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Welcome is a verb,

We welcome you to Rio de Janeiro
They welcomed the good news.
When we arrived, we weren't welcomed

and a noun.

What a lovely welcome.
The cold welcome was unexpected.

Welcoming is an adjective

His cosy home was very welcoming

The people of Rio are so friendly and welcoming.

Oregon is one of the most welcoming states for incoming refugees

as too is welcomed

The sunny weather provided a welcomed change.
A larger size would be very welcomed.

And welcome is also an adjective,

Welcome to Rio di Janeiro!
You're welcome
You are very welcome to stay the night
Sam is always a welcome guest

Collins Dictionary has a very good page about the different uses and meanings of welcome, and says

4. adjective
under no obligation (only in such phrases as you're welcome or he's welcome, as conventional responses to thanks)

But offers no insight as to why WELCOME and not WELCOMING or WELCOMED is preferred. Is there a grammatical reason for this? Is it down to convention and idiomaticity?

Q1: Should I always mark “You're welcomed” as wrong?
Why/Why not?
Q2: Is the full form “You are welcomed” better, more acceptable?

CONTEXT

I am not a professional or qualified teacher but I do occasionally give private lessons to Italian students of all ages and levels. A private asked me this yesterday, and the best explanation I could come up with was that English native speakers have said “You're welcome” for over a hundred years, so it is perfectly grammatical.

The following questions on EL&U are closely related, but they did not ask “why”. Consequently, the answers posted either ignored the issue totally, or failed to address it in any depth.

"You are welcome" or "You are welcomed" or "You welcome"

Which is correct: "feedback is welcome" or "feedback is welcomed"?

Community
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Mari-Lou A
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    Is your question why is "you're welcomed" never a proper response to "thank you", or never, ever correct grammar? If the latter, that's not the case. – fixer1234 May 26 '17 at 08:29
  • @fixer1234 I am speaking about the response: “You're welcomed” Is it always wrong? Why? Why not? – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 08:33
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    It isn't a correct response for thank you, but it could potentially be a correct response or statement in other contexts. – fixer1234 May 26 '17 at 08:37
  • @fixer1234 my question is very clear, in the title and in the body, You're welcomed but the answer may not be. So, if there are exceptions, I'd be delighted to hear about them. EDIT: Josh has gone and deleted his answer. I upvoted it too. So if you would like to repeat your comments please do so under this question. – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 08:53
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    What's wrong with accepting that it's a common idiom? The past participle of come is come, therefore welcome. However, it seems welcomed has attained its own form (similar to output/outputted, yet the past participle of put is put, "putted" doesn't exist on its own, unless you mean the "putt" verb).

    Languages are irregular things, I'm sure Italian has plenty of strange and weird idioms and idiosyncrasies that don't have a scientific explanation.

     – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 09:03
  • A contrived example: An island paradise has a customary welcoming ceremony for all arriving guests. Guest arrives and ceremony is performed. Guest not being familiar with the ceremony inquires about whether it is finished. The greeter responds, "You're welcomed." – fixer1234 May 26 '17 at 09:03
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    [EDITED] @Nobilis I have no problems accepting the phrase as an idiom, I upvoted Josh's answer when he clarified, and added his personal thoughts, because although Copy&Paste answers can often be helpful, I prefer answers that show some effort, always references and personal observations in answers! But... seeing as two answers have been deleted, and Josh's for over two hours, please feel free to post an answer. I might very well accept it. – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 11:27
  • There are good semantic reasons for "you're welcome" being the correct response.. It's not 'just an idiom'. – Spencer May 26 '17 at 12:36
  • @Mari-LouA my thoughts are largely speculative so I'm hesitant to post them as an answer, though I maintain it's an idiom within the context of its most common usage, since welcomed is just as valid in a lot of similar contexts. – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 13:45
  • Is this question motivated by the fact that in Romance languages, the corresponding word for 'welcome' is a past participle? Note that bienvenu, benvenuto, bienvenido are greetings, but 'you're welcome' translates to other idioms like de rien, prego, de nada – Mitch May 26 '17 at 14:59
  • @MariLouA Janus seena to have the right answer, the key being that 'welcome' is a predicate adjective and 'welcomed' is not. – Spencer May 26 '17 at 15:46
  • @Clare I already mentioned, and explained why the older question does not answer my question. I am not asking which form is correct, but rather I am asking for a more detailed explanation as to "why". – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 17:05
  • @Clare I'd just like to say that whenever I have tried to communicate with you, and this includes that time when I personally awarded a bounty to a super answer you posted, you have always steadfastly ignored me. Am I allowed to ask why? Please, could you also explain how the answers in the older question could possibly compare with Janus. I would also have added Josh's post, but he has, yet again, deleted his post (it's becoming a habit of his) . Thanks, I await your reply tomorrow morning. – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 20:42
  • Thought the procedure was to add a bounty or edit the existing question not write a new one requesting a more thorough explanation. – Arm the good guys in America May 31 '17 at 03:54
  • @Mari-LouA An interesting question would be why is the verb 'to welcome' regular when obviously, it contains the irregular verb 'to come/came/come'. Why not 'They welcame her.' instead of 'They welcomed her.'? – user58319 Apr 29 '22 at 10:21

