University of Pardubice Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Non-Standard
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University of Pardubice Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Non-standard English morphological and syntactical features in the song lyrics of rap music Filip Waldhans Bachelor Thesis 2019 Prohlašuji: Tuto práci jsem vypracoval samostatně. Veškeré literární prameny a informace, které jsem v práci využil, jsou uvedeny v seznamu použité literatury. Byl jsem seznámen s tím, že se na moji práci vztahují práva a povinnosti vyplývající ze zákona č. 121/2000 Sb., autorský zákon, zejména se skutečností, že Univerzita Pardubice má právo na uzavření licenční smlouvy o užití této práce jako školního díla podle § 60 odst. 1 autorského zákona, a s tím, že pokud dojde k užití této práce mnou nebo bude poskytnuta licence o užití jinému subjektu, je Univerzita Pardubice oprávněna ode mne požadovat přiměřený příspěvek na úhradu nákladů, které na vytvoření díla vynaložila, a to podle okolností až do jejich skutečné výše. Souhlasím s prezenčním zpřístupněním své práce v Univerzitní knihovně. V Pardubicích dne 1. 4. 2019 Filip Waldhans Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Marek Vít for his guidance and valuable advice which helped me during the whole process of writing this bachelor thesis. Annotation This bachelor thesis is dedicated to the study of negation features of non-Standard English in the song lyrics of Hip-Hop. The main aim of this thesis is to analyse the ways of expressing negation of non-standard English and compare the frequency of occurrence of these non-standard features with Standard English. The theoretical part first focuses on the concept of Standard and non-Standard English, then it deals with negation and negating features of both mentioned varieties. The practical part is focused on the analysis of these features in the corpus of song lyrics. Keywords Hip Hop, rap, song lyrics, multiple negation, negative concord, double negation, AAVE, Standard English, non-Standard English, rap, Afro-American Vernacular English Název Nestandartní anglické morfologické a syntaktické prvky v textech písní hudebního žánru Hip Hop. Anotace Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá principy negace Afroamerické angličtiny v textech písní hudebního žánru Hip-Hop. Cílem této práce je zanalyzovat způsoby vyjádření negace zmíněné nespisovné jazykové varianty a zároveň porovnat četnost výskytu těchto nespisovných jevů se Standardní angličtinou. Teoretická část se nejprve zaměřuje na celkovou charakteristiku hudebního žánru Hip-Hop, včetně jeho historie a význačných osobností s ním spojených. V teoretické části jsou rovněž vysvětleny pojmy jako Standardní či nestandardní angličtina, avšak poměrně velká část je také zaměřena na základní principy negace v tomto jazyce. Praktická část analyzuje korpus tvořen jedním stem písňových textů, ve kterém jsou zaznačeny jak spisovné, tak i nespisovné prvky negace. Klíčová slova Hip Hop, písňové texty, Standardní angličtina, nestandardní angličtina, AAVE, Afro- americká lidová angličtina, negativní konkord, dvojitá negace, rap, ain’t Table of content 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 2. The characteristics of song lyrics……………………………………………. 3 3. The Hip-Hop culture…………………………………………………………. 4 3.1 Hip Hop as a cultural movement……………………………………... 4 3.2 Hip Hop as music genre………………………………………………. 4 4. African American Vernacular English……………………………………… 6 5. The concept of Standard English……………………………………………. 7 6. The concept of non-Standard English……………………………………….. 10 7. Negation in Standard English………………………………………………... 12 7.1 The function of negation……………………………………………… 12 7.2 The scope of negation………………………………………………… 13 7.3 The types of negation…………………………………………………. 15 7.3.1 Grammatical negation………………………………………. 16 7.3.1.1 Absolute negators…………………………………. 18 7.3.1.2 Approximate negators…………………………….. 18 7.3.2 Lexical negation…………………………………………….. 20 7.4 Multiple negation……………………………………………………... 21 7.4.1 Negative concord……………………………………. ……... 23 7.4.2 Double negative …………………………………………….. 24 7.4.2.1 The types of double negative……………………… 24 7.5 Ain’t…………………………………………………………………... 26 7.5.1 The morphology of ain’t……………………………………. 26 7.5.1.1 Ain’t for auxiliary and copula be…………………. 27 7.5.1.2 Ain’t for auxiliary have…………………………… 29 7.5.1.3 Ain’t for auxiliary do……………………………… 31 7.6 Negative inversion……………………………………………………. 32 8. Analysis………………………………………………………………………... 34 9. Standard English negation features…………………………………………. 36 9.1 Verbal Negation………………………………………………………. 37 9.1.1 Primary verbal negation…………………………………….. 37 9.1.2 Secondary verbal negation………………………………….. 43 9.2 Non-verbal Not……………………………………………………....... 44 9.3 Absolute negators……………………………………………………... 45 9.4 Approximate negators……………………………………………….... 46 9.5 Lexical negation………………………………………………………. 