AAVE stressed BEEN interpretation

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 01:03 PM 3/4/00 -0500, you wrote:
>I think their interpretation may have been influenced by the way they read
>the question (or the way the statement was uttered).  Even if students read
>or hear that a word is to be stressed (and, personally, I think more than
>stress is involved), if they do not hear, or read, the stress, then their
>interpretation will be affected.  Additionally, the nature of the lexical
>verb can make a difference.  If the verb is stative, as in "She BEEN dead,"
>the focus in on that duration of the state: "Her state of being NOT ALIVE
>began a long time ago and is ongoing.  "She BEEN died, " however, focuses on
>the act of becoming NOT ALIVE, not the state of being that way: "She
>transition from being ALIVE to being NOT ALIVE occurred a long time ago."
>     The same is true of your example:  "She BEEN [BIN] married," which, by
>the way, is ambigous.  If "married" is a lexical verb representing an act,
>then the interpretation is the following:  "A long time ago, she exchanged
>vows with some other person."  If, however, "married," is stative (as
>expressed more explicitly by an utterance such as "I'm very married),  then
>the focus is not on the act of exchanging vows (a single episode/act), but on
>the duration of the state.  In this case, the interpretation would be,  "Her
>state of being NOT SINGLE has existed for a long time."
>
>I'm not sure if I've made a point, but, in essence, what I've attempted to
>say is this:
>A statement such as, "She BEEN [BIN] married," is ambiguous.  One's
>interpretation of whether or not it means that the subject is still married
>hinges on whether one interprets "married," as an action or a state (Either
>interpretation is valid.)    Thus, your students'  "misinterpretation" of the
>utterance is probably due to this inherent ambiguity, rather than to their
>lack of understanding of the rules of a different dialect.
>                             PAT

I'm not sure I agree that "married" is the ambiguous element in the phrase
"BEEN married".  For action, white kids (or adults) would use "got," not
"been":  "She got married" (at some point in the past), or "She's gotten
married" (and is still married).  Possibly, "She's been married" could
refer to a past action, but generally something else would be added: "many
times," for ex. (even here, I'd opt for stative as more likely).

Perhaps "been/BIN married" (with or without stress) bears ambiguity in the
word "married" for African Americans, but not for others?  It seems to me
the primary ambiguity for Mai's students lies in the special AAVE
opposition of "been/BIN', as it did for my own students when we talked
about this a few days ago (also using W & S-E and examples from
Rickford).  And I would agree with her that any  dialect with such
distinctive rules is not learned in a day or two of instruction!