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"Is you is, or is you ain’t" | ||
Tags: Colloquial Language | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| qazwsxed Newbie United States Joined 5016 days ago 18 posts - 17 votes | Message 1 of 4 15 April 2011 at 9:58am | IP Logged |
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What's the grammatical explanation of this sentence, I recently hear from an old jazz song? It confused me.
Is it slang? dialect? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5344 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 4 15 April 2011 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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It's slang. I remember it from a cartoon rather than an old jazz song. But it is over a
jazz song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR-Ckj5M-jU 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 4 15 April 2011 at 2:08pm | IP Logged |
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It's not slang, it's poetic licence. "Ain't" is a dialectal variation of "isn't", "aren't" etc.
Dialectally, you could say "are you or ain't you my baby" or even "is you or ain't you my baby". But if you Google "is you is", every hit is a reference to the song. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Nudimmud Groupie United States Joined 5192 days ago 87 posts - 161 votes Studies: Greek, Korean | Message 4 of 4 16 April 2011 at 9:50am | IP Logged |
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I could definitely see this as being a mode of black speech from the turn of the 20th century. Certainly simplification of the verb system, especially of the verb 'to be' is well attested in many American Dialects, especially of Black English. I could hypothetically see an explanation of the sentence along the following lines:
Given the sentence (clumsy and unnatural, but grammatically correct): Are you being one of those or are you not being one? apply the following rules: * are (second person singular of 'to be') = 'is' (still rather common in some American speech) * being (present participle of 'to be') = 'is' * is not = ain't * implied pronouns can be omitted and you get the following: is you is or is you ain't 1 person has voted this message useful |
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