which we're going to get through this

[Herb Stahlke]

The examples of WH-Conj that I've heard sound as if the speaker is
presupposing the truthof the wh-conjunct, where a mere "and" would
assert or would leave the conviction of truth vaguer.  In the ad
example, where the "which" clause has future reference, I think it
strengthens the father's conviction that they will in fact get through
the hard times.  That's assuming, with Bolinger, that a difference in
words involves a difference in meaning.

Herb



On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 7:49 PM, Arnold Zwicky<zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: which we're going to get through this
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 4, 2009, at 7:45 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>
>> I can hardly believe that the records on this are so scanty.
>>
>> The construction may well be regional.  Despite Woody Allen,  I never
>> noticed it in NYC speech.
>
> hard to know.  i've suspected that many examples might just have been
> seen as inadvertent errors (and some of them might be) and so
> disregarded.
>
> jon and i noticed examples in student writing simply because part of
> our job was to attend to the details of this writing.  others might
> not have been so attentive.
>
> (but i've been away from heavy exposure to undergraduate writing for
> some years, and i wasn't collecting such examples then.)
>
> still, it would be good to have at least some more data.
>
> my recollection of these examples is that people are using "which" to
> introduce an addition to the main clause -- perhaps because they've
> been taught not to use "and" so much and so go for something more
> weighty and serious.
>
> arnold
>
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