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etc.</title></head><body>
<div>Suzanne et al.,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Besides the comment from me Dan Johnson reproduces (far) below,
I've kept some earlier mentions on ads-l (the American Dialect
Society list), given just below. One is also from me, the other
from yet another Yale source, Bryan Gick (now of UBC), who attests
the construction well outside of New England (although still in the
Northeast). Another ads-l member, the lexicographer Frank
Abate, commented in the 1998 thread<font color="#000000"> "And
as a transplant to New England from the Midwest (I moved to N.E. in
1978), I can attest to having heard this use of the negative for
jocular effect, and being struck by it. I had not encountered
it in all my years (27 or so) in the Midwest."</font><br>
<font color="#000000"></font></div>
<div>I should note that one doesn't hear "So AUXn't [+pro]"
every day even in New England, and a lot of locals here are as
puzzled when they hear about it (e.g. in my classes) as non-New
Englanders would be. I just checked with my 19-year-old son and
16-year-old daughter, both Connecticut born and bred, and neither
could believe that such a construction existed. I tend to agree
with Dan's comment below that "So don't I" and "So do
I"--to the extent that the former still exists--differ in their
pragmatics, while agreeing in their (truth-conditional)
semantics.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>larry</div>
<div>=============</div>
<div><font color="#000000">Date:<x-tab> </x-tab>Thu, 12
Mar 1998 15:49:40 -0500<br>
Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU><br>
From: Larry Horn <laurence.horn@YALE.EDU><br>
Subject:<x-tab> </x-tab>Re: standardization of non-standard forms<br>
<br>
At 4:49 PM -0500 3/11/98, Beverly Flanigan wrote:<br>
<i>Larry, I'd like to highlight just two phrases you cited (except
that I'm new to Eudora and don't yet know how to repeat just two
lines and not the whole business below): Does "So don't I"
really mean "So do I"? My impression was that it meant
"Neither do I" (with the negation retained but transferred
from Aux to conj., to match a presumably negative preceding
clause)--and ditto with "So can't they." I once asked Labov
where these phrases are used, and he said New England, so now I'll
ask you, as an NE rep, to clarify. (And of course I agree they're
neither malapropisms nor mistakes.)<br>
</i><br>
I haven't gone through all my messages, so I don't know if someone
else responded to Beverly on this, but the answer is yes, "So
don't I" = 'So do I'. It's essentially New England, as Labov
said, and not all of New England. Someone from DARE probably knows
the distribution, but it's at least extant here in Connecticut and in
Massachusetts. I've seen it in novels (labelled as local to some part
of New England) and in one memorable headline from the early 1970's
in the Boston Globe:<br>
<br>
THE COLTS WANT THIS ONE? SO DON'T THE PATS<br>
<br>
As seen here, it always follows a positive and the negation is
pleonastic. Whether there's a different construction found after
negatives I don't know.<br>
<br>
Larry<br>
==========================<br>
Date:<x-tab> </x-tab>Wed, 1 Apr 1998
11:27:01 -0500<br>
Sender: American Dialect Society
<ADS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU><br>
From: Bryan Gick <bgick@SAPIR.LING.YALE.EDU><br>
Subject:<x-tab> </x-tab>so don't I<br>
<br>
I know I'm a couple weeks late on this one, but just in case anyone's
still interested in the "so don't I" distribution...<br>
<br>
My mother grew up in the small town (pop. 1500-ish) of Youngsville in
NW Pennsylvania. I spent my early years (till 1st grade) in the
smaller town of Irvine (pop. maybe a couple hundred) about 3 miles
away, but did kindergarten in Y-ville. From 2nd-9th grade we lived in
the county seat (Warren, pop. 11K or so), maybe 8 miles away from
Y-ville.<br>
<br>
I was baffled when, having lived in the area all my short life, we
moved back to Youngsville for my 10th grade year, and I discovered
that the standard response indicating agreement was "so don't
I" (as in A: "I like ice cream." B: "Mmm. So
don't I!" Also, "so didn't I," "so doesn't
she," etc., but not "I don't too," etc.). While it had
more currency among the harder-core locals, it seemed to be pretty
much standard fare for everyone, barring those who'd moved in from
outside.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
I'd never before nor have ever since heard the construction used
anywhere outside of the very immediate bounds of Youngsville.
Renegade New Englanders? Well, NW PA _is_ at a wild juncture of
dialect areas, and with lake Erie where it is, a bottleneck for New
Englanders travelling overland to the West. Still strange, tho. Any
thoughts?<br>
<br>
Bryan<br>
<br>
************************************<br>
Bryan Gick - bgick@pantheon.yale.edu<br>
Yale Department of Linguistics<br>
and Haskins Laboratories<br>
************************************</font></div>
<div>======================================</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At 5:13 PM -0400 7/16/01, Daniel Ezra Johnson wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Suzanne,<br>
<br>
This was discussed briefly on the American Dialect Society's list a
few<br>
months ago. Here's the relevant section, from 1/30/01; the discussion
was<br>
primarily about "could(n't) care less".<br>
<br>
I wrote:<br>
<br>
>It could have started sarcastically, and transferred over to
speakers who<br>
>lack the specific (Yiddish?) intonation pattern alluded to
earlier: an<br>
>interesting kind of shift where pragmatics (sarcasm) is replaced
by a<br>
>sort of marked, backward semantics. What I'm trying to say is
that it<br>
>ends up like one of those expressions where you just have to know
it<br>
>means the opposite of what it sounds like, such as the alleged<br>
>Bostonianism "So don't I."<br>
><br>
>"Same difference" is similar, and there must be
others.<br>
><br>
<br>
Larry Horn replied:<br>
<br>
>I think it is a lot like "So don't/can't I" (which, for
those not<br>
>familiar with the New Englandism, means "So do
I"). This too is most<br>
>plausibly reconstructed as a sarcasm that became
conventionalized,<br>
>although here we end up with an "extra" negative
instead of a missing<br>
>one.<br>
<br>
If the item was discussed earlier on the ADS list (which is quite
likely),<br>
I can't find it, because I think the words are too common to be
included<br>
by the search engine at that site.<br>
<br>
In retrospect, I'm not sure how "so don't I" would have
developed as a<br>
conventionalized sarcasm. I might contend -- pace your examples --
that it<br>
is not simply used as a substitute for "so do I". I think
there is a<br>
difference like:<br>
<br>
A. I like chocolate cake.<br>
B. So do I!<br>
<br>
vs.<br>
<br>
C. I have Wade Boggs' rookie card.<br>
D. So don't I!<br>
<br>
as if "so don't I" includes a refutation of the pragmatics
("I have<br>
something you don't have; I am better than you") while agreeing
with the<br>
semantics of the previous statement.<br>
<br>
I did grow up outside of Boston, but I don't consider myself a
"native<br>
speaker" of this construction; in fact, I used to mock it
extensively, so<br>
my judgement may be off.<br>
<br>
Daniel</blockquote>
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