"I seen" as an innovation

[Viktor77]

First let me preface this post by saying that these observations are based on my speech community. In my speech community I would argue "I seen" is not nearly as marked as some others might observe it as being.

That being said, I want to run an idea by you that "I seen" is more than just contraction to zero. I'm sure it came to be through contraction to zero of the contracted auxiliary, but when I run sentences through my head, I don't find a perfective sense. "I seen" might be a new preterite form of "saw" but I believe there is more going on here than that. It may be that "I seen" is a new aspect, or even a new tense, that is developing in English (analogous perhaps to how "be" began to mark the habitual aspect in AAVE). When I run a sentence through my head (which is difficult and I'd prefer some sort of corpus gathered through interviews but anyway) I find for example this sentence, "I seen that it was on TV the other day." Contrast that with "I saw that it was on TV the other day." This doesn't strike me as perfective, and I just don't think it's an alternative preterite. It's hard of course to pinpoint what it could be, but I was thinking that perhaps English is developing an imperfect here. "I seen" would be an imperfect form, which itself would contrast with the progressive. The best way to study this would be perhaps to look and see if all 4 forms of the verb are contrasted in a given corpus, I saw, I've seen, I seen, I was seeing. I tried to find studies on this but can't find anything. Thoughts?

Can we verify that there are other verbs working in this way?

[linguoboy]

When I run a sentence through my head (which is difficult and I'd prefer some sort of corpus gathered through interviews but anyway) I find for example this sentence, "I seen that it was on TV the other day." Contrast that with "I saw that it was on TV the other day." This doesn't strike me as perfective, and I just don't think it's an alternative preterite.

Why do you not consider it an alternative preterite? Can you actually point me to a minimal pair?

IME, the contrast is simply one of register. That is, if speakers alternate between the two forms at all (rather than consistently preferring one or the other), they prefer saw in contexts where the prescriptive standard is appropriate.

[Viktor77]

When I run a sentence through my head (which is difficult and I'd prefer some sort of corpus gathered through interviews but anyway) I find for example this sentence, "I seen that it was on TV the other day." Contrast that with "I saw that it was on TV the other day." This doesn't strike me as perfective, and I just don't think it's an alternative preterite.

Why do you not consider it an alternative preterite? Can you actually point me to a minimal pair?

IME, the contrast is simply one of register. That is, if speakers alternate between the two forms at all (rather than consistently preferring one or the other), they prefer saw in contexts where the prescriptive standard is appropriate.

That is equally as valid. The reason I don't see it as an alternative preterite is I cannot find a justification for its development. "Saw" is, phonologically speaking, a perfectly efficient word, and in fact since there is no nasal, perhaps even more efficient. And we've established that "I seen" is more than a contraction to zero of the perfect. What reason is there to develop an alternative form like this to contrast between registers?

I would have to gather research to see if a minimal pair exists. I know from experience that I alternate the two forms, but what that frequency is or if there is a meaning difference is not something I can verify personally without bias.

[hwhatting]

That is equally as valid. The reason I don't see it as an alternative preterite is I cannot find a justification for its development. "Saw" is, phonologically speaking, a perfectly efficient word, and in fact since there is no nasal, perhaps even more efficient. And we've established that "I seen" is more than a contraction to zero of the perfect. What reason is there to develop an alternative form like this to contrast between registers?

The justification is simple - for all regular verbs (and a few irregular verbs like "put") the simple past is like the past participle (I played / I have played). What you have here is a clear case of analogy. This could theoretically go in two directions - simple past I seen or perfect I have saw (Some ghits for "has saw" - there probably are a lot of mistakes by L2 speakers among that, but it's just to show that such analogical formations are not purely theoretical).
In your case, if you cannot come up with real differences of meaning between "I saw" and "I seen", it's probably indeed just a case of register switch, as linguoboy said - sometimes the Standard English form wins out, sometimes your idiolectal analogical form. That kind of oscillation in usage is typical for people moving between registers.
And forms do not necessarily develop "to contrast between registers" (although sometimes speakers of a lect seem to specifically choose forms and words to differentiate themselves from speakers of other lects), but certain developments happen in one register, but not in others; especially the standard registers tends to be more conservative than many colloquial or group registers. That's the case here - the analogical forms have spread and become accepted in certain registers, while the standard register rejects them.

[linguoboy]

The reason I don't see it as an alternative preterite is I cannot find a justification for its development. "Saw" is, phonologically speaking, a perfectly efficient word, and in fact since there is no nasal, perhaps even more efficient.

You don't think that having but two irregularly-formed principle parts is "more efficient" than having three?

[Viktor77]

The justification is simple - for all regular verbs (and a few irregular verbs like "put") the simple past is like the past participle (I played / I have played). What you have here is a clear case of analogy. This could theoretically go in two directions - simple past I seen or perfect I have saw (Some ghits for "has saw" - there probably are a lot of mistakes by L2 speakers among that, but it's just to show that such analogical formations are not purely theoretical).
In your case, if you cannot come up with real differences of meaning between "I saw" and "I seen", it's probably indeed just a case of register switch, as linguoboy said - sometimes the Standard English form wins out, sometimes your idiolectal analogical form. That kind of oscillation in usage is typical for people moving between registers.
And forms do not necessarily develop "to contrast between registers" (although sometimes speakers of a lect seem to specifically choose forms and words to differentiate themselves from speakers of other lects), but certain developments happen in one register, but not in others; especially the standard registers tends to be more conservative than many colloquial or group registers. That's the case here - the analogical forms have spread and become accepted in certain registers, while the standard register rejects them.