3 Answers3

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The words “you are welcomed” are of course not always to be marked as incorrect—there are contexts where they are grammatical, idiomatic, and the exact right phrase to use. For example,

When you step off the ship, you are welcomed by girls in bast skirts who throw flower wreaths around your neck.

This example shows that you are welcomed is a passive construction: the agent (that is, the logical subject) are the exotic girls, and the patient (that is, the logical object) is ‘you’. So really, it means,

When you step off the ship, girls in bast skirts who throw flower wreaths around your neck welcome you.

In other words, welcomed is the past participle of the verb to welcome.

This verb, in itself, is derived by zero-derivation—which is an extremely common and productive way of forming new words in English, probably the most common of all types of derivation—from the word welcome.

Welcome itself started out as an adverb modifying a past participle; that is, it started out being the verb come with the adverb well, at least on some notional level. The only form of that construction that probably ever really had any currency, though, was the past participle—but that construction had so much currency that it was soon univerbated. This was very long ago, though, before there was any such thing as ‘English’.

Throughout the course of English, this original participle (i.e., adjectival unit) became used as an interjection, spawned a noun form with which it later coalesced entirely, and ultimately also spawned the verb to welcome. Note that derived verbs always end up being regular, even if they’re derived from something derived from an irregular verb. See the last paragraphs and the comments to this answer for a bit more on this. The upshot is that the past tense and past participle of welcome are both welcomed (regular), not *welcame and *welcome.

So unlike many other English adjectives, the adjective welcome does not double as a participle, but is exclusively a pure adjective. “*I have welcome him” is quite ungrammatical.

I’m going to disagree with part of what you state in your question here and say that welcomed is the opposite: it is purely a part of the verbal paradigm of to welcome; that is, it is only a participle, not an adjective. The two examples you give (“a welcomed change” and “would be very welcomed”) are both ungrammatical to me. Welcome is the word to use here. This is probably not universally true (I’m sure there are examples of both even in printed books), but it is at least true that in ‘Standard English’, welcome is infinitely more common as an adjective than welcomed.

Accepting that, it should be reasonably clear why “You’re welcomed!” doesn’t work as the answer to a thank-you: it is a passive construction meaning that someone is welcoming you, rather than a simple description of the subject with an adjective (in this case welcome).

So in that particular usage, I would say “You’re/You are welcome” is indeed always the right option, and “You are welcomed” is always wrong.

 

 

As for why it’s not “You’re welcoming”, rather than “You’re welcome”, that is simple semantics. One of the meanings of welcome is that which you quote: not obligated, free from the pressure of having social obligations towards someone (in a given context). Welcoming just does not have this meaning at all. Unlike welcome(d), welcoming is a participle that doubles as an adjective, and its meaning is same as most other present participles doubling as adjectives: the meaning of the base verb, expressed as an adjectival attribute of whatever the adjective is modifying.

Unlike Josh’s now deleted answer, I would not call “You’re welcome” an idiom. An idiom is essentially something that is ‘more than the sum of its parts’: even if you know the appropriate, relevant meanings of all the words involved, you still cannot figure out what the phrase means. You just have to know. As a generic platitude, there is a certain level of idiomacy to the very utterance itself, regardless of what you say. “You’re welcome”, “no worries”, “it was nothing”, “don’t mention it”, etc., all have a direct surface meaning that is easy to understand and can be correctly deduced from the meanings of the individual words.

