'Been' - past participle of GO?

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5jj

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I'm afraid to say that you've just scored two own goals. ;-)
Deliberately scored, I might add. I am not into hiding information just because it's wrong;-). - or perhaps I should say 'just because it does not support me'.

I am surprised and disappointed by the results. I have always accepted (and informed my students) that I have been to is an odd form, and that it is used in a way that has as much to do with going (or coming) and returning as with being, but I have always considered been as the past participle of BE, not of GO.

As nobody has yet explained how been is a past participle of GO - they have merely asserted this - my own belief is unchanged. I shall, however, no longer boldly claim that people who hold the other belief are out of line with current teaching. I shall content myself with knowing in my own mind that they are misguided:roll:.

As far as I am concerned, this marks the end of my participation in this thread, though I shall follow it in case anybody comes up with any startling new information. It's been interesting - for me at least.
 

engee30

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I am not into hiding information just because it's wrong;-). - or perhaps I should say 'just because it does not support me'.

Fair enough.

I don't know what kinds of texbooks you used in your teaching career, but they must have been different from the ones I used.

Yes, I think the topic in this thread has been exhausted.
 

Soup

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You may want to read Why Go Doesn't Have Two Past Participles by Joseph Hilferty. There's a pdf version of the paper available on-line.
 

bhaisahab

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Deliberately scored, I might add. I am not into hiding information just because it's wrong;-). - or perhaps I should say 'just because it does not support me'.

I am surprised and disappointed by the results. I have always accepted (and informed my students) that I have been to is an odd form, and that it is used in a way that has as much to do with going (or coming) and returning as with being, but I have always considered been as the past participle of BE, not of GO.

As nobody has yet explained how been is a past participle of GO - they have merely asserted this - my own belief is unchanged. I shall, however, no longer boldly claim that people who hold the other belief are out of line with current teaching. I shall content myself with knowing in my own mind that they are misguided:roll:.

As far as I am concerned, this marks the end of my participation in this thread, though I shall follow it in case anybody comes up with any startling new information. It's been interesting - for me at least.
No startling new information I'm afraid, I just want to say that I'm with you on this. Reading this thread just now was the first time I had come across "been" described as a past participle of "go".
 
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engee30

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You may want to read Why Go Doesn't Have Two Past Participles by Joseph Hilferty. There's a pdf version of the paper available on-line.

That's a nice read.
Just asking out of sheer curiosity, which side are you actually on, Soup? :?:
 

5jj

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Pokemon

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I heard some other 'jokes' like that:
"Had to" is the past form of "must"
"Smaller" is the form of " little"
"We" is the plural form of "I", etc. :-D

Most of the people saying such things aren't linguists but English teachers trying to make it easy for their students to understand grammar rules.
 

Soup

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That's a nice read.
Just asking out of sheer curiosity, which side are you actually on, Soup? :?:
Both, actually.

Because the Present Perfect focuses on events that happen before now, it is possible to perceive events from two different perspectives, before and now, as shown by the ambiguity inherent here:


[1a] Juan has gone fishing = He is not here now.
[1b] Juan has gone fishing = He has done it before.

[2a] Juan has gone to London = He is not here now.
[2b] Juan has gone to London = He has visited London before.

[3a] Juan has gone to school = He is not here now.
[3b] Juan has gone to school = He has attended school before.


The meanings expressed in the [a] examples are what we expect from a traditional standpoint, and whether or not the examples (what appear to be a modern twist on the interpretation of the Present Perfect) are near-synonymous with the meaning expressed by has been (experienced something) depends on the Modern Day speaker, which is why you'll find that answers to the question, Is been the past participle of Go? are inconsistent.

As for me, been and gone are not synonymous, but that's just me. To me, been is the past participle of Be, not Go;i.e., I have been to London before means, to me, I have experienced London before (there's a Be verb there, not a Go verb), whereas I have gone to London before sounds awkward to me because gone means haven't returned yet, but I know what speakers mean when they use gone for been and I neither mind, nor care (but traditionalist care). I adapt; it's what speakers do.
 

Soup

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On the side of the angels, of course - whichever that is. ;-) (Welcome back :hi:)
It's nice to be back. Missed y'all loads. :-D
 

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bhaisahab said:
(On the Hilferty paper) No startling new information I'm afraid.
Just curious. Which parts of the paper did you find to be similar to the points covered in this thread?
 

5jj

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Just curious. Which parts of the paper did you find to be similar to the points covered in this thread?
I can't answer for bhai, but I thought that the paper made no points that I hadn't come up with myself - in my own mind. Unfortunately, and I think this may be what you are suggesting with your question, we did not actually make these points in the thread.

To me it was, and is, so self-evident that been is the past participle of BE, not GO, that I neglected to do anything about it.

Afterthought - I think bhai was actually saying that he had nothing new to add. He wasn't referring to the paper. I misunderstood him originally:oops:.
 