It didn't occur to me that there could be an analogy between the forms developed from analogy with identical preterite and past participles forms, or as Linguoboy pointed out, that distinguishing 3 forms is less efficient (though I would challenge Linguoboy with the idea that AAVE has distinguished present from habitual effectively creating two conjugations of to be). I was really hoping for some sort of new feature being borne out of "I seen." I suppose it would still be interesting to see how often it is used within given registers other than the standard. And even if it could one day infiltrate the standard. Although what is standard anyway but a bunch of BS.

[Rui]

Pretty sure LB's comment was just pointing out how useless talking about "most efficient" language usage is.

[linguoboy]

Pretty sure LB's comment was just pointing out how useless talking about "most efficient" language usage is.

Or, at the very least, that there are multiple axes of "efficiency" which need to be considered in every case. However, as Mark has pointed out many times, there's no compelling reason to think that language evolution is driven by a need to maximise "efficiency" at all and, furthermore, no reason to assume that what's "efficient" from a computer programming point-of-view is optimal for our brains, which are wired very differently.

(though I would challenge Linguoboy with the idea that AAVE has distinguished present from habitual effectively creating two conjugations of to be).

I'm not sure what that's supposed to "challenge". AAVE has more aspectual distinctions than Standard English, but fewer forms. For instance, the habitual is formed with be for all persons whereas, in the present tense, some dialects distinguish is and are whereas others use is for all persons. Regardless, the copula/auxiliary is most often dropped anyway. Is "I/you/he/she/etc. (is) crazy" vs "I/you/he/she/etc. be crazy" really less "efficient" than "I am crazy", "You/we/they are crazy", "He/she/it is crazy"? What measure do you use to determine this?

[Vardelm]

IME, the contrast is simply one of register. That is, if speakers alternate between the two forms at all (rather than consistently preferring one or the other), they prefer saw in contexts where the prescriptive standard is appropriate.

I have heard people use "seen" instead of "saw" quite a bit. For those people that do, I have NEVER heard them switch between the two.

[TaylorS]

FWIW in my own (Fargo area) speech "I seen" is just plain old "I've seen" with the auxiliary elided to zero, I don't notice any kind of aspectual distinction.

On the other hand, Travis once mentioned that in his (Milwaukee area) that he seems to have some kind of aspectual distinction between I've aten", and "I've eaten".

[Salmoneus]

"no kind of aspectual distinction" is a bit misleading, no?

There are three forms under discussion, and I suspect most dialects will distinguish at least two aspectually:
PERFECT................?????..................PRETERITE
"I've seen"..............."I seen"................"I saw"

There are four possibilities where 'I seen' occurs:
1 - it could be identical in meaning to (and in some registers replace) the perfect (presumably by eliding the /v/ of the perfect)
2 - it could be identical in meaning to (and in some registers replace) the preterite (presumably formed from the preterite by analogy from verbs with only two parts)
3 - it could fail to be identical to either of the other two forms, and be a third (new) aspect
4 - it could replace both existing forms, and there would be no kind of aspectual distinction made anymore.

Viktor assumed the situation was 3... LB, HWH and I think Vardelm think the situation is instead 2. I don't have one of these dialects, but my outsider's (quite possibly false) impression of its use makes me think of this as a viable theory.

You instead appear to be saying 1; except that you're slightly ambiguous as to whether you instead mean 4?

[linguoboy]

I haven't made a thorough study of dialects with seen as a preterite form, but my impression is that these dialects lack a firm distinction between perfect and preterite (as is common in many varieties of American English). That is, (4) is the description that best fits.

[Xephyr]

Or at least "4½ - formally it replaces the perfect, and the preterite is retained, but with no semantic distinction".

[Vardelm]

Here's a snippet of conversation from Skype at work today (named changed to protect the innocent...):

[1:54:01 PM] Sam: put your review files in a review folder Alan
[1:54:06 PM] Sam: 1
[1:54:07 PM] Sam: 2
[1:54:08 PM] Sam: 3
[1:54:08 PM] Sam: 4
[1:54:09 PM] Sam: 5
[1:54:10 PM] Sam: 6
[1:54:11 PM] Sam: 7
[1:54:12 PM] Sam: 8
[1:54:13 PM] Sam: 9
[1:54:14 PM] Sam: 10
[1:54:15 PM] Sam: 11
[1:54:16 PM] Sam: 12
[1:54:17 PM] Alan: calm down
[1:54:23 PM] Sam: 13 seconds!
[1:54:25 PM] Alan: i seen it as soon as you skyped
[1:54:28 PM] Sam: lol
[1:58:58 PM] Jay: saw.


This is a good example of what I hear on a regular basis. Here, I don't see any interpretation possible other than "seen" is directly replacing "saw".

[TaylorS]

I haven't made a thorough study of dialects with seen as a preterite form, but my impression is that these dialects lack a firm distinction between perfect and preterite (as is common in many varieties of American English). That is, (4) is the description that best fits.

I find it interesting that American English is joining the continental western European pattern of merging the Perfect and the Preterite while Commonweath dialects are not.

[linguoboy]

I haven't made a thorough study of dialects with seen as a preterite form, but my impression is that these dialects lack a firm distinction between perfect and preterite (as is common in many varieties of American English). That is, (4) is the description that best fits.

I find it interesting that American English is joining the continental western European pattern of merging the Perfect and the Preterite while Commonweath dialects are not.

That's a particularly awkward formulation given that American English is moving in the opposite direction (i.e. generalising the preterite at the expense of the perfect) to those varieties. Especially since Latin American Spanish patterns with American English in this respect (although not North American French varieties).

Moreover, the Latin American usage shows (as in most things) the influence of varieties from southern and western Iberia. Portuguese notably lacks the same preterite/perfect distinction found in other Romance languages. (It hasn't lost it, it just didn't develop it.) Even the auxiliary is different (being most often ter rather than haver).