transitive "be done" (again?)

[Laurence Horn]

Thanks to you both, Arnold and Ben.  Some false steps in the comments, not surprisingly.  For example, contra the Language Hat commenter, "be done NP" doesn't have to anything do with the "be" perfect auxiliary in "The Lord is come", since that kind of alternation--very common in Romance, and to some extent in Germanic including earlier English (through Jane Austen)--is only relevant for *in*transitives.  It does seem as though the Canadian element keeps popping up.

LH

On Aug 20, 2012, at 8:35 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 7:43 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 20, 2012, at 11:00 AM, Larry Horn wrote:
>>
>>> To respond to a student's query, I'm trying to recall a thread from a
>>> discussion I seem to vaguely remember our having a while back.  It concerned
>>> transitive "be done", if that's the right label.  An example is "I'm done my
>>> homework", with the meaning essentially that of mainstream "I'm done with my
>>> homework".  The questions are:
>>>
>>> 1) what is the geographical range of this construction?
>>> 2) what are the grammatical/semantic constraints on when it occurs?
>>> 3) what papers have described it (maybe something in _American Speech_?)
>>> 4) what if anything is it called?
>>>
>>> Answering (4) might help answer some of the others.  I looked carefully
>>> (I think) through the DARE entries for "do" and "done" without finding it
>>> described, although I may have missed it.  The student writes:
>>>
>>> .....
>>> This usage seems to be common in Baltimore, Philadelphia, parts of New
>>> Jersey and Delaware, and also Quebec. I would be happy to give more specific
>>> subject. Here is a link to a blogger who discusses it.
>>> http://shubhabala.com/archives/1310
>>> I have noticed it among my friends from these regions and have also been
>>> documenting its use.
>>>
>>
>> from my files:
>>
>> “I’m done my homework” ‘I’m done with my homework”, on ADS-L Oct.-Dec.
>> 2004, attested in (at least) Middle Atlantic states and in western Canada
>>
>> search on: "I'm done my homework"
>
> See also the discussion on Languagehat of "I'm done work":
>
> http://www.languagehat.com/archives/004514.php
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org