Tense marking in Black English: a linguistic and social analysis By Ralph W. Fasold (review)

758LANGUAGE, VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (1974) extra-Dravidian items listed here. It is borrowed from Indo-Aryan, cf. Hindi khokhal (Turner, no. 3927). P. 170, no. 14: forms meaning 'dwarfish', such z&gerra, with vowel e, as well as the (Munda) Santali geda, must be separated from those with vowel u (gudru etc.), but cannot be separated from Oriya gera (Turner, no. 41 12), whatever may be the language of origin of all these ¿-forms. P. 182, no. 28: it may well be that Kur. marnä, with its evidence for a retroflex, must be separated from items which look to PDr. *mar-. However, it is unlikely that Gondi (Tr.) marsänä is good evidence for a retroflex, especially since the Adilabad and (probably) the Muria evidence (both mars-) is for *r. P. 197, no. 7: DEDS 3629 Kur. (Hahn) perkhperkhnä 'to babble, prattle' should have been added, because of the importance of the formative *-kk- in onomatopoetics (Emeneau 1969: 281). The indices (198-216) are admirable. Finally, it should be noted that the book is a reproduction of typescript and is handsomely printed, as befits the excellence of the work. REFERENCES Burrow, T., and M. B. Emeneau. 1961. A Dravidian etymological dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ------. 1968. A Dravidian etymological dictionary: supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ------. 1972. Dravidian etymological notes. JAOS 92.397-418, 475-91. Emeneau, M. B. 1957. Numerals in comparative linguistics (with special reference to Dravidian). Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sínica (Yuen Ren Chao volume), 29.1-10. ------. 1961. North Dravidian velar stops. Te. Po. Mi. Manivirä Malar (T. P. Meenakshisundaram volume), 371-88. Coimbatore. ------. 1967. Dravidian linguistics, ethnology and folktales: collected papers. (Dept. of linguistics, publ. 8.) Annamalainagar : Annamalai University. ------. 1969. Onomatopoetics in the Indian linguistic area. Lg. 45.274-99. Grierson, G. A. 1906. Linguistic survey of India, IV: Mundä and Dravidian languages. Calcutta : Superintendent of Government Printing. Grignard, A. 1924. An Oraon-English dictionary. Calcutta: Catholic Orphan Press. Hahn, Ferdinand. 1900. Kurukh grammar. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1964. Bemerkungen zur Phonetik und Phonemik des Kurukh. Indo-Iranian Journal 8.32-59. Shanmugam, S. V. 1971. Dravidian nouns (a comparative study). (Dept. of linguistics, publ. 25.) Annamalainagar: Annamalai University. Turner, Ralph. 1966. A comparative dictionary of the Indo-Aryan languages. London: Oxford University Press. Tense marking in Black English: a linguistic and social analysis. By Ralph W. Fasold. (Urban language series, 8.) Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1972. Pp. xvi, 254. $7.00. Reviewed by R. K. S. Macaulay, Pitzer College, Claremont, Calif. This is the eighth volume in the Urban Language Series and further evidence that the study of Black English continues to be a growth industry. In some ways it is the most interesting volume in the series since the first, Labov 1966—which set a standard that the series, sadly though not surprisingly, has been unable to maintain. Fasold's principal aim is to investigate what he calls tense marking in Black English, REVIEWS 759 i.e. 'to examine the bases for the variable absence of the -ed and verbal concord -s suffixes and ofthe concord forms ofbe in main verb phrases' (5). He is also interested in 'the unity ofBlack English', 'correlation with social factors', and 'the application of variable rule theory' (5-6). There is an annex on 'Noun plural absence' by Carolyn Kessler (223-37). The most important section is the treatment of past -ed, which takes up almost a third of the book (38-120). After showing that 'the past tense distinction is an inherent part of the grammar of all the speakers in the sample' (39) on the basis of their use ofirregular verb forms, F goes on to describe the absence of -ed by means of a variable rule. F's type of variable rule differs from that proposed by Labov 1969 in having a hierarchy of constraints indicated by Greek letters rather than by numerical coefficients. His complete version of the final stop deletion rule which deletes the alternants [t] and [d] of the regular past tense suffix is as follows (98) : '+cons (D — son — cont — strid -(0)/ ## X ? ([-acc]) A (HZ]) + cons — vocn ant E...