ABSTRACT
This chapter updates and expands Rickford’s (1999a) list of African American Vernacular English grammatical features, dealing solely with preverbal markers (also called auxiliaries) of tense, mood, and aspect. One of these forms, approximative habitual durative copula invariant be, has not been discussed previously in the literature. In all, four different markers having the invariant form of be are treated. Additional grammatical elements treated are unstressed bin, stressed BIN, resultative disapproval marker be done, future perfect be done, habitual perfect be done, the habitual frequentative marker stressed STAY, and the three additional disapproval markers—the come of indignation, gone, and gone-come. An overarching concern is what these markers tell us about the history of AAE with respect to creole languages and its relationship to other United States varieties of English.
