Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-c52kr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-08T01:33:22.423Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An AAE Camouflage Construction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Chris Collins ,
Simanique Moody  and
Paul M. Postal
Chris Collins*
Affiliation:
New York University, Department of Linguistics, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003, Collins
Simanique Moody*
Affiliation:
New York University, Department of Linguistics, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003, Collins
Paul M. Postal*
Affiliation:
New York University, Department of Linguistics, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003, Collins
*
[cc116@nyu.edu]
[sdm243@nyu.edu]
[paul.postal@nyu.edu]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Spears 1998 discusses a use of the word ass in African American English (AAE) in sentences like They done arrested her stupid ass and I'm gonna sue her ass. We refer to DPs like her stupid ass generically as the ACC (ass camouflage construction), and we view the ACC as an instance of a universal grammatical phenomenon we call camouflage. The ACC is also attested in non-AAE dialects of American English (Beavers & Koontz-Garboden 2006a).

For certain syntactic properties, the possessor of the ACC behaves as if it were external to the larger DP (e.g. binding, control, selection); for others, it behaves as if it were internal to the larger DP (e.g. finite verb agreement, traditional constituent-structure tests). To account for this dual behavior, we propose that the ACC possessor DP originates in a position external to the ACC, and moves into its possessor position.

We discuss the implications of our analysis for other areas of AAE syntax, including the resumptive-with construction, a previously undocumented grammatical phenomenon, and the use of self in various constructions, which we suggest are illuminated by the notion camouflage. We briefly consider arguable instances of camouflage crosslinguistically in languages such as Georgian, French, the Mayan languages K'ekchi and Tzotzil, and Yoruba. Genuine similarities between the ACC and these other constructions support our perspective on the ACC

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 29 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

We would like to express our appreciation to Judith Aissen, Judy Bernstein, Renee Blake, Yaté Davis, Samuel Epstein, Lisa Green, Norbert Hornstein, Brian Joseph, Hilda Koopman, Robert Levine, Jean-Yves Pollock, John Robert Ross, Roger Schwarzschild, Daniel Seely, John Singler, Arthur Spears, Dominique Sportiche, Sali Tagliamonte, and an anonymous referee for helpful information and/or comments that have significantly improved this article. Inadequacies and errors are entirely the responsibility of the authors. We would also like to thank audiences at the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Rutgers University for their feedback. Any correspondence about this article should be sent to all three authors.

References

Aissen, Judith. 1987. Tzotzil clause structure. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Awoyale, Yiwola. 1985. Reflexivization in Kwa languages. Current approaches to African linguistics, ed. by Dimmendaal, Gerrit J., 1–14. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Baugh, John. 1980. A re-examination of the Black English copula. Locating language in time and space, ed. by Labov, William, 83–106. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Beavers, John, and Koontz-Garboden, Andrew. 2006a. A universal pronoun in English. Linguistic Inquiry 37. 503–13.10.1162/ling.2006.37.3.503CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beavers, John, and Koontz-Garboden, Andrew. 2006b. Expressive capability trumps syntax: A case study in colloquial English pronominals. Talk given at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, November 10, 2006.Google Scholar
Berinstein, Ava. 1990. On distinguishing surface datives in K'ekchi. Studies in relational grammar 3, ed. by Postal, Paul M. and Joseph, Brian D., 3–48. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan David, and Brown, Samuel. 1997. Interarboreal operations: Head movement and the extension requirement. Linguistic Inquiry 28. 345–56.Google Scholar
Collins, Chris. 2005. A smuggling approach to the passive in English. Syntax 8. 81–120.10.1111/j.1467-9612.2005.00076.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Chris. 2007. An AAE camouflage construction. Paper presented to the Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph. 1972. Tense marking in Black English: A linguistic and social analysis. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Green, Lisa J. 2002. African American English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Alice. 1981. Georgian syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene. 2005. Features on bound pronouns: Syntax or semantics? Cambridge, MA: MIT, ms. Online: http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/sauerland/heim.pdf.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene, and Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Helke, Michael. 1970. The grammar of English reflexives. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Johnson, David E., and Postal, Paul M.. 1980. Arc pair grammar. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Joseph, Brian. 1979. On the agreement of reflexive forms in English. Linguistics 17. 519–23.Google Scholar
Kathol, Andreas. 1999. Agreement and the syntax-morphology interface in HPSG. Studies in contemporary phrase structure grammar, ed. by Levine, Robert and Green, Georgia M., 223–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1969. Contraction, deletion, and inherent variability of the English copula. Language 45. 715–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Cohen, Paul, Robins, Clarence; and Lewis, John. 1968. A study of the non-standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City. Cooperative research report 3288, vols. 1 and 2. Philadelphia: US Regional Survey (Linguistics Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania).Google Scholar
Lagunoff, Rachel. 1997. Singular they. Los Angeles: University of California dissertation.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1998. The syntactic phenomena of English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nunes, Jairo. 2001. Sideward movement. Linguistic Inquiry 32. 303–44.10.1162/00243890152001780CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, Carl J., and Sag, Ivan. 1992. Anaphors in English and the scope of binding theory. Linguistic Inquiry 23. 262–303.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl J., and Sag, Ivan. 1994. Head-driven phrase structure grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M. 1998. Masked inversion in French. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M., and Ross, John R.. 2008. Inverse reflexives. Papers in honor of Terence D. Langendoen, ed. by William Lewis, Simin Karimi, Heidi Harley, and Scott Farrar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, to appear.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1976. The Duke of York gambit. Journal of Linguistics 12. 83–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya, and Reuland, Eric. 1993. Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24. 657–720.Google Scholar
Reuland, Eric, and Reinhart, Tanya. 1991. Binding conditions and chains. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 10. 399–415.Google Scholar
Rickford, John R. 1998. The Creole origins of African American Vernacular English: Evidence from copula absence. African American English: Structure, history, and usage, ed. by Mufwene, Salikoko S., Rickford, John R., Bailey, Guy, and Baugh, John, 154–200. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Schladt, Mathias. 2000. The typology and grammaticalization of reflexives. Reflexives, forms and functions, ed. by Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Curl, Traci S., 103–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Spears, Arthur. 1982. The Black English semi-auxiliary come. Language 58. 850–72.10.2307/413960CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spears, Arthur. 1998. African-American language use: Ideology and so-called obscenity. African American English: Structure, history, and usage, ed. by Mufwene, Salikoko S., Rickford, John R., Bailey, Guy, and Baugh, John, 226–50. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt. 1969. A sociolinguistic description of Detroit Negro speech. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Zribi-Hertz, Anne. 1989. Anaphor binding and narrative point of view: English reflexive pronouns in sentence and discourse. Language 65. 695–727.10.2307/414931CrossRefGoogle Scholar