wolfram, and William K. Riley. Field Techniques in an Urban Language Study. Washing ton, D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1968. Sledd,•James. "Bidialectism: The Linguistics of White Supremacy," English Journal, LVIII (December 1969), 1307-1315. Stewart, William A. "Foreign Language Teaching Methods in Quasi-Foreign Language Situations." In Non-Standard Speech and the Teaching of English, ed. William A. Stewart. Washington, D. C.: Center for Applied Lin guistics, 1964. ___________________. "Sociolinguistic Factors in the History of American Negro Dialects," The Florida FL Reporter, V (Spring 1967), 2-4. ___________________. "Urban Negro Speech: Sociolinguistic Factors Affecting English Teaching." In Social Dia lects and Language Learning, ed. Roger W. Shuy. Cham paign, 111.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1964. Turner, Lorenzo D. Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. Williams, Dorothy Slade. "Ecology of Negro Communities in Los Angeles County: 1940-1959." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California, 1961. Williamson, Juanita Virginia. "A Phonological and Morpho logical Study of the Speech of the Negro of Memphis, Tennessee." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1961. 265 Wise, Claude M. Introduction to Phonetics. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958. Wolfram, Walter A. "Linguistic Correlates of Social Strati fication in the Speech of Detroit Negroes." Unpub lished Ph.D. dissertation. Hartford Seminary Founda tion, 1969 . Wrede, Ferdinand. Deutscher Sprachatlas. Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1927-1956.

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Creator Aurbach, Joseph (author)

Core Title A Phonemic And Phonetic Description Of The Speech Of Selected Negro Informants Of South-Central Los Angeles

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Speech

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Speech Communication

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Bolton, Janet H. (committee chair), Fisher, Walter R. (committee member), Kaplan, Robert B. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-438294

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Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA