Habitual be
Habitual be is the use of an invariant be in African American Vernacular English and Caribbean English to mark habitual or extended actions in the present tense, instead of using the Standard English inflected forms of be, such as is and are.
It is a common misconception that AAVE speakers simply replace is with be across the board: "She be singing" for "She is singing." In fact, AAVE speakers use be to mark a habitual grammatical aspect which is not explicitly distinguished in Standard English. To be singing in this sense means to sing habitually, not to be singing right now. In one experiment, children were shown drawings of Elmo eating cookies while Cookie Monster looked on. Both black and white subjects agreed that Elmo is eating cookies, but the black children said that Cookie Monster be eating cookies.[1][2]
The source of invariant be in AAVE is still disputed because some linguists suggest it represents influence from finite be in the 17th to 19th century English of British settlers. Other linguists feel that Scots-Irish immigrants may have played a larger role since their Ulster Scots dialects mark habitual verb forms with be and do be.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000 "Be"
- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000 "Zero Copula"
