"a-Prefixing in Appalachian English"

by Walt Wolfram 1980

In Appalachian English. Ex: "he come a-runnin' out there and got shot"

"a-prefixing is restricted to those -ing particles that are part of the verb or its complement (i.e., the adverb); it does not occur in other types of contexts such as true gerunds."

"all a-prefixed participial forms are derived from prepositional phrases, and that a- itself comes from a preposition."

Used in continuous, unstructured activities like hunting, canning, churning, running. Not used in games or structured activities like baseball or puzzle-solvin. Not used in non-kinetic activities like dreaming.

Appalachian English in Southern Indiana?

by Brian Jose

Montgomery (1989, 2007) proposed three standards for establishing that dialects are genetically related: historical connection, explicit quantitative description of plural verbal -s, and the plural verbal -s was compared to dialects of Appalachian English.
He also gave evidence that the patterns are not simply "universals" of english vernaculars.
Jose also investigated other aspects of the grammar.

Defining Appalachian English

by Hazen and Fluharty, 2006
in American Voices

Appalachian English is maligned and suffers prejudice.

You can hear "Needs washed," "The dogs walks," a-prefixing (from SCots-Irish to indicate an ongoing action).
Appalachian English is a number of difefrent dialects.

Monopthongization

AAVE did not monopthongize before p,t, or k, but Appalachian blacks do.