As the speakers of African American Vernacular English, one of English dialects, the black housemaids in the novel use many expressions that
syntactically different to English spoken by the white masters. Followings are some syntactical features of African American Vernacular
English shown in the novel, which are spoken by two black housemaids, Aibileen and Minny.
a. T
he use of copula
A copula is linking verb that connecting subject to a predicate. “There is a technical term for the auxiliary verb that takes the forms be, been, being, am, are,
is, was, and were. It is called the copula” Wheeler, 1999: 45. For Standard
English speakers, a certain subject is followed by a certain copula. However, for African American Vernacular English the use of copula are different from
Standard English, they do not follow the use of the copula in Standard English. Below are some differences in using the copula in African American Vernacular
English
i. The absence of the copula
In Standard English, a copula plays an important role. A copula can be used as a main verb of a sentence. On the other hand, African American
Vernacular English speakers do not put the copula in the sentence or the copula is absent, that makes the sentence do not have any verb. There are some cases to
highlight the different use of the copula; those can be seen in the following data taken from the novel:
AAVE Standard English
She wearing a white lace blouse buttoned up like a nun Stockett,
2009: 5 She is wearing a white lace
blouse buttoned up like a nun
He too small for that kind a work, too skinny, but he needed the job
Stockett, 2009: 3 He was too small for that kind a
work, too skinny, but he needed the job.
Whenever he here, he look like he just counting the minute Stocket,
2009: 17 Whenever he is here, he look
like he just counting the minute
Both are some examples of the absence of the copula. The first example „she wearing a white lace blouse buttoned up like a nun‟ is a sentence of present
continues tense. It is different from Standard English because the sentence does not have a copula. For Standard English, it needs a copula for linking the subject
and the predicate. In this cases the copula functions as an auxiliary verb The rule of present continues tense is clear that subject + to be + v-ing. While in African
American Vernacular English, the copula is absent. Next examples are
“He too small for that kind a work, too skinny, but he needed the job” and „whenever he here, he look like he just counting the minute‟.
These sentences are other examples of the absence of the copula. From the sight of Standard English, these sentences do not have a verb. Standard English
speakers use copula or to be not only to show present continue tense as in first example but also to show the feeling, the quality or the present the location of
someone or something and many others. It can be followed by adjective, adverb or noun.
ii. The use of copula
‘s s following first-person singular pronoun I.
