English
in the Southern United States
Contents
Notes on the contributors page xi
Acknowledgments xiv
Introduction
1
1
The origins of Southern American English 6
2
Shakespeare in the coves and hollows? Toward a history
of
Southern English 17
3
Eight grammatical features of southern United States
speech
present in early modern London prison narratives 36
4
The shared ancestry of African-American and American-
White
Southern Englishes: some speculations dictated
by
history 64
5
The complex grammatical history of African-American
and
white vernaculars in the South 82
6
Grammatical features of southern speech: yall,
might
could,
and fixin to 106
7
Sounding southern: a look at the phonology of English
in
the South 119
ix
x
Contents
8
Vowel shifting in the southern states 126
9
Enclave dialect communities in the South 141
10
Urbanization and the evolution of Southern American
English
159
11
The Englishes of southern Louisiana 173
12
Features and uses of southern style 189
References 208
Index 233
