Habitual be

Habitual be, also called invariant be, is the use of an uninflected be in African-American English (AAE), Caribbean English and Hiberno-English to mark habitual or extended actions in place of the Standard English inflected forms of be, such as is and are. In AAE, use of be indicates that a subject repeatedly does an action or embodies a trait. In General American English, however, the use of (an inflection of) be means only that an individual has done an action in a particular tense, such as in the statement "She was singing" (the habitual is "She sings").

It is a common misconception that AAE simply replaces is with be across all tenses, with no added meaning. In fact, AAE uses be to mark a habitual grammatical aspect, which is not explicitly distinguished in Standard English. For example, to be singing means to sing habitually, not to presently be singing. 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][3]

  1. ^ Jackson, Janice Eurana (1998). Linguistic aspect in African-American English-speaking children: An investigation of aspectual "be". Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Amherst. ISBN 9780591960327. ProQuest 304446674.
  2. ^ "Do You Speak American. For Educators. Curriculum. High School. AAE". PBS. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  3. ^ "SYNERGY – African-American English". Umass.edu. Retrieved 2012-05-23.