Re: THEORY: free variation [was: Re: [OT] Re: Conlangea Dreaming]

> Oh, that reminds me!  I was listening to some people speaking ebonics
> yesterday.  How amazing!  I think I actually detected variation in vowel
> length.  For example:
>
> dOr --> do: (or maybe dau)
>
> I still don't completely get the verb system though.  "She was knocking"
> is apparently simple past, not past progressive.  "I be knocking" I'm not
> sure of.  Simple present?  Present progressive?  Why that form of "be"?
> Is there a conjugated "be" with different meaning?
As I remember from a short scholarly description of Black Vernacular
English (aka Ebonics, or are they different?), the use of "be" indicates
simple present action, whereas the lack of "be" indicates repetitive,
habitual action.  For example, "She be knocking on my door" means that she
actually is knocking on my door right now, while "She knocking on my door
every day" indicates the habitual aspect.

Any L1 speakers of Ebonic to correct this ;-P.

BTW, this description was what inspired me to bring a habituality
distinction into Yivríndil.

>
> I'd love to sit down with a speaker of Ebonics and listen to it, but my
> students are terrified to use it with me.  I guess they suspect that I'll
> tell them to speak proper English, whatever that is.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>                 Living your life is a task so difficult,
>                 it has never been attempted before.
>
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and
improvements and change.  It is the old things that startle and
intoxicate.  It is the old things that are young."
-G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_