The American Language
/Present Perfect/ (wanting) /Past Perfect/ I could of been bit
/Imperative Mode/
(wanting)
/Infinitive Mode/
(wanting)
A study of this paradigm reveals several plain tendencies. One has
just been discussed: the addition of a degenerated form of /have/ to
the preterite of the auxiliary, and its use in place of the auxiliary
itself. Another is the use of /will/ instead of /shall/ in the first
person future. /Shall/ is confined to a sort of optative, indicating
much more than mere intention, and even here it is yielding to /will/.
Yet another is the consistent use of the transferred preterite in the
passive. Here the rule in correct English is followed faithfully,
though the perfect participle [Pg209] employed is not the English
participle. "I am /broke/" is a good example. Finally, there is the
substitution of /was/ for /were/ and of /am/ for /be/ in the past and
present of the subjunctive. In this last case American is in accord
with the general movement of English, though somewhat more advanced.
/Be/, in the Shakespearean form of "where /be/ thy brothers?" was
expelled from the present indicative two hundred years ago, and
survives today only in dialect. And as it thus yielded to /are/ in the
indicative, it now seems destined to yield to /am/ and /is/ in the
subjunctive. It remains, of course, in the future indicative: "I will
/be/." In American its conjugation coalesces with that of /am/ in the
following manner:
/Present/ I am /Past Perfect/ I had of ben
/Present Perfect/ I bin (or ben) /Future/ I will be
/Past/ I was /Future Perfect/ (wanting)
And in the subjunction:
/Present/ If I am /Past Perfect/ If I had of ben
/Past/ If I was
All signs of the subjunctive, indeed, seem to be disappearing from
vulgar American. One never hears "if I /were/ you," but always "if I
/was/ you." In the third person the /-s/ is not dropped from the verb.
One hears, not "if she /go/," but "if she /goes/." "If he /be/ the
man" is never heard; it is always "if he /is/." This war upon the
forms of the subjunctive, of course, extends to the most formal
English. "In Old English," says Bradley,[52] "the subjunctive played
as important a part as in modern German, and was used in much the same
way. Its inflection differed in several respects from that of the
indicative. But the only formal trace of the old subjunctive still
remaining, except the use of /be/ and /were/, is the omission of the
final /s/ in the third person singular. And even this is rapidly
dropping out of use.... Perhaps in another generation the subjunctive
forms will have ceased to exist except in the single instance of
/were/, which serves a useful function, although we manage to [Pg210]
dispense with a corresponding form in other verbs." Here, as
elsewhere, unlettered American usage simply proceeds in advance of the
general movement. /Be/ and the omitted /s/ are already dispensed with,
and even /were/ has been discarded.
In the same way the distinction between /will/ and /shall/, preserved
in correct English but already breaking down in the most correct
American, has been lost entirely in the American common speech. /Will/
has displaced /shall/ completely, save in the imperative. This
preference extends to the inflections of both. /Sha'n't/ is very
seldom heard; almost always /won't/ is used instead. As for /should/,
it is displaced by /ought to/ (degenerated to /oughter/ or /ought'a/),
and in its negative form by /hadn't ought'a/, as in "he /hadn't
oughter/ said that," reported by Charters. Lardner gives various
redundant combinations of /should/ and /ought/, as in "I don't feel as
if I /should ought to/ leave" and "they /should not ought to/ of had."
I have encountered the same form, but I don't think it is as common as
the simple /ought'a/-forms. In the main, /should/ is avoided,
sometimes at considerable pains. Often its place is taken by the more
positive /don't/. Thus "I /don't/ mind" is used instead of "I
/shouldn't/ mind." /Don't/ has also completely displaced /doesn't/,
which is very seldom heard. "He /don't/" and "they /don't/" are
practically universal. In the same way /ain't/ has displaced /is not/,
/am not/, /isn't/ and /aren't/, and even /have not/ and /haven't/. One
recalls a famous speech in a naval melodrama of twenty years ago: "We
/ain't/ got no manners, but we can fight like hell." Such forms as "he
/ain't/ here," "I /ain't/ the man," "them /ain't/ what I want" and "I
/ain't/ heerd of it" are common.
This extensive use of /ain't/, of course, is merely a single symptom
of a general disregard of number, obvious throughout the verbs, and
also among the pronouns, as we shall see. Charters gives many
examples, among them, "how /is/ Uncle Wallace and Aunt Clara?" "you
/was/," "there /is/ six" and the incomparable "it /ain't/ right to
say, 'He /ain't/ here today.'" In Lardner there are many more, for
instance, "them Giants is not such rotten hitters, /is/ they?" "the
people /has/ all wanted to shake hands with Matthewson and I" and
"some of the men /has/ [Pg211] brung their wife along." /Sez/
(=/says/), used as the preterite of /to say/, shows the same
confusion. One observes it again in such forms as "then I /goes/ up to
him." Here the decay of number helps in what threatens to become a
decay of tense. Examples of it are not hard to find. The average
race-track follower of the humbler sort seldom says "I /won/ $2," or
even "I /wan/ $2," but almost always "I /win/ $2." And in the same way
he says "I /see/ him come in," not "I /saw/ him" or "/seen/ him."