The idiomatic bit is that they are used in this particular fashion, as a formulaic response to a thank-you. But unless you have a specific word whose main denotation is specifically a formulaic response to a thank-you or you use a completely transparent construction like “You do not have to say thank you”, that is pretty much bound to be true of any variant used, and I personally don’t think that’s enough to call the phrase itself an idiom.

Janus Bahs Jacquet
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  • Thank you so much for your answer. I disagree that the examples I cited with welcomed are ungrammatical, the more common form is, I'm sure, welcome as in "...a welcome change...", but I do not find anything objectionable with using, perhaps what is the older form, welcomed. Nevertheless, the answer is top notch, and the etymology of welcome was very informative too. – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 17:22
  • @Mari-LouA, thanks for clarifying. I tried to get that distinction in earlier comments, but your earlier responses indicated that you were referring to any and all usage of a variant of "you're welcome" in response to anything. Perhaps we were talking across each other. :-) I agree that this is a good answer. I would just add that "you are welcomed" can be more than just a descriptive phrase in a sentence, as described in the beginning of the answer. For example, it can be a complete response describing the person's status, an example of an exception you asked about in a prior comment. – fixer1234 May 26 '17 at 20:51
  • @fixer1234 i deleted my comment when I saw you had deleted yours. I still don't understand where your confusion arises from, but anyway, thank you for showing an interest in the question and answers posted. – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 20:54
  • @fixer1234 It can … but like “You are greeted”, it requires quite a specific context, otherwise it sounds cut off and incomplete. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '17 at 20:54
  • @Mari-Lou: It's not clear the older form is welcomed. The adjective and the verb both go back to Old English, and possibly earlier. And the past participle of come is come, so if you analyze the adjective as well+come (which appears to be an incorrect etymology), welcome makes perfect sense. – Peter Shor May 28 '18 at 16:55
  • I don't understand this: "Welcome itself started out as an adverb modifying a past participle; that is, it started out being the verb come with the adverb well, at least on some notional level. The only form of that construction that probably ever really had any currency, though, was the past participle — but that construction had so much currency that it was soon univerbated." [Emphasis added] By "past participle"in the bolded part, are you saying the verb form come had the greater currency and not the collocation "well come"? Also, what do you mean. . . – HeWhoMustBeNamed Feb 16 '20 at 19:02
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    @MrReality No, I mean that the verbal phrase ‘to come well’ (meaning roughly to arrive in good health/time/circumstances) probably never had much currency as a phrase, but in the past participle, ‘to be well come’ (to have arrived in good time/etc.) it was very frequently used as a greeting, to the point where it soon stopped being thought of as adverb + verb and just became a word. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 16 '20 at 19:04
  • ... by "at least on some notional level"? – HeWhoMustBeNamed Feb 16 '20 at 19:06
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You are welcomed is present progressive (I previously wrote continuous) tense with "welcomed" being the past participle. It's not incorrect but the mismatch invites inquiry about what is meant. The implication is that at some point in the past you have been actively (perhaps formally) welcomed, and that you remain a person who has received said welcoming. You may or may not continue to be welcome in the present. To me, that comes off overly formal and might even imply distance from the welcoming: "you've already been welcomed once; don't ask to be welcomed again."

You are welcome is present progressive (I previously wrote continuous) tense with a passive participle (see comments). It doesn't matter whether your welcoming happened in the past, is a new declaration, or a past welcoming reaffirmed. This is a declaration that right here and right now, you are welcome.

[edit 5/30]My verb tenses may be all wrong. See comments. However, I'll stand by the idea that being welcomed refers to an event in the past, whereas being welcome describes the current state. These are not mutually exclusive of one another but different aspects are being described.[/edit]

It seems warmer and friendlier (more welcoming) to tell someone that they are presently welcome than to tell someone that they presently have been welcomed. Usually (one hopes) it is the intention to convey that warmth and friendliness when responding to thanks.

Steven Scotten
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    This is not present continuous, present continuous employs the present participle, this is passive voice since it uses that past participle. Also, welcome is not present participle, welcoming is. – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 13:54
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    Present continuous doesn't require a participle at all; just an adjective eg you are green. I agree that it is passive voice, but passive voice and present continuous tense are not mutually exclusive. – Steven Scotten May 26 '17 at 13:58
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    Also, I don't agree that welcome is not present participle. A participle is a verb or verb phrase used to modify as an adjective or adverb does. Welcome is present tense. "I welcome you" or "you welcome me". – Steven Scotten May 26 '17 at 14:05
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    Any definition of present continuous outlines it as to be + a present participle (source), and a present participle also has a well-defined meaning (source) that excludes forms such as welcome. – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 14:08
  • Thank you. I'll edit the answer. Would you agree that "You are welcomed" is present perfect tense and that the implications I described still apply?