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5jj

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I did say (post #21) that I was not going to add anything else. However, I have had a couple of PMs asking me about my words in post # 32: To me it was, and is, so self-evident that been is the past participle of BE, not GO, that I neglected to do anything about it. I have decided to respond, as briefly as I can, in this thread. Be warned – there is nothing original or exciting here.

It seems to me that been cannot be considered a past participle of GO because:

1. BE been; Go gone. BE gone.

2. As there appears to be complete agreement that BE been and Go gone in all situations except I have been to (place) and (possibly) some instances of I have been verb+ing, it seems very strange to claim that BE gone here and nowhere else.

3. In I have been to (place), been to is not synonymous with gone to; it means, roughly, been (or come) to … and left. In sentences speaking about going, examples containing the words go and those containing the words have gone differ only in the way that a change of tense always involves a change in meaning. However, in sentences speaking about going/being + to, examples containing the words go and those containing the words have been differ not only in tense, but also semantically.
Hilferty looks at this in more depth here: Why Go Doesn't Have Two Past Participles

I accept that I have been to (place) is a strange use of the present perfect of BE, and I accept that it is often useful to consider this form when teaching the present perfect of GO[FONT=&quot]. [/FONT]I cannot deny that fewer authorities support my view than the opposing one. However, as I suggested in post #21, these authorities have merely asserted that been is the past participle of GO. Nobody that we have come across so far has justified this assertion. In view of the three points I made above, I do feel that the onus is on the holders of this belief to justify it.
 

bhaisahab

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"Hello, I was supposed to meet 5jj here, I'm afraid I'm a little late." "Sorry, you've missed him, he's been and gone.";-)
 
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5jj

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"Hello, I was supposed to meet 5jj here, I'm afraid I'm a little late." "Sorry, you've missed him, he's been and gone.";-)
You've been and gone and done it now!

The 'been and gone and past participle' construction is a very informal, some would say sub-standard, way of noting that somebody has done something that the speaker feels is unwise, silly, reprehensible or surprising.
 

bhaisahab

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He has been (here), he was here earlier, and gone (away), now he has left, he went away.
I can't see anything wrong with that. "Been" and "gone" quite clearly mean different things. Nothing to do with "been and gone and done it".;-)
 

5jj

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He has been (here), he was here earlier, and gone (away), now he has left, he went away.
I can't see anything wrong with that. "Been" and "gone" quite clearly mean different things. Nothing to do with "been and gone and done it".;-)
I agree. I was being facetious.

I suppose we should also note the mother's question to the child, "Have you been today?" meaning, "Have you evacuated your bowels?". It is interesting to note that "Have you gone?" is also possible here.

Some might feel that there is an understood "to the lavatory/toilet/loo/bathroom/etc?", but I don't think this is necessarily true. A child, urged by its mother to try, might actually be sitting in the loo and say, "I'm trying, but I can't go." We can also have a person, the type that talks to their pets, seeing a cat beginning to scratch in a corner, say, "Don't you go there!"
 

Soup

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I accept that I have been to (place) is a strange use of the present perfect of BE, ... .
I don't see how it's strange. Been in that context means experienced, to have experienced a place, a situation, and so on; e.g., I have been in your situation before means I have experienced that situation/met with that situation and am no longer in that situation. Likewise, I have experienced London before. I have been there and am no longer there.

It's neither the paradigmatic oddity (go, went, been) nor the lack of a meaningful base form (i.e., ?I be London) that makes the present perfect of BE seem strange but rather its association with gone in that context. Why? Because its deixis is similar yet opposing:


Been
I experienced that situation then and I am no longer in that situation now.

Gone
I have left that location there and I am at this location now.


The similarities between been and gone:

  • been: I experienced that situation then
  • gone: I left that location there
    • Deixis: far from the speaker
      • then (Time) and there (Space)
Switch the situation with a location and the result is I have experienced (location) then, which is close in meaning in its deixis to that gone. Been and gone are close in meaning, but they do not express one and the same meaning.


From my point of view, the present perfect use of BE (been) is not a past participle of GO. While it shares partial deictic similarities with gone (a possible reason speakers use been and gone interchangeably in that context, which in turn reflects descriptivists' assertive accounts of its usage), the differences between the two are too weighty for a merger to have taken place and the reason other speakers, such as myself, can't accept been as the past participle of GO. Been is the past participle of BE, at least this year.
 

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I don't see how it's strange.
Isn't it strange that I can say

I've been to London.


and I can't say

I am to London?

I agree with 5jj that this usage is strange and I think it's strange because of the "to". I don't know if that's 5jj's reason too though.
 

5jj

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I don't see how it's strange. Been in that context means experienced, to have experienced a place, a situation, and so on
I find it 'strange' when it is used with 'to'. That's all.
 
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