Date:  Tue, 15 Mar 1994 09:06:52 MET-1

From:  "E.W. Schneider" <EWSCHNEI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALF4.NGATE.UNI-REGENSBURG.DE>

Subject: Nominative Us



There is quite strong evidence for nominative *us* in Rawick`s

ex-slave narratives (see my *American Earlier Black English*,

Alabama UP 1989, pp. 171, 176-8, 242-5), which in my sample comes up

more frequently than standard *we* and is regionally concentrated in

the relatively southern range of states (SC-NC-GA-AL-MS-TX) but

does not occur in NC-TN-AK-MO. The form is remarkable because it is

attested but clearly rare and marginal. It looks like an obvious

creolism, and probably it is, but then Gullah has invariant *we*

instead, and so do practically all of the Caribbean creoles which are

possibly related to AAVE (see the evidence on p. 94 of my article in

*English World-Wide* 11 (1990). If anybody has a convincing

explanation of the genesis of this usage, I`d be very intereted in seeing

it.

Best, Edgar

Edgar W. Schneider

ewschnei[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]alf4.ngate.uni-regensburg.de

University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany

phone (int. line)-49-941-9433470

fax  (int. line)-49-941-9434992