LINGUIST List 3.963

Sat 05 Dec 1992

Disc: Rap, Subphonemic Writing, Which

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Directory

1. benji wald, Re: 3.934 Queries: Causative/Passive, Rap
2. "Richard L. Goerwitz", Re: 3.935 Summary: Subphonemic Writing
3. "Robert Port", Re: 3.958 Nonstandard Which and Where

Message 1: Re: 3.934 Queries: Causative/Passive, Rap

In 1980, when rap was relatively new (1979 Rapper's Delight by Sugar Hill Gang
 was the first commercial recording, I wrote a paper comparing the rhymes used
in rap with the rhymes of Black English toasts. This is not to be confused wit
h West Indian toasts, which are direct ancestors of rap, but with vernacular
Black American oral poetry -- the direct ancestor of rap rhymes (so to speak)
I can't check at the moment but it's in a 1980 issue of Ba Shiru, I think the
April issue. This is a study with limited objectives compared to your
question, but it may serve your interest. Otherwise, the language of rap
is basically as large as the grammar and rhetoric of the Black English
vernacular and standard as a whole. I think the article is called "Sub-
merged rhyme in VBE poetry". Benji Wald

Message 2: Re: 3.935 Summary: Subphonemic Writing

>...e.g. Tiberian Hebrew marking of stop vs.
>fricative allophones by the dagesh, which may reflect efforts to preserve
>'authentic' pronunciation for liturgical purposes and may have been introduced
>by non-natives (Faber).

Hmmm. In Tiberian Hebrew, you can say [shte] (sh = esh) and it means 'two
of.' One can also say [shthe] (th = interdental voiceless fricative), and
in that case the meaning is 'drink!'. The t : th distinction is supposed
to be nonphonemic, but I dunno. Try also [alpe] vs. [alfe] ('two thousand
of' vs. 'thousands of'). [f] should perhaps be a bilabial fricative. The
point is that the supposedly noncontrastive p : ph distinction is actually
contrastive.

Patricia, please tell us when your book is out!

-Richard

Message 3: Re: 3.958 Nonstandard Which and Where

Here is a wonderful use of `to where' that is pretty common by
rural speakers in southern Indiana (and probably Kentucky too):

 `He got so tired to where he couldnt hardly stand up.'

 `The sky was really black, to where you couldnt see your
 hand in front of you.'

 Bob Port, Linguistics, Indiana University