Janice,
That "I be" structure you mentioned as part of southern and especially black dialect is terribly misunderstood and erroneously parodied. Many times it reflects an imperfect type tense, repetitive action, usually in the past, and the auxiliary just gets left out. Example, doctor interviewing patient:
Doctor: What are you usually doing when you get that pain in your back?
Patient: Doctah, heah's wat happens. Ah be comin' home from th' fiel' of an evenin', an' wen ah crawl undah dat fence, dat's wen it hits me!
Dialect aside, you or I might utilize the same construction, but with clearer enunciation and without the omission of the auxiliary.
"After a long day, I'll be coming home from work, and I start thinking about my bills." Drop the 'll and you've got your "I be".
Stephen Foster, who never visited the South, I am told, deserves blame for misconstruing dialect in his songs. "Skeeters am a-hummin' on the honeysuckle vine". Ridiculous. Nobody ever used "am" as a third person singular. Lots of "I is" and "you is", sure, but never "he am".
This is too deep a subject to go into any further/farther here.
Jack |
