MISCELLANY
ATCHESON L. HENCH
University of Virginia
SUBSTANDARD ‘YES! AND ‘NO! IN SPOKEN AMERICAN ENGLISH
Foreign visitors to the United States, who have leaned the proper affirma-
tive and negative responses of yes and no, are often bewildered by the wide-
spread colloguial use of uhh and hul-uh.! Conversely, even the most
addicted American ‘uh-huh-er’ is often forced to abandon this colloguialism
in favor of the traditional yes and no for the sake of efficient communication
when abroad?
Substandard yes and no provide an interesting case study from the point of
view of structural linguistics, where it is claimed that the phonemes may be
broken down into inherent distinctive features. These features are the ultimate
discrete signals, by which this operation can be reduced to yes-or-no situa-
tions. In addition, substandard yes and no provide a convincing minimal pair
which suggests the glottal catch as a marginal phoneme in spoken American
English.
Affirmative and negative occur as bisyllabic ‘words’ consisting of two open
syllables (CVCV). Any vowel or syllabic sonorant may appear, as long as it
appears in both syllables. Normally, a vowel, represented here by a hyphen,
is used; this vowel is similar to the schwa. Choice of consonants is limited
to the glottal catch (?] and the unvoiced spirant (h). All of the four mathe-
matically possible consonant combinations can be observed in practice, but
‘one of them is rare. The distinction between affirmative and negative is made
by the consonant of the second syllable, where [h} indicates affirmative
and [?] indicates negative. Thus:
hhch- (Fare) affirmative
She affirmative
hoe negative
2a negative
“The prosodic features of tone and force play no distinctive role bu are used
1. Spelling is eandardized in accordance with that used in the comic strip “Peanots’ by
(Charles M. Schulz.
2 To the best of my knowledge, no atempe has been mal to identify the localities or
speech communities where the use of uhhuk and hub-uk is not universal phenomenon.
However, I can cite one native-bom American married couple in cheir later thirties now
living in Cambridge, Massacharers, who were not failiae with these forms until theit
{our daughters bogan using them, and who ae sill noc entirely sure of the diference beoween
the two forms.
'. Roman Jakobson, C. Gunnar M. Fant, and Morris Halle, Preliminarier to Speck Analy
sis: the Distinctive Features end Their Corelates Cambridge, Mass. 1953), B. 43¢MISCELLANY 331
to indicate various mances of affirmation and negation, such as surprise,
‘anger, pleasure, doubt, and so on. Normally, the affirmative is accompanied
by 2 rising tone, while the negative is accompanied by a falling tone. How-
ever, reversing the normal tone pattern seems to provide additional shades of
affirmation and negation for some people. The fact that both affirmative and
negative can be whispered without losing their identities is another indication
that tone is not a distinctive feature.
Ina like manner, the first syllable of each is normally stressed, but stressing
the second syllable produces more degrees of affirmation and negation. The
‘wo structural variants of each response, taken together with the prosodic
features of tone and force, provide a total of sixteen variants for substandard
_yes and no, four of them taken to be normal.
Substandard yes and mo may be pronounced with the mouth closed as well as,
open. In the former case, the vocalic function is assumed by syllabic nasal
consonants, represented variously: un-hum, unh-humh, and so on. In the latter
case, the liquid sonorants may assume the vocalic function without impairing
the meaning, although T have not been able to find any written examples of
‘what would most likely appear as ur-hr, h-stl, and so on.
Although substandard yes and no are normally accompanied respectively
by a nod or a shake of the head, these are optional concomitant and redundant
gestures, since the two responses are distinct in the media of radio and tele-
phone.
Since the yes/no distinction is carried in the second syllable, pronouncing
‘only the first syllable indicates doube or hesitation, leaving the listener waiting
for the second syllable. When just the first syllable is used in this manner,
it is often followed by three dots to indicate the absence of the second, decisive
syllable, and is transcribed variously: wh... mk... aah... mmm...
hmm... and 50 on.
Certain implications seem to derive from the above remarks. In Preliminaries
to Speech Analysis it was suggested that the prevocalic or postvocalic aspiration
7h/ is opposed to the even, unaspirated onset or decay of a vowel, that the
former isa tense glide (spiritusasper), andthe latter, a lax glide (spirtus lenis),
which, properly speaking, is a zero phoneme, and that the opposition (/h/ —
/4/) occurs in English in initial prevocalic position. It was also suggested
thatthe lax counterpart of /h/ presents an optional variant: in cases of emphasis
a glottal catch may be substituted for the even onset
Substandard yes and no appear to be a minimal pair which utilizes /h/ in
‘opposition to the glottal catch //, where the lax glide (spiritus lenis) or zero
phoneme /#/ is prohibited. In this situation the glottal catch is no longer an
‘optional (emphatic) variant of the zero phoneme, but appears as an independent
phoneme which is opposed to /h/, where this opposition (/h/ ~ /3/) is
+ Bid, p39332 AMERICAN SPEECH
apparently based not on the opposition of tense 2s. lax, but on the opposition
of continuant 2s. interrupted.
is not clear whether the second consonant of substandard yes and no is to
be considered to be in initial or internal prevocalic position. In normal English
usage, a hyphen usually indicates at least a potential word boundary. On the
other hand, since pronouncing only the first syllable indicates the utterance
to be incomplete, we may easily assume the second consonant to be in internal
position, and simply ignore the hyphen of the written forms of substandard
yes and ro.
Te would be interesting to see the results of further research on substandard
yes and no. Sound spectrograms might be useful in determining which phonemes
‘are concemed, and whether the hyphen is a phonetic or graphic device. It
‘would be interesting to discover the localities and speech communities where
substandard yes and no are widely accepted. It would also be interesting to see
‘to what extent there is agreement on the nuances of meaning attributed by the
prosodic Features of tone and force.
‘Onn Frank
Indiana University
‘ne-uP?
‘This note is intended merely to call attention to the word re-up as having
had a long and continuous existence as a part of Army speech prior to the de-
velopment of an Air Force language, and to suggest that its present wide usage
in the Air Force is actually a continuation of the Army usage.
‘A foundation for the impression that the word is peculiar to the Air Force
is laid in the following remarks in a recent item on Air Force language:
“The fllowing ate notes on few special words in presont ue in Air Force diction... The
large and fstly homogencous population of the Air Force continues to show the same
language habits it has manifested for some years: new words and meanings are realy
‘rested of adapeed to meee changing military and echnical situations, and there ita steady
evelopment and use of inter familias humorous terms
‘The term re-up was one of the two listed in the item as having been ‘in use
for some time and [appearing] likely to be permanent’
-vr, eT verb 1 re-upis now in wide sein the Air Force to refer to the reenlistment
of noncoms and members of other elated ranks...
‘The item clearly indicates that the term is ‘special’ so far as the Air Force
is concerned, but it makes no suggestion that the term existed any earlier than
about 1956. It also seems to imply that re-up had its origin in the Air Force.
American Speech,
James L. Jackson, “More Air Force Language in the Makin
XXKV (1960), 302.
2, Ibid p. 303. Footnote» cites a verbal ure ofthe term in a 198 issue ofthe Air Force
Times. Occurrences of the term in other grammatical forms, acconling to footnote 3, can
be found ina 1956 inte.