Southern English Grammar

Grammar includes the following aspects of language:

Verbs
Nouns/Pronouns
Sentences

(*) indicates that this pattern is also found in African American English grammar

Verbs

1. *The negative marker ain’t is commonly used by a variety of English speakers, including frequent use by Southern English speakers. Ain’t derives from the older form amn’t (am not). Today, in addition to amn’t/am not, ain’t may mean isn’t, aren’t, hasn’t, haven’t, or didn’t.

2. *Regularization is a common pattern in dialects and languages; it refers to when a word takes on a more regular pattern. For example, the verbs is and was are also made regular, so that is is for all subjects except for I, and was is used for all subjects.

In some areas of the South, like the Outer Banks, the negative form weren’t is regularized to be used for all subjects. Click here for a lesson plan on weren’t regularization.

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3. *In many verbs, other varieties of English distinguish between past tense (e.g drank, took, went, saw) and past participle (e.g. drunk, taken, gone, seen). This distinction is not always made in Southern English, showing another kind of regularization. The past and past participle have the same form.

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4. *The future tense in Southern English may use gon instead of gonna/going to, and fixin’ to instead of about to.

5. *The word done used with verbs means “already” or “just”. Done implies that the verb is completed. Linguists call this resultant done.

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6. Modal verbs are words like may, might, can, could, should, would, must, and used to. In many Southern English varieties, speakers may use two modal verbs in a row, or double modals for combinations such as might can, might could, and used to could. Often, double modals serve to make a request or suggestion more polite. In their book, Charity Hudley and Mallinson give the following example.

The double modal might could helps take the edge off the request, and thus is a way of sounding more polite in Southern English.

Nouns

1. As Charity Hudley and Mallinson (forthcoming) explain it, “perhaps no one word embodies this region quite like y’all does.” Y’all fills a gap in the pattern of pronouns. Standard English does not distinguish between singular and plural you, so the use of Southern English y’all for the plural helps to relieve some of the confusion between these two meanings.

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2. Southern English does not always the plural –s with measurement nouns that occur with numbers or with other words that mark the plural such as many or lots.

Click here for a lesson plan involving this plural pattern.

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3. *Regularization is also found in some pronoun patterns. For example, reflexive pronouns are made to follow a more regular pattern, so that each uses the possessive adjective form + self.

Sentences

*Similar to many languages other than English (Latin, Spanish, French, Russian) Southern English uses negative agreement. In fact, even older versions of Standard English used negative agreement. Negative agreement means that when a sentence is negative, all its words are negative that can be. This usually means verbs (made negative with don't, didn't, isn't, wasn't, etc.) and pronouns (nobody, no one, nothing).

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