been

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past participle of be

—also used in African American English with spoken emphasis to indicate that something (such as an event or state) happened or existed in the remote past or that it began in the remote past and is still ongoing

… I been met [redacted name] like, long time ago.—

unidentified African American English speaker, quoted in The Corpus of Regional African American Language

Note: In linguistics, this use of been is referred to as BEEN (see below), BIN, stressed BIN, or stressed been.

compare be sense auxiliary verb 5

BEEN

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noun

ˈbin

ˈben

ˈbēn

linguistics

: the verb form been used with spoken emphasis in African American English to indicate that something (such as an event or state) happened or existed in the remote past or that it began in the remote past and is still ongoing : stressed bin

While the use of BEEN to mark the remoteness of an action like told (as in She BEEN told me that) stands out as distinct from Mainstream Standard English (MSE), the use of this feature to mark the extended duration of a state like married (as in She BEEN married) is camouflaged by its resemblance to more mainstream constructions like She('s) been married, where been is unstressed and lacks the high-pitch … characteristic of remote past BEEN …—

Tracey L. Weldon

Note: The feature of African American English called BEEN frequently precedes perfect (see perfect entry 1 sense 5) verb forms, as well as progressive (see progressive entry 1 sense 6) verb forms ending in -ing. It can also precede the African American English feature perfective done, additional predicates (such as nouns, adjectives, and prepositional phrases), and, in certain contexts, adverbial phrases.