0
Profile Picture

Southern English 2. Conjugation

7 years ago
Dialects tend to eliminate some of the complex grammar in standard language. In Standard American English, an s or es marks verbs in the third person singular present tense:
I do not believe
You do not believe
We do not believe
They do not believe
He, she, or it does not believe

But in Southern American English and African American Vernacular English, all verbs are conjugated the same way:
I do not believe
You do not believe
We do not believe
They do not believe
He, she, or it do not believe

This is something you've probably heard if you listen to American musical genres like country or rap.

In the Jay Z/Kanye West song "No Church in the Wild," Frank Ocean sings:
"Human beings in a mob,
What's a mob to a king?
What's a king to a god?
What's a god to a nonbeliever
Who don't believe in anything?"

Of course, there are many languages in the world that don't conjugate verbs at all, one example being Chinese.