Participle leveling in African American English

This paper investigates the use of preterit verb forms in lieu of normative past participles (in present- and past-tense contexts as well as following non-tensed have ) by African American speakers drawing on data from the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL). This type of morphosyntactic variation, labeled as Participle Leveling, has been documented in many varieties of English worldwide. However, variationist research on participle leveling remains limited and has thus far centered exclusively on mainstream varieties. By focusing on African American English (AAE), the present study addresses this research gap and contributes to a systematic understanding of the variable in AAE. Statistical analyses indicate that participle leveling in AAE is largely conditioned by similar intra-linguistic factors identified in mainstream English varieties. Moreover, the variable is socially stratified among AAE speakers and exhibits regional patterning with higher rates of non-standard forms found in the Southern United States. No evidence of change over time has been found.