“Amsterdam, you're raining!” First-hand experience in tweets with spatio-temporal addressees

The construction [X, you are/were Y], where X is a spatio-temporal addressee, widely attested on Dutch social media. We investigated this in Twitter corpus, and found that users use the to tell their audience about current or recent experience at location addressed, while same time evaluating said experience. Reference first-hand not overtly expressed, yet it an essential interpretive aspect of construction. grammatical components all contribute own way interpretation. Although vocative second person pronoun personify addressee certain degree, addressee's characteristics remain crucial, as they provide background for reported It noticeable particular instances construction, which would be blatantly ungrammatical other contexts, are now acceptable virtue these fictive addressee. This reveals flexibility grammar, shows how grammar can adapt possibilities limitations media use, make otherwise utterances, such ‘you raining’, fully comprehensible.