Phonology and grammar

Some of the phonological processes described above have consequences for the grammar of AAVE. The tendency of AAVE speakers to drop the final [t] or [d] in tautosyllabic two-member clusters with the same voicing specification leads to the loss on the surface of grammatical information. Thus the surface realization of [wak] “walk” for underlying [wakt] leaves the past morpheme unexpressed segmentally. However, that information is retrieved from the context by any addressee familiar with the AAVE dialect. Similarly, the word tries might be uttered as [traɪ] or [tra:] for [traɪz] by an AAVE speaker who naturally drops the final [z], even though that [z] carries the grammatical information that the subject of the sentence is singular. This grammatical fact is signaled elsewhere in the sentence or discourse and is automatically retrieved by an interlocutor who is familiar with AAVE. Thus, sentences such as “I see how he try to get a job” or “He try to get a trade” (third person), “Plus these kids, these orphanage kid ...” (plural), and “Every day ... I see my cousin, or go to my uncle or somebody house” (possessive), would be considered anomalous to a non-AAVE speaking listener although they are perfectly grammatical within AAVE.