47 9.5.1 Affixal negators……………………………………………... 47 9.5.2 Suffixal negators……………………………………………. 48 9.6 Double negation………………………………………………………. 48 9.6.1 Lexical + grammatical negation……………………………. 48 9.6.2 Grammatical + grammatical negation……………………… 48 10. Non-standard English features in negation………………………………... 49 11. Multiple negation……………………………………………………………. 50 11.1 Negative concord……………………………………………………. 50 11.1.1 Ain’t + absolute negator…………………………………… 52 11.1.2 Auxiliary verb + [not] + absolute negator…………………. 53 11.1.3 Modal verb + [not] + absolute negator……………………..53 11.1.4 Absolute negator + absolute negator………………………. 54 11.1.5 Triple negation…………………………………………….. 54 11.2 Ain’t…………………………………………………………………..55 10.2.1 Ain’t for copula be…………………………......................... 56 10.2.2 Ain’t for auxiliary be………………………………………. 57 10.2.3 Ain’t for present auxiliary have for perfective aspect……... 57 11.2.4 Ain’t for possessive have………………………………...... 58 11.2.5 Ain’t for obligatory have…………………………………... 58 11.2.6 Ain’t for present auxiliary do……………………………… 59 11.2.7 Ain’t for past auxiliary do…………………………………. 59 11.3 Negative inversion…………………………………………………... 60 12. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………… 62 Resumé…………………………………………………………………………… 51 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………... 69 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………. 74 1. Introduction Music has been an essential part of our lives and accompanied us throughout our ordinary days. Music has touched cultures all over the world since very early times in human history and even the most primitive societies are keenly aware of the power of music as they have long used music in all kinds of ways, to celebrate, to commemorate or to terrify an enemy, Native Africans and Americans, for instance, used music in the form of chanting for healing ceremonies and rituals. Nowadays, there allegedly exist more than 1200 various definable subgenres of popular music with many new ones constantly emerging. A vast majority of modern mainstream music genres is closely associated with lyrics - the words that actually make up a song and whose main purpose is to convey a singer’s opinions, feelings, or thoughts. This bachelor thesis is dedicated to Hip Hop, one of the most significant and commercially successful music genres. It has been specifically chosen for many reasons, especially due to their diverse historical background, various artists’ objectives and goals, opposing themes, but most importantly, Hip Hop and has been chosen particularly due to a great number of grammatical differences and non-standard English features occurring in their song lyrics. The aim of this work is to explore to what extent these non-Standard grammatical features regarding negation such as negative concord, negative inversion or negative auxiliary ain’t really occur in song lyrics of this genre and subsequently compare the frequency of occurrence with occurrence of Standard English features in negation. It is presumed that the higher frequency of occurrence will be observed in non-Standard English since this music genre is closely related to a Non-standard dialect called African American Vernacular English (often abbreviated as AAVE), which is the dialect closely associated with rappers and their work and Hip-Hop culture as such. The theoretical part of this bachelor thesis will be dedicated to the definitions of the theoretical background and the explanations of significant terms. Moreover, the terminology and definitions are closely characterized by various linguists and experts. In the first chapter, there will be a brief introduction of the terms that are closely connected to music, whereas the following chapter of this will be dedicated to the historical background, development and especially the four basic elements of Hip Hop, 1 and furthermore, attention will be also paid to the non-standard dialect of African American Vernacular English as its essential constituent. The next chapter will be dedicated to the concept of Standard English, where will be discussed what this term actually means and it will be put in contrast how various linguists’ definitions and opinions regarding this concept vary. The following chapter will discuss exactly the opposite –non-Standard English and its negating features and phenomena, however, different points of view will be brought about the very defining of this term as there is not a general consensus amongst linguists and experts. The chapters after will be dedicated to negation as such, the individual subchapters will be focused on how the negation in English works and what types of negation can appear. There will be also discussed the difference between negative concord and double negative as it is crucial for further analysis of lyrics. The main aim of the practical part of this bachelor thesis is to observe and demonstrate the principles of non-Standard