perfective done

noun

linguistics

: the verb form done (see done entry 1) used in several varieties of English to communicate that something (such as an action) has ended: such as

a

: the verb form done used in African American English to indicate that something (such as a state or an event) has ended or been completed or that the speaker is feeling an intense emotion (such as shock, surprise, or disappointment) that counters the speaker's expectations : dən, preverbal done sense a, unstressed done

Their Black English vernacular dialect included some features such as … perfective done ("I done told you kids to go to bed").

—Timothy C. Frazer

Baugh (1983) gives the following guidelines for the use of perfective done: "Done is perfective marker, and it is used with moderate regularity in colloquial contexts where suitable perfective comments are appropriate" (p.75).

—Tempii B. Champion

Note: The feature of African American English called perfective done is unstressed in pronunciation; usually precedes past tense verb forms (such as talked, lived, or went) that express events or actions and that have a definite end point, sometimes precedes present tense verbs, and sometimes follows the invariant be and stressed BIN features. Syntactic rules (such as usage, sentence placement, and grammar) vary across the different dialects and varieties of English.

b

: the verb form done used in Southern American English varieties to communicate the completion of something (such as an action) : preverbal done sense b

In the speech of white Southerners, perfective done has a wider distribution than it does in AAE [=African American English]. It can occur following the auxiliary be, which has not been reported in AAE (Green 2002). … It can also precede adjectives …

—Katie Martin

Word History

First Known Use

1954, in the meaning defined above