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A Study Of Auxiliary Be In African American English: A Comparison Of Children With And Without Specific Language Impairment, April W. Garrity

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study’s purpose was to examine the use of auxiliary BE forms in African American English (AAE)-speaking children with and without language impairment. The impetus for this work was a lack of information in the literature about BE use in AAE as a function of form, language status, and tasks, and the relevance of this type of data for testing one theoretical model of childhood language impairment, the Extended Optional Infinitive account (EOI; Rice, Wexler, & Cleave, 1995). Thirty African Americans participated: 10 six-year-olds with specific language impairment (SLI); 10 age controls (AM); and, 10 language controls (LM). All of …