Aspectual be–type Constructions and Coercion in African American English

Abstract

This paper examines aspectual be–type constructions in African American English. These constructions receive a habitual interpretation, but they are distinguished from simple tense generics in that they are not ambiguous between generic/habitual and capacity readings. The analysis proposed to account for these constructions is one in which aspectual be neutralizes the distinction between stage- and individual-level predicates. Following Kratzer (1995), I assume that stage-level predicates have a separate event argument associated with them, but individual-level predicates do not. Aspectual be forces individual-level predicates to take an eventuality argument which coerces them into stage-level predicates. The logical representations of these constructions are given a tripartite structure in which a habitual operator binds variables ranging over eventualities.