_bees_

[Ellen F. Prince]

>At 05:15 AM 4/17/97 -1000, Geoffrey S. Nathan wrote:
>>At 03:24 AM 4/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>>     Re _bees, beed_: the following judgment holds for me:
>>>
>>>     You be good for Grandma, now, and if you do / ??*are I'll buy you an
>>>     ice-cream cone.
>>>
>>>     "Are" sounds pedantic if not just plain wrong.
>>>     Anybody concur?
>>I concur with Dave's judgment.
>
>
>C'mon now, this is a very ordinary structure. This is just an imperative
>correctly using the simple form of a main verb. Since the verb is a main
>verb, not a helping verb, 'do' is the correct choice here. That is, the
>correct helping verb for main verb 'be' (i.e. not the helping verb) is
>'do' as it is for any main verb, e.g. ...
>
>you eat everything for grandma and if you do, I'll...
>you work hard for grandma and if you do, I'll...
>
>This, of course, would be true for any of the main verb synonyms of the
>helping verbs.
>
>you have a good time, and if you do
>you do a good job, and if you do
>
>I mean this is pretty basic grammar.  There's nothing mysterious about the
>choice of 'do.'
>
>Phil Bralich
>
>Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D.
>President and CEO
>Ergo Linguistic Technologies
>2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 175
>Honolulu, HI 96822

so i take it, philip bralich phd, that you find the following equally fine?:

i am a linguist.  if you do too...
harry is sick and i do too.
mary is at home but we don't.
there's room in the margin, doesn't there?
i'm more fond of liver than most people do.
this isn't how your parser works, does it?

extraordinary, how language varies...