ABSTRACT
In many ways phonology is the neglected stepchild of research on African-American vernacular English (AAVE). Even the most cursory review of the literature will show that morphology and syntax have long been the primary focus of work on AAVE (see Montgomery and Bailey 1986, and Bailey, Maynor, and Cukor-Avila 1991 for overviews of this literature). Two factors seem to account for the focus on morphology and syntax: the most distinctive features of AAVE, at least at first glance, are grammatical (e.g., zero copula, habitual be, and remote time been) and the issues that have driven research on AAVE (e.g., debates about the uniqueness of AAVE, its origins, and its current path of development) have hinged primarily on arguments about grammatical features.
