From the grammar book to your mouth (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

From the grammar book to your mouth
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

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LaughingChimp
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4700 days ago
346 posts - 594 votes

Speaks: Czech*

Message 57 of 58

16 February 2012 at 10:45pm | IP Logged

PillowRock wrote:

LaughingChimp wrote:

PillowRock wrote:

Secondly, I've never noticed any additional tenses in Ebonics, just alternate conjugations of tenses that also exist in "standard" English.

Seriously? You gave one as an example. "he be doing" does not exist in standard English.

That's not a different tense. It's the same tense as "he is doing", just a different conjugation of it.

If you think that those two are genuinely different tenses, could you please explain to me what you think the difference in meaning is?

"he is doing" is present continuous, it describes something he is doing right now. "he be doing" is habitual, it describes something he does often or what he usualy does, though not necessarily right now.
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PillowRock
Groupie
United States
Joined 4735 days ago
87 posts - 151 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 58 of 58

17 February 2012 at 1:01am | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

PillowRock wrote:

LaughingChimp wrote:

PillowRock wrote:

Secondly, I've never noticed any additional tenses in Ebonics, just alternate conjugations of tenses that also exist in "standard" English.

Seriously? You gave one as an example. "he be doing" does not exist in standard English.

"he is doing" is present continuous, it describes something he is doing right now. "he be doing" is habitual, it describes something he does often or what he usually does, though not necessarily right now.

My experience is that the distinction that you're making does not exist in actual usage. I've never known anybody who used "is doing" for actions being performed at the moment and switched to "be doing" for habitual actions. The people who've used "be doing", did so in both of those cases (though some switch back and forth according to the environment that they're in while speaking). The usage really parallels "is doing", what I'm used to seeing called the "present progressive" in English grammar. In fact, the usage that I see (well, hear) is just a different conjugation of "to be" that is used regardless of whether it is being used on its own or as an auxiliary verb.

One could argue that Ebonics conjugation of "to be" has an advantage because it is much less irregular than the standard one.
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