Inversion

Question

i wonder why people say " Here you are" instead of "Here are you" . Although it is inversion

Andriy Lapin · Accepted Answer

Hello Superblack,

The expressions Here... be in British English and There... be in American English with a personal pronoun as subject are used without inversion because there are no reasons for it - it is not a question like Where are you?, which would be reconstructed as ...where you are if it were an indirect question; besides, this idiomatic expression is pronounced with a rising tone on are, phonetically, it would be less convenient to alter this convention.

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff.

MrPernickety · Answer

Gleb_ChebrikoffHello Superblack,

The expressions Here... be in British English and There... be in American English

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on that one. Americans say "here you are" alongside "there you are" all the time.

Examples abound at the American Corpus : http://americancorpus.org/

Andriy Lapin · Answer

Thank you for your comment.

First of all, there... be and here... be are still not equally distributed in American English overall (675 vs. 562). This assumption can be reinforced by the well-known fact that Here you are and There you go are characteristic of different national standards. If you consider the lexical continuum between Here you are and There you go, you'll find that There you are tends to approach only one end of the continuum. Moreover, different corpora should be consulted when forming judgements on such issues.

Anyway, minding that these matters are technical and disputable, do you have anything to say concerning the essence of the question posed by Superblack?

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff.

MrPernickety · Answer

You're most welcome

The ratio between the hits you get on "here you are" and "there you are" at COCA suggests that the difference is negligible.

By the way, a distinction can be drown between "here you go" and "there you go". It was outlined by Jim here:

I can't think of any other corpora that would provide a keener insight into American English usage. In my unbiased opinion the American Corpus is the best corpus on American usage there is. I always rely on in, when in doubt.

Inversion

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