regional "most the CN"?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 12/17/2009 10:37 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>When I say "most the books," it has the same metrical structure as
>"most of the books."  Given the ease with which "of" reduces, a single
>strong syllable with a heavy coda would be the same as the
>corresponding trochee as in /'most@/, so maybe the phenomenon is
>simply one of metrical variance that's perceived as a grammatical
>difference.

Even with this rationalization, I still can't say it ("most the books")!
But I can -- and probably do -- say "most@ the books".
Although neither would go into a poem I would sign my name to.
:-)

Joel

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