    Would you also agree that "welcome" is here an active participle used to convey present tense?

    If you do those are the edits I'll make

     – Steven Scotten May 26 '17 at 14:17
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    Present perfect uses to have + a past participle, e.g. "I have welcomed him". I believe forms such as "You are welcome" are just referred to as being in a "passive voice", since you are using to be + a past participle. I would say in this context welcome is a passive participle, an active one would be something like "he was gone" with gone being the past participle. Wikipedia has a good definition on all these terms and what they refer to. – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 14:22
  • There's no such thing as a "present progressive" tense, "progressive" is a grammatical aspect. – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 15:06
  • @Nobilis Neither welcome nor gone is a participle at all (gone can be, but not in the case you give here); they’re simple adjectives. Etymologically, they have their origins in participles, but that doesn’t mean they are participles anymore. And yes, the present progressive is a tense, just like the past progressive, the present perfect, and the past perfect are. The combination of tense and aspect produces a tense in English, not an aspect. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '17 at 15:20
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    This answer is incorrect in much of what it says. You are welcomed is not present continuous/progressive (they’re the same thing in English); the progressive aspect is characterised by present participles, not past participles. There is no mismatch in “You are welcomed”, though, any more than there is in “You are beaten”, “You are destroyed”, or “You are saluted”. There is no implication that you were actively welcomed in the past: it’s a simple present-tense statement, and it most straightforwardly refers to a present (non-progressive) action. “You are welcome” is also not progressive, → – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '17 at 15:24
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    → and welcome is not a participle at all. Note that in your final paragraph, you do actually use a form that implies that the active welcoming took place in the past, namely the present perfect passive “they have been welcomed”. I don’t really disagree with your conclusion that it feels “warmer” to say someone is welcome than to say that they are (being) welcomed, but the terminology and misunderstood grammar in most of the answer earned it a downvote from me. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '17 at 15:27
  • @JanusBahsJacquet There's no such tense as "present progressive", the canonical name of the tense you're referring to is "present continuous". And gone and welcome are most certainly participles that can be used as adjectives (the correct term is participial adjectives). – Nobilis May 26 '17 at 15:37
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    @Nobilis ‘Progressive’ and ‘continuous’ are synonymous; English makes no grammatical distinction between the two, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who makes a terminological distinction either (except when dealing with languages that do distinguish them, of course). Even the Wikipedia link you yourself gave states this. Both names are in common use. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 26 '17 at 15:40
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    Hello, I am back. I have not read the comments, but I'm afraid the terminology is quite mistaken. "You're welcome" is NOT the present progressive or the continuous tense, which mean the same thing. In order for the phrase to be PP/PC it would have to be written as "You are being welcomed" OR "I am welcoming you". – Mari-Lou A May 26 '17 at 17:08
  • @Nobilis I just came upon this again and realised I never replied to the second part of your last comment. Welcome is never a participle in current English, though historically it comes from one. If it were the past participle, it would be used for perfect constructions, and things like “I have welcome” are completely ungrammatical. Welcome is purely an adjective, never a participle. Gone is both an adjective and a participle, but in your example, it can only be an adjective unless you’re using archaic grammar (“He was gone to the butcher’s”, etc.). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 29 '17 at 21:09
  • Okay, clearly I screwed this up badly, but I still don't understand. Maybe I ought to start a new question, except it would be basically a duplicate of this question.

    I still don't understand why "you are welcome to take what I've given" and "you are invited to take what I'm giving" are different. Is "invited" is only ever an adjective too and I need to go back to third grade?

     – Steven Scotten Oct 30 '17 at 22:18
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When someone says “Thank you”, it’s actually “I thank you” . So when I reply “ I welcome you” can be rephrased as “ You are welcomed by me” and in short “ You are welcomed “. Therefore I believe “ You’re welcomed “ should be correct grammatically. Simple right?

apaderno
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Cheah Teik Hoe
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