How your idiolect differs from the standard language

[Ser]

Bien means both "very" and "well". ¡Mi hijo está bien malo! does mean "My son is very ill!".

How weird. In colloquial British English, 'well' can be used to mean 'very', and in Welsh, 'iawn' means both 'well' and 'very'... I wonder how many languages this occurs in?

But I mean, do you say things like "his drawings are well bad" (sus dibujos son bien malos) or "my son is well sick" (mi hijo está bien malo/enfermo), with the meaning of "very bad/very sick"?

[Yng]

But I mean, do you say things like "his drawings are well bad" (sus dibujos son bien malos) or "my son is well sick" (mi hijo está bien malo/enfermo), with the meaning of "very bad/very sick"?

Yes. And the same in Welsh with 'iawn' (mae'u paentiad yn ddrwg iawn, mae fy mab yn sa^l iawn).

[Cockroach]

The only things I can think of for my dialect are the caught/cot merger and a raising of /{/ before /N/ to /e/ (in my case it dipthongizes to a proper /eI/. I wasn't even aware that this was unusual until recently)Otherwise, Pacific Northwest English is Interchangeable with General American, even more so than the famous Midwestern. I really envy all of you with cool dialects.

[Ancenande]

I speak Argentine Rioplatense Spanish, which has a different 2nd person singular pronoun, which drives me crazy when I travel to other parts of Latin America. I never know how should I address the locals: "vos" or "tú"?

[Shm Jay]

Usted is always safe, no?

[Nortaneous]

I wasn't even aware that this was unusual until recently

it isn't

[CaesarVincens]

The only things I can think of for my dialect are the caught/cot merger and a raising of /{/ before /N/ to /e/ (in my case it dipthongizes to a proper /eI/. I wasn't even aware that this was unusual until recently)Otherwise, Pacific Northwest English is Interchangeable with General American, even more so than the famous Midwestern. I really envy all of you with cool dialects.

If you have the pin/pen merger, you and I have nearly the same dialect.

[zmeiat_joro]

So if an average Ljubljana-n (?) would say ["mEgla], I would say ["m@gla], as is apparently the norm.

Does that by any chance mean "fog"?

[Mapar]

I tend to speak a mixture of Antwerp Dutch and Fl.-Brabant Dutch, since my mother is from Brussels, while my father is from Antwerp. Most people at my school speak the Brabant dialect, though. (I live on the provincial border between Antwerp and Brabant)

[Boşkoventi]

Yng: I think it's a different verb form, myself, encoding something like the continuous aspect. Note that the reply to "You be nice to your sister!" is not "But I AM nice to her!", but "But I'm BEING nice to her!".

Although I'd just call it a subjunctive, for simplicity.

I'd say there are two things going on here: the imperative / subjunctive, and a verb ("be nice") which can take the continuous aspect, unlike the simple verb "be". This happens when the combined verb denotes an action which is (or can be) deliberate:

"Be nice to your sister!" -- "I AM being nice to her!"
"Be good!" -- "I AM being good!"
but:
* "Be hungry!" -- *"I AM being hungry!"

Also note that "But I'm BEING nice to her!" can just as well be the answer to "Be nice to your sister!", which is clearly an imperative. In either case, using the continuous aspect emphasizes that the action is already underway.

This is simply a correct usage of the subjunctive mood, whose presence is often forgotten in English. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctiv ... in_English

Are you sure? All the examples I saw in that article look different than those of the form 'You be good, son!'. The latter has, to me, the look and feel of an imperative -- the fact that you can answer it with "But I AM being good!" is surely proof that it's acting as a command (or at the least interpreted as such, even by people arguing otherwise). And the fact that it's functionally equivalent to "Be good, son!" tells me it's an imperative. The "you" seems to serve to emphasize or contrast the subject / person being commanded:

"Be quiet." -- "YOU be quiet!"
-- The second speaker is saying that the first speaker should be quiet instead.

And as in YngNghymru's last example, it serves to emphasize that more than one person is being spoken to:

'you go down to the shops and buy us a loaf of bread and you sit there and don't move'
-- One person is told to go buy some bread, and another is told not to move -- the use of "you" helps clarify this.

