Consonants h-dropping

Except as a recessive feature in western dialects of the island, [h] is not contrastive in JamC but rather variably appears in syllable onsets, independent of historical or spelling patterns, to mark emphasis. It also signals social maneuvering in the style known as ‘speaky-spoky’ (Patrick 1997). In LonVE [h] also occurs noncontrastively to mark emphasis, a function it shares with glottal stops (Sivertsen 1960). Sebba (1993: 158) suggests that glottal stopping may be replacing h-dropping in this function for Creole-influenced LonVE. A possible motivation for this is that indiscriminate emphatic h-dropping invokes a “stereotype of rural, parental speech” for British-born black speakers (Sutcliffe and Figueroa 1992: 97), while glottal stopping retains local, covert prestige and is compatible with BrC norms. Regardless, Sutcliffe observes that younger British-born speakers seldom use emphatic h-dropping.