Questions The theory of African American Vernacular English

k. Deletion of unstressed initial and medial syllables, as in „fraid for Standard English “afraid” and sec‟t‟ry for Standard English “secretary”. Rickford, 1999: 5 l. Metathesis or transposition of adjacent consonants, as in aks for Standard English “ask” Rickford, 1999:5 m. Realization of Standard English v and z voiced fricatives as d and z respectively voiced stops, especially in word-medial position before a nasal, as in seben in Standard English “seven” and idn‟ for Standard English “isn‟t” Rickford, 1999:5 n. Realization of syllable-initial str as skr, especially before high front vowels like “ee” [i], as in skreet for Standard English “street” and deskroy for “destroy” Rickford, 1999:5 o. Monophthongal pronunciation of ay and oy, as in ah for Standard English “I” and boah for Standard English “boy” Rickford, 1999: 5 p. Neutralization merger of [ լ ] and [ε] before nasals, as in [pɩ n] for Standard English “pin” and “pen” Rickford, 1999:5 q. Realization of “ing” as “anf” and “ink” as “ank” in some words, as in thang for Standard English “thing”, sang for Standard English “sing”, and drank for Standard English “drink” Rickford, 1999: 5. r. Stress on first rather than second syllable, as in pόlice instead of Standard English “police”, and hόtel instead of Standard English “hotel” Rickford, 1999:5. s. More varied intonat ion, with “higher pitch range and more rising level final contours” than other American English varieties. Rickford, 1999:5. iii. Phonological Processes Above is how the phonological features of African American Vernacular English different to Standard English. Here is the phonological processes or also known as rules of phonology, is “the relationship between the phonemic representation of a word and its phonetic representation or how it is pronounced” Fromkin et al, 2003:244. This part will show the processes of phonology that happen in the differences of pronunciation.

a. Assimilation.

According to Fromkin et al, assimilation is “a rule that makes neighboring segments more similar by duplicating a phonetic property” 246. In other words, it‟s a phonological process to make the words are easy to be pronounced. For example: “the voiced z of the English regular plural suffix is changed to [s] after a voiceless sound, and that similarly the voiced d of the English regular past tense suffix is changed to t after a voiceless sound. Fromkin et al, 2003:247.

b. Dissimilation.

Dissimilation is a process “in which a segment becomes less similar to another segment” 248. This kind of process occurs when it‟s difficult to pronounce repeated similarly sound. For example: sequences fθ and sθ changing them to ft and st. Here the fricative θ becomes dissimilar to the preceding fricative by becoming a stop. The words fifth and sixth come to be pronounced as if they were spelled fift and sikst Fromkin et al, 2003:249.