[Cockroach]

I wasn't even aware that this was unusual until recently

it isn't

Well then there you go. It's official: Pacific Northwest English=General American perfectly.

[CaesarVincens]

Are you sure? All the examples I saw in that article look different than those of the form 'You be good, son!'. The latter has, to me, the look and feel of an imperative -- the fact that you can answer it with "But I AM being good!" is surely proof that it's acting as a command (or at the least interpreted as such, even by people arguing otherwise). And the fact that it's functionally equivalent to "Be good, son!" tells me it's an imperative. The "you" seems to serve to emphasize or contrast the subject / person being commanded:

"Be quiet." -- "YOU be quiet!"
-- The second speaker is saying that the first speaker should be quiet instead.

And as in YngNghymru's last example, it serves to emphasize that more than one person is being spoken to:

'you go down to the shops and buy us a loaf of bread and you sit there and don't move'
-- One person is told to go buy some bread, and another is told not to move -- the use of "you" helps clarify this.

Actually, I have to go with you be good, son as being subjunctive, though it really depends on the intonation (and the intent of the speaker of course). As you said,

The "you" seems to serve to emphasize or contrast the subject / person being commanded:

In the other examples you gave, you is a highly emphatic or else clarifying word, but in You be good, son, there isn't that emphasis or intonational break with you. Also, as it most likely expresses a wish, a subjunctive is likely (if the speaker has heard subjunctive used that way). Really, the you almost can't be emphatic; imagine it spoken as in You be quiet!, or else, You, fetch me some coffee (to use a shorter version of your last sentence type). Say the three sentences out loud and see if any of the three you's really have the same intonation.

[Nortaneous]

I wasn't even aware that this was unusual until recently

it isn't

Well then there you go. It's official: Pacific Northwest English=General American perfectly.

GA is pretty unusual though

does it even have the { > e@ / _(m n) shift? because that's pretty much universal in america as far as I know

[Gremlins]

[blad doUn? bIz m{ d{:lEkt Iz bE hEntS baf tINz InI? bB\::::::ap bB\ap]

^ I don't speak like this. The people I hang out with,however, do :/ [jOuks blad]

[CaesarVincens]

does it even have the { > e@ / _(m n) shift? because that's pretty much universal in america as far as I know

So that "man" sounds similar to "main"? (/æ/ to /eə/)

I know I don't have that, except for before aforementioned ŋ.

[Nortaneous]

does it even have the { > e@ / _(m n) shift? because that's pretty much universal in america as far as I know

So that "man" sounds similar to "main"? (/æ/ to /eə/)

wait what?

man = [me@n]
main = [mEIn]

[CaesarVincens]

does it even have the { > e@ / _(m n) shift? because that's pretty much universal in america as far as I know

So that "man" sounds similar to "main"? (/æ/ to /eə/)

wait what?

man = [me@n]
main = [mEIn]

So they don't merge, I see. Anyway, I definitely have /æ/ in man.

[Nortaneous]

Anyway, I definitely have /æ/ in man.

I have /{/ there also. [e@] only appears as an allophone of /{/ before /m n/.

(of course, then you get the fuckery where /aU/ is [{] or [{@] or something in that environment, so...)

[Ser]

But I mean, do you say things like "his drawings are well bad" (sus dibujos son bien malos) or "my son is well sick" (mi hijo está bien malo/enfermo), with the meaning of "very bad/very sick"?

Yes. And the same in Welsh with 'iawn' (mae'u paentiad yn ddrwg iawn, mae fy mab yn sa^l iawn).

Then I must say I'm surprised it does.

does it even have the { > e@ / _(m n) shift? because that's pretty much universal in america as far as I know

Yes, it has it. (Remember that I live in Vancouver. )

I speak Argentine Rioplatense Spanish, which has a different 2nd person singular pronoun, which drives me crazy when I travel to other parts of Latin America. I never know how should I address the locals: "vos" or "tú"?

In El Salvador we also use voseo, just for you to know. Although actually, I don't see why you would try to address the locals with tú/vos according to the region you're in, when Argentinians are always expected to use voseo.

