Fwd: druthers

[Laurence Horn]

Since Mark, our designated forwarder of relevant Linguist List queries,
hasn't gotten around to it yet, I thought I'd step in and forward this one.
The reanalysis of [I'd rather]>[druther(s)] is the sort of thing that there
must be intermediate evidence for, and early cites would no doubt be of
interest.
Replies, as usual, should go to the querier as well as (optionally) to us.

>
>LINGUIST List:  Vol-10-1155. Mon Aug 2 1999. ISSN: 1068-4875.
>
>Subject: 10.1155, Qs: Descriptive Grammