"So big a house"

Sun Jun 10 17:09:22 UTC 2007

On Jun 10, 2007, at 5:30 AM, Joe Salmons wrote:

> ... Arnold, yes, your other EDM constructions strike me as very
> informal:
> 'it's just too big a box to fit in there',  'she's as smart a kid as
> I ever met' are fine in conversation but odd to type out. (Without
> context, I might have jumped at seeing your talk/handout title on
> this topic ["Just how interesting a construction is this?"].)

these are novel judgments to me, but your judgments are as they are
(though it would be interesting to look at your academic writing to
see what you actually produce).

are there others who share joe's judgments?  (if you don't -- that
is, if you find the -of versions either stylistically neutral or
formal -- please don't reply; you're just in the vast majority here,
and we hardly need more data points of this sort.)

but, joe, are you saying that you use the +of version in writing?  or
that you avoid both EDM variants in writing?  (there are always work-
arounds: the box is just too big to fit in there, she's a kid as
smart as any I ever met, just how interesting is this construction?)

> Still, 'many a linguist' sounds bookish.

"many a", "such a", and "[exclamative] what a" are similar in form to
the -of EDM variant, but are not actually instances of that
construction (so that their stylistic values don't necessarily align
with those of the -of EDM examples).  and they have no +of version.

> I'm a little surprised that DARE only has of-ful forms back to 1914.
> Is it really that new?

MWDEU got it back only to 1942/43, in cites from the American Dialect
Dictionary.  so 1914 is a pretty impressive antedating.  MWDEU's
first cites for complaints about it are from 1980 and 1983, and it
might be possible to find earlier ones, but it's not something that
the great complainers of the late 19th and early 20th century mentioned.

my rule of thumb is that there's a roughly 30- to 50-year lag between
the appearance of an innovative variant in general use (especially in
"good writers") and condemnation by critics.  that would put the
spread of the +of variant as beginning in the 1930s-50s (consistent
with MWDEU's reports of complaints).

but now we have routine complaints, as in Garner's MAU, p. 567:

   >*Intrusive _of_.*  The word _of_ often intrudes where it doesn't
idiomatically belong, as in _not that big of a deal_ (read _not that
big a deal_), _not too smart of a student_ (read _not too smart a
student_), _somewhat of an abstract idea_(read _a somewhat abstract
idea_), etc.  E.g.: "Spurs guard Mario Elie doesn't seem to think the
Spurs will have _that difficult of a time_ [read _a difficult time_]
handling the Knicks in these Finals."<

(the "somewhat" case doesn't belong with the others, although it does
have an "of" that garner doesn't like.  note that there is no
straightforward -of variant, "somewhat an abstract idea", and that
the "somewhat of a" here is close in meaning to "something of a",
expressing approximation to being an abstract idea, rather than
hedging the adjective "abstract".)

i am myself surprised that the +of variant didn't take off earlier,
since there's clearly some internal pressure in favor of it.  but i'd
guess that most "why" questions about the initiation of innovations
(or, for that matter, losses) don't have deep answers; there's a lot
of accident and fashion in these things.  typically, some variant
lies around in very small numbers, being innovated on many occasions
or occurring as a speech error, until it catches on in some speech
community and then spreads to other people, who appreciate its
linguistic virtues (clarity, expressiveness, regularity, brevity) as
well as its social values.

so: speaker-oriented "hopefully" took off only in the 20th century,
though it had been around for quite some time before that.  and
universal "ever" ("I have ever been your friend") withered in the
second half of the 19th century, after having been around for many
centuries (in competition with "always" and other items).  i'm not at
all sure that there's anything to say about most such events, beyond
that they happened.

a little historical note: i got into EDM (at first, of the -of
variety) through a question from an acquaintance who was teaching
ESL.  why, she asked, were her students inclined to write things like
   How good idea is that? (or A how good idea is that?)
(with a singular count noun; they also produced count plural and mass
singular examples: How good ideas are those?  How good rice is
that?).  she could, of course, *correct* such sentences --
particularly easily for the count singular cases -- but why were they
writing such things in the first place, and how could she explain
what was wrong with them?

i told her that it was easy to see how the students got to their
ungrammatical versions.  they had learned that "how" is the question
word for degree modifiers --
   It's a very good idea.  How good?
   Those are very good ideas.  How good?
   It's very good rice.  How good?
so the full questions should just have "how" in place of a degree
modifier like "very".  this gives you the bad examples above.

explaining how english *really* works is trickier.  point 1: "how" is
a special kind of degree modifier, with a syntax different from
"very", "extremely", and most of the other degree modifiers you'd
think of off the top of your  head.

point 2: AdjPs with ordinary degree modifiers combine with
N' (sometimes labeled Nom: a noun-headed expression not closed off by
a determiner), but AdjPs with exceptional degree modifiers combine
with a full N" (= NP).  this means that AdPs with O modifiers can
have preceding determiners (a very good idea), but those with X
modifiers cannot (*a how good idea), even though such expressions are
not ruled out on semantic grounds.

point 3: AdjPs with X modifiers combine specifically with count
singular NPs, and only these; no mass singular NPs (*how good ideas)
or count plural ones (*how good rice), even though these are not
ruled out on semantic grounds.

point 4: in fact, AdjPs with X modifiers combine specifically with
*indefinite* count singular NPs, not definite ones: *how good the/my
idea.  cf. the/my very good idea.

point 5: in fact, AdjPs with X modifiers combine specifically with
indefinite count singular NPs with the article "a(n)"; other
indefinites won't do: *how good one/some idea.  cf. one/some very
good idea.

(i've used "how" to illustrate these points, but the points hold for
X modifiers generally.  we're not dealing with an idiom "how a".)

this is amazingly picky stuff.  no wonder learners have trouble with
it, producing "how good idea", or (sometimes) "a how good idea".  (my
acquaintance's students were all chinese, so they were disinclined to
use indefinite articles in english and were disposed towards the
article-less version.)

(a construction that stipulates some specific word in some slot is
not at all unusual: the P "to", the P "of", infinitival "to",
complementizer "that", "as", "than", etc. etc.  so the learner's task
is not fabulously difficult: learners can be told that AdjPs with X
modifiers just require a following "a(n)".  but they still need to
appreciate points 2 and 3 above; otherwise they'll produce "a how
good an idea" (point 2) or "how good an ideas" (point 3).  in fact, i
believe that such errors are attested in ESL students.  They're
certainly attested as low-frequency variants -- probably not errors
-- in native speakers.  i have examples)

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org