Is this you?

[Michael Newman]

Matt,

Good point, and it’s why you’re such a good linguist!   I was looking briefly at an article by Gregory Ward in Language on displaced reference, which this falls under.

 In my view, it’s “Is this your stuff” “or “this is my stuff.”


It’s not “this is where my car is parked”

So it’s essentially, it’s identify the person associated with the thing rather than the location of a thing associated with a person.


Michael Newman
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
Queens College/CUNY

mnewman at qc.cuny.edu

On Jan 28, 2014, at 10:16 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Is this you?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Does this locution appear only/mainly when the "this" is seen as
> characterizing or defining the person, as a car might define a person
> as staid or racy?  "That hairdo/dress/... is me."
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/28/2014 08:32 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> Depends on what "this" is, I'd think.  For cars, it's pretty
>> widespread, i.e. "Is this/that you?" meaning 'Is this/that your
>> car?'  With a socket wrench and a Phillips head screwdriver at the
>> hardware store, I'm not so sure.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> On Jan 28, 2014, at 8:14 PM, Michael Newman wrote:
>>
>>> Is the expression "this is me" meaning "this is mine" (etc. for
>> you, etc)  limited to NYC and environs?
>>>
>>> I've been hearing it for a while, and my husband asked me if it's
>> an NYC thing. I just heard it in the following exchange, and
>> thought I'd better ask before putting it in my NYC English book,
>> which I'm sending off again as soon as I get this issue settled yea yea.
>>>
>>> Setting Hardware store with a bunch of products on the counter.
>>>
>>> Store guy to me: "Is this you?"
>>> Me: Nah
>>> Other customer: "This is me."
>>> Store guy: "OK"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Michael Newman
>>> Professor of Linguistics
>>> Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
>>> Queens College/CUNY
>>>
>>> mnewman at qc.cuny.edu
>>>
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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