—used with the past participle of transitive verbs as a passive-voice auxiliary
The money was found.
The house is being built.
2
—used as the auxiliary of the present participle in progressive tenses expressing continuous action
He is reading.
I have been sleeping.
3
—used with the past participle of some intransitive verbs as an auxiliary forming archaic perfect tenses
… Christ is risen from the dead …—1 Corinthians 15:20 (Douay Version)
4
—used with to + infinitive to express futurity, arrangement in advance, or obligation
I am to interview him today.
She was to become famous.
5
—used in the uninflected form be in African American English and to varying degrees in some other varieties of English to indicate that an action or state is habitual or frequent
I be singing in the shower.
… they be bothering you while you try and do your work. …—unidentified African American English speaker, quoted in The Corpus of Regional African American Language
: 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 SheBEENmarried) 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 perfectentry 1 sense 5) verb forms, as well as progressive (see progressiveentry 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.
1 Corinthians 15:20 (Douay Version)
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