Date:  Sat, 8 Nov 1997 10:34:34 -0500
From:  "Dennis R. Preston" <preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: basketball terms

Greg,

I doubt the player-origin of this "deletion." In fact, I suspect it is not
the morphologically and/or phonologically motivated deletion of possessive
{s} at all but a sports-announcer short-form for something like "the ball
belongs to Duke or "Duke has the ball" (although I usually prefer to see
Louisville have it).

I don't have Ferguson's SAT (Sports Announcer Talk) article (fron Language
in Society, I think) in front of me, but he mentions a number of these
processes there; this might be among them.

DInIs (jump-shot) Preston



>Another basketball usage that comes to me is the null-possessive, as in
>"Duke ball," or "Chicago ball," when the standard is "Duke's ball" or
>"Chicago's ball." I've heard this from basketball announcers who are
>otherwise speakers of "standard", but I'd guess that they've picked it up
>from the players. It seems to be a matter of s- deletion, which is common
>in AAVE.
>
>Any thoughts on this.
>
>Greg

Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736