Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 13:48:44 -0600 From: "Salikoko S. Mufwene" Subject: Re: Use of Ain't In message Sat, 10 Feb 1996 14:45:27 -0330, Trevor Porter writes: > Is anyone aware of a study, completed or otherwise, on the use of > "ain't" and its variants in English? > In DIALECTS OF ENGLISH, edited by P. Trudgill & J.K. Chambers, there is an interesting study by Jenny Cheshire on AIN'T in urban British English dialects (1991, Longman). In FOCUS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS IN CREOLES, ed. by Francis Byrne and Donald Winford (1993, John Benjamins), there is a paper by myself on negation and focus in Gullah. (I consider it a dialect of English, assuming that creoles are not separate languages to their native speakers.) AIN'T seems to be the functionally unmarked sentence- and VP-scope negator in Gullah. At least the facts might inform your comparison. Sali. ********************************************************************** Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu University of Chicago 312-702-8531; FAX: 312-702-9861 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 **********************************************************************