He ain't see her yesterday
Our Findings:
Looking at our sample of African American and Caribbean American speakers in Boston, only 32.5% reported using ain’t in place of didn’t in sentences like ‘He ain’t see her yesterday.’ Meanwhile, 67.5% of speakers said they are not familiar with using ain’t for didn’t in these contexts. Based on our results, African American and Caribbean speakers from the Boston area tend to prefer sentences like ‘He didn’t see her yesterday’ over ‘He ain’t see her yesterday.’
References:
- Ash & Myhill (1986:37)
- Fisher (2018)
- Fisher (2022)
- Howe (2005)
- Labov, et al. (1968:206)
- Weldon (1994)
- Wolfram (2004)
