on reversed "substitute" (intransitive version)

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 26, 2011, at 5:31 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>> "If you substitute him=85", you're bound to lose a lot (I wrote =
>> down the full conditional but of course misplaced the scrap
>
> _"If you substitute him", you're bound to lose a lot."_
>
> For me, this is totally transparent. I have no problem seeing the
> ghost of [someone else for]. OTOH, it's annoying to have to wrestle
> the other structure to the ground in order to force it to reveal its
> hidden semantic structure.
>
> _I wrote down the full conditional but of course misplaced the scrap._
>
> Surely, you couldn't have been anticipating another, different
> outcome, in such a case!;-) <sigh!> Though, at the time, it must have
> felt like only the sensible thing to do, of course.
>
> --
> -Wilson

Reminds me; the original from Cris Carter was actually "When you substitute him", not "if".  Same difference as they say (but I usually don't).  For me, these are not at all transparent; I only process them as "If/When you substitute him (for someone else)", not "If/When you substitute (someone else for) him", although clearly it's the latter that was intended.

LH

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