Was that he was guilty obvious?

[Laurence Horn]

Ah, Haj Ross's "Internal S over NP Constraint".  Remember it (pretty)
well.  Lots o' variation in class when I used to teach syntax, and I
could never decide, but it's worse for me than the for-to counterpart

Would for him to be found guilty surprise you?

and obviously worse than the impeccable gerund version,

Would his being found guilty surprise you?

LH

At 11:01 PM +0800 1/12/11, Randy Alexander wrote:
>"Was that he was guilty obvious?"
>
>Do you find the above sentence grammatical or ungrammatical?  In other
>words, in your dialect (or idiolect), can you form an interrogative by
>inverting a subordinate content clause with an auxiliary?
>
>I find it grammatical, but I know that some find it ungrammatical.  I'm
>trying to see if there is a detectable dialectical split over this pattern.
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Xiamen, China
>Blogs:
>Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
>Chinese characters: http://www.sinoglot.com/yuwen
>Language in China (group blog): http://www.sinoglot.com/blog
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org