Re: Genitive relationships (WAS: Construct States)

At 09:17 PM 3/9/99 +0000, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>But the other point John reminds us is that the Old English division of the
>verb "to be" into two parallel sets of tenses etc, one lot beginning with
>b- and the other being rather more irregular, is uncannily like the
>Brittonic system where b- tends to denote habitual states/ actions, and the
>other forms are the "then and now" words - rydw i'n yn yscrifennu - I'm
>writing (now) ~ bydda i'n yn ysgrifennu - I (habitually) write.    In
>earlier forms of English there was a difference between: "I am
>a-writing..." [now] and "I be a-writing..." [as a something I do every day].
This strikes me as uncannily similar to the progressive vs. habitual
distinction in African-American Vernacular English (a.k.a. Ebonics) that I
referred to in my recent posts on Neo-Anglic: "I writin'" (present
progressive) vs. "I be writin'" (habitual).  When you say "in earlier forms
of English", how early do you mean?  Would these forms still have been in
use in, say, the 17th century, when English colonists in America started
importing African slaves?  And if so, would it make sense for this feature
to have been preserved in the English of the slaves and their descendents
but lost in "standard" English?  Or is it more likely to be a coincidence?

-------------------------------------------------
Tim Smith
timsmith@global2000.net

Get your facts first and then you can distort them as you please.
- Mark Twain