Re: "Been" as a perfect of "go"

Guy Barry wrote:

[ ... ]

My point is that there are numerous phrases that can occur after "been",
which can also be used after "go/goes/went" in the same sense, but cannot
normally be used after "am/are/is/was/were" in the same sense. In other
words, the distribution of certain uses of the form "been" corresponds to
the use of "go" rather than to the use of "be".

This does not, of itself, prove that "been" is a form of "go". But it
demonstrates that these uses of "been" cannot be regarded as normal
occurrences of the past participle of "be". If "I have been to see my
mother" is acceptable in the sense "I have travelled to see my mother", and
"been" is the past participle of "be", then one might expect "I was to see
my mother" in the sense "I travelled to see my mother". If you're going to
defend this construction as a use of "be", then the onus is on you to
explain the use of an infinitive after "be" to signify travelling with a
purpose.

If, on the other hand, you accept that "been" is a past participle of "go"
in certain contexts, then there's nothing more to explain, because it's
simply the perfect tense of the regular idiom "I went to see my mother". I
must have come up with a couple of dozen constructions that can be explained
in this fashion. Unless you can come up with alternative explanations for
all of them, the evidence would suggest that my theory is correct.

[ ... ]

I've skimmed the blog item in addition to reading this, and I think I
see the problem, which is almost entirely one of terminology. A
couple of analogies first:

Many people like to say that "person" has two plurals: "persons" and
"people." Others dissent. (Where is Bob Cunningman, anyway?) I like
to say that "people" can function as a plural of "person" in many
contexts.

Many people call "swimming" the present participle of "swim." Then
they have to explain why, if it's a participle (hence an adjective),
it can be used as a free-standing noun, as in "Swimming is his
favorite form of recreation" or even with a direct object: "Swimming
the English Channel has always been difficult." Show me a
non-participial adjective that takes a direct object. Not to mention
the use as an attributive noun: "The swimming instructor is very
tall." Not very participle-like (unless that's the English instructor
in the water). So I call it the -ing form (and I am hardly alone in
this) and use the other labels to describe its use or function in a
context. The noun use is also called the gerund, but some people use
gerund to describe an -ing form only when it partakes of at least one
attribute of a verb.[1] To them the bare form "swimming," as in my
first example, is just another noun, but the one that takes a direct
object, "swimming the English Channel," is a gerund. Still others
call the form with direct object a gerundive, while yet others (like
Fowler) insist that there is no gerundive in English.

In short, where "been" appears in a context that does not admit of
other forms of "to be" but does admit of "go," you have the past
participle form of "be" *functioning* as the past participle of "go."
It doesn't convert "been" into a second past participle of "go," nor
does it make "been" a component of two different verb conjugations,
It's just another adaptation of taxonomy to English idiom. The
underlying usage is there, so we need a label for it, so the issue is
how we label it. And if different people (persons(?)) label it
differently, that's hardly the cause for disputing the underlying
reality. It's just an issue of semantics.

I'm sure a licensed linguist could do a much better job of explaining
this, but to me it strikes me as an argument over whether Certs is a
candy mint or a breath mint.

[1] I believe John Lawler takes this position, but I could be wrong,
so don't take my word for it.

--
Bob Lieblich
Who's been/gone through things like this before
.

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