Charters' materials offers other specimens, among them "we /help/
distributed the fruit," "she /recognize/, hug, and /kiss/ him" and
"her father /ask/ her if she intended doing what he /ask/." Perhaps
the occasional use of /eat/ as the preterite of /to eat/, as in "I
/eat/ breakfast as soon as I got up," is an example of the same
flattening out of distinctions. Lardner has many specimens, among them
"if Weaver and them had not of /begin/ kicking" and "they would of
/knock/ down the fence." I notice that /used/, in /used to be/, is
almost always reduced to simple /use/, as in "it /use/ to be the
rule." One seldom, if ever, hears a clear /d/ at the end. Here, of
course, the elision of the /d/ is due primarily to assimilation with
the /t/ of /to/--a second example of one form of decay aiding another
form. But the tenses apparently tend to crumble without help. I
frequently hear whole narratives in a sort of debased present: "I
/says/ to him.... Then he /ups/ and /says/.... I /land/ him one on the
ear.... He /goes/ down and out, ..." and so on.[53] Still under the
spell of our disintegrating inflections, we are prone to regard the
tense inflections of the verb as absolutely essential, but there are
plenty of languages that get on without them, and even in our own
language children and foreigners often reduce them to a few simple
forms. Some time ago an Italian contractor said to me "I have /go/
there often." Here one of our few surviving inflections was displaced
by an analytical devise, and yet the man's meaning was quite clear,
and it would be absurd to say that his sentence violated the inner
spirit of English. That inner spirit, in fact, has inclined steadily
toward "I have /go/" for a thousand years. [Pg212]
§ 4
/The Pronoun/--The following paradigm shows the inflections of the
personal pronoun in the American common speech:
FIRST PERSON
/Common Gender/
/Singular/ /Plural/
/Nominative/ I we
/Possessive Conjoint/ my our
/Possessive Absolute/ mine ourn
/Objective/ me us
SECOND PERSON
/Common Gender/
/Singular/
/Nominative/ you yous
/Possessive Conjoint/ your your
/Possessive Absolute/ yourn yourn
/Objective/ you yous
THIRD PERSON
/Masculine Gender/
/Nominative/ he they
/Possessive Conjoint/ his their
/Possessive Absolute/ hisn theirn
/Objective/ him them
/Feminine Gender/
/Nominative/ she they
/Possessive Conjoint/ her their
/Possessive Absolute/ hern theirn
/Objective/ her them
/Neuter Gender/
/Nominative/ it they
/Possessive Conjoint/ its theirn
/Possessive Absolute/ its their
/Objective/ it them
These inflections, as we shall see, are often disregarded in use, but
nevertheless it is profitable to glance at them as they [Pg213]
stand. The only variations that they show from standard English are
the substitution of /n/ for /s/ as the distinguishing mark of the
absolute form of the possessive, and the attempt to differentiate
between the logical and the merely polite plurals in the second person
by adding the usual sign of the plural to the former. The use of /n/
in place of /s/ is not an American innovation. It is found in many of
the dialects of English, and is, in fact, historically quite as sound
as the use of /s/. In John Wiclif's translation of the Bible (/circa/
1380) the first sentence of the Sermon on the Mount (Mark v, 3) is
made: "Blessed be the pore in spirit, for the kyngdam in hevenes is
/heren/." And in his version of Luke xxiv, 24, is this: "And some of
/ouren/ wentin to the grave." Here /heren/, (or /herun/) represents,
of course, not the modern /hers/, but /theirs/. In Anglo-Saxon the
word was /heora/, and down to Chaucer's day a modified form of it,
/here/, was still used in the possessive plural in place of the modern
/their/, though /they/ had already displaced /hie/ in the
nominative.[54] But in John Purvey's revision of the Wiclif Bible,
made a few years later, /hern/ actually occurs in II Kings viii, 6,
thus: "Restore thou to hir alle things that ben /hern/." In
Anglo-Saxon there had been no distinction between the conjoint and
absolute forms of the possessive pronouns; the simple genitive
sufficed for both uses. But with the decay of that language the
surviving remnants of its grammar began to be put to service somewhat
recklessly, and so there arose a genitive inflection of this
genitive--a true double inflection. In the Northern dialects of
English that inflection was made by simply adding /s/, the sign of the
possessive. In the Southern dialects the old /n/-declension was
applied, and so there arose such forms as /minum/ and /eowrum/
(=/mine/ and /yours/), from /min/ and /eower/ (=/my/ and /your/).[55]
Meanwhile, the original simple genitive, now become /youre/, also
survived, and so the literature of [Pg214] the fourteenth century
shows the three forms flourishing side by side: /youre/, /youres/ and
/youren/. All of them are in Chaucer.
Thus, /yourn/, /hern/, /hisn/, /ourn/ and /theirn/, whatever their
present offense to grammarians, are of a genealogy quite as
respectable as that of /yours/, /hers/, /his/, /ours/ and /theirs/.
Both forms represent a doubling of inflections, and hence grammatical
debasement. On the side of the /yours/-form is the standard usage of
the past five hundred years, but on the side of the /yourn/-form there
is no little force of analogy and logic, as appears on turning to
/mine/ and /thine/. In Anglo-Saxon, as we have seen, /my/ was /min/;
in the same way /thy/ was /thin/. During the decadence of the language
the final /n/ was dropped in both cases before nouns--that is, in the
conjoint form--but it was retained in the absolute form. This usage
survives to our own day. One says "/my/ book," but "the book is