{"doi":"10.1055/a-2662-8184","title":"What of It? Coding the Unmarked Of-Preposition in Language Samples from Young AAE Speakers","abstract":"We examined the of-preposition in language samples because it is a highly variable feature that can be marked or unmarked (e.g., \"out [of] the door\") depending on context. Children who speak African American English (AAE) produce unmarked of-prepositions in contexts that are universal across AAE and General American English (GAE; e.g., \"out [of] the window\") and in contexts specific to the AAE dialect (e.g., \"out [of] the car\"). Guidance in the literature on this variability is limited for language sample analysis. Participants included 113 children who spoke AAE. We examined contexts with unmarked of-prepositions in narrative language samples in a subset of 72 children (mean age = 53.57 months). Samples were coded for AAE features based on the published literature. Contexts with an unmarked of-preposition were coded as universal (present in AAE and GAE) or as a feature of AAE. We calculated an estimate of AAE feature use in two ways: one that erroneously assumed that all of-preposition variability (including universal) is AAE, and one that more precisely identified AAE features. Analyses revealed significant differences in the measurement of AAE use. Careful analysis of dialect-specific and universal features of AAE grammar, including the of-preposition, is needed for reliable assessments.","journal":"Seminars in Speech and Language","year":2025,"id":573780,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9539,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1480937,"name":"Maura Moyle","orcid":"0000-0002-9860-8967","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1481309,"name":"Alaina Nash","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":501238,"name":"Sixia Chen","orcid":"0000-0001-5082-281X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1481308,"name":"Denise Finneran","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:57:36.753600Z","pmid":"40865555","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}