ABSTRACT
Many salient non-standard features of contemporary English and its varieties are widely held to be recent innovations, generated by rural, uneducated, minority and other marginal speakers. This is particularly true of morphological and syntactic features. Ain’t, demonstrative them and a variety of verbal inflections, among others, have become stereotypically associated, and ultimately identified, with specific (non-standard) varieties. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a prime example. Its distinctive morphosyntax has spurred a massive long-term research effort to locate its origins, typically, in the African mother tongues of the ancestors of current speakers, and in attendant processes of creolisation and decreolisation.
