"I jus like to look at me some goats":

Dialectal pronominals in Southern English

Mary Sue Sroda & Margaret Mishoe

Sat. 2:00-3:40 D

This paper combines the results of Mishoe 1995 and Sroda 1995 to present evidence that nonstandard pronoun use in Southern English is the result of two distinct underlying constructions: the personal dative and the subject intensifier. This counters previous studies which have called all examples of nonstandard pronoun use such as me in (1)

(1) I got me some good younguns.

the ethical dative (Curme 1945), the personal dative (Christian 1991) or the personal emphatic (Mishoe 1995).

Using the Cedar Falls Corpus (Mishoe 1995), eight hours of recorded spontaneous speech of 14 residents in a rural North Carolina community, we analyze 95 examples of nonstandard pronoun use. Only 38 of the 95 examples can be classified as 'dative' in any sense, as in (2). The remaining 57 examples, as in (3), show pronouns which do not function as goals or beneficiaries.

(2) I shouldn't a bought me no furniture on time.

(3) I'm going to play with me a cat.

Not only does the data indicate that two different constructions exist, but this analysis suggests motivations for variation between examples (4) and (5) which are spoken by the same speaker in the same conversation.

(4) I need to get a bath before we go.

(5) I ain't goin off stinkin, I said I got to get me a bath.

Such examples show that pronominals as subject intensifiers do or do not occur depending on the pragmatic intentions of the speakers. That is, subject intensifiers are pragmatic devices which impart a sense of speaker as commentator on the content of an utterance.

Analysis of a pronoun as a personal dative is relatively straightforward; it acts as an indirect object and occurs with AGENT subjects as in (6).

(6) Honey go on in there and cut you a piece of that cake.

These constructions can also be identified by syntactic substitution tests.

Subject intensifiers, on the other hand, occur with EXPERIENCER subjects, are not arguments of a verb (they occur with verbs that are generally not subcategorized for indirect objects) and therefore are not assigned theta roles as in (7).

(7) He needs him jus a little more sense.