any more chairs?

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I don't think that was the case.  She went out of her way to explain
> this to me, and reassured me repeatedly of the distinction.  The
> implication of the second example (we're talking about a real, known
> car) tends to force the article, but I'm quite sure the primary
> distinction was intended to be made by the verb.

You can perhaps test with non-dh-stem verbs in the same frame, or other
dh-stem verbs in the same frame.

> Again, I don't know how general this is.  It may well be a family
> dialect or an ideolect.

This is possible.

> I know that I myself have come up with definable words of my own in
> English that I later find no dictionary recognizes.

Not quite parallel, but I know the feeling!

> Mark and I talked to the speakers last night.  I ran this by them for
> /moNdhiN/.  They recognized the you- form in both versions: /moNniN/
> and /moNshniN/.  They weren't able to establish a semantic difference
> that they could translate into English, but they puzzled over it a bit
> in a way that suggested there might be one.  I've asked them to think
> it over and we'll check back with them later.

You have to be a bit careful with situations like this.  While the speaker
is the primary source, you can't entirely rely on their judgement to
determine whether a distinction exists or does not exist.  In the end you
have to rely on their behavior - what they do as opposed to what they
think they do.  What they think they do is always quite interesting and in
many cases will be a perfectly reasonable short cut.

JEK