today's bizarre find

Sun Jun 10 22:51:24 UTC 2007

On Jun 10, 2007, at 2:58 PM, Chris F Waigl wrote:

> Some of these may be editing artefacts, but assuming there's something
> real going on, I looked for things that appear to be similar. The
> embedded interrogative is a NP, so maybe for some speakers it's
> possible
> to introduce it with an article. Here are some with a definite
> article:...

wow.

> ... Second, is the "how [adj] a" construction necessary for this
> effect?

none of my previous examples involved this construction.  all have
(excluding the extra "a") an initial "how" +Adj constituent (in
predicative, not attributive, function) followed by a subject NP
constituent; these two constituents do not together form a larger
constituent.  it just happens that the examples i pulled up first had
a subject NP beginning with "a(n)" -- because i was looking for
something quite different, namely EDM cases with doubled "a(n)".

the EDM cases i was looking for would have the constituent structure:

   [NP  a  [NP  [AdjP  how  Adj ]  [NP  a  N  ] ] ] ]

the cases i found have the structure

   [?  a  [S  [AdjP  how  Adj ]  NP  [VP be  ___  ] ] ]

(in which the internal struture of the subject NP is not relevant).

> Looking at other embedded wh-questions...

more wow.

arnold

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