You may find this map useful, though you'd need to read more on the exact distributions. (Bolivian voseo appears only in some eastern parts of the country, for example.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mapa_ ... eantes.png

Usted is always safe, no?

But so much formality may get annoying depending on the context and region (ustedeo), when you're trying to have a casual conversation. I remember when a girl from Costa Rica once came to study at the school where I used to go to in El Salvador, and everybody couldn't stand her ustedeo, since it drew so much "distance".

[Yng]

Then I must say I'm surprised it does.

Yeah, I was too. For some reason, use of 'well' as a synonym for 'very' seems to be something that has appeared cross-linguistically.

[Delthayre]

A friend of mine has an odd habit of lowering [e] before [g] to [E].

I have observed this in the following particular words:

[bE:gl=] for bagel
[r\E:gn=] for Reagan
[vE:g] for vague

(I might not have transcribed those quite properly, but they're close enough to make the point)

Nobody else whom I can remember meeting has those pronounciations.

Another friend of mine pronounced room as [rU:~m], which is a rare pronouncation in southeastern Pennsylvania, although I gather that it is standard elsewhere.

[The Unseen]

A friend of mine has an odd habit of lowering [e] before [g] to [E].

I have observed this in the following particular words:

[bE:gl=] for bagel

This may be the inspiration for the joke in Thursday's episode of Community.

[Nortaneous]

Another friend of mine pronounced room as [rU:~m], which is a rare pronouncation in southeastern Pennsylvania, although I gather that it is standard elsewhere.

I know someone who has that and /U/ in "roof".

[Cockroach]

does it even have the { > e@ / _(m n) shift? because that's pretty much universal in america as far as I know

Yes, it has it.

?????????

I must be seriously misunderstanding something. I don't do this, and I don't know of anyone, local or not, who does.

[Radius Solis]

Yng: I think it's a different verb form, myself, encoding something like the continuous aspect. Note that the reply to "You be nice to your sister!" is not "But I AM nice to her!", but "But I'm BEING nice to her!".

Although I'd just call it a subjunctive, for simplicity.

I realize this post is old, but now that I'm seeing it for the first time...


There's more to it than just an aspect or a modality. There's a whole thing about using "be" as a semantically rich (= non-copular) verb meaning "to act as or behave like", which is morphosyntactically distinct in that it occurs mainly in the progressive aspect, whereas copular uses of 'be' are rarely found in that aspect. Among other differences (see below).

For instance, if a child is pretending to be a dog, he might say "look, I'm being a dog!" instead of "look, I'm a dog!". You find both, of course - I'm not saying the latter is unusual in any regard.

Being (mostly) restricted to the progressive, the verb's inflection paradigm goes as follows:

I'm being good.
You're being good.
He's being good.
I was being good.
You were being good.
She was being good.
etc.

This sense can also occur wherever a bare verb form would be normal:

for him to be good
Be a good boy now!


But these latter examples are not morphosyntactically distinct from the copula, that I can see. So how do we know there's really a different verb from the copula, rather than just the usual progressive aspect of it?

1. The range of subjects and complements it takes are both quite restricted, compared to the copula:

*That city is being Chicago.
*I'm being too cold.
*The cat is being under the table.

Without going through a ton of examples, I'm fairly sure the verb selects animate subjects, and complements that indicate entities you can choose to behave like or qualities you can choose to display.


2. Nonstandardly, it sometimes gets morphologically regularized. Well okay, pretty rarely. But surely many of us have heard or uttered something like "It's really funny whenever he bes a dog" once or twice in our lives, mainly in childhood. From adult speakers, it is a highly marked thing where the speaker knows it's "wrong", and they do it anyway because the normal morphosyntactic options don't seem to fit (e.g. wanting to avoid both the progressive and any copular sense). Based on personal experience, I get the sense that regularized "be" is a thing that keeps naturally developing in children only to be corrected out of them later on, so that adults rarely use it.


3. It can take at least some adverbials that the copula can't:

You're being a dog really well!
*You're a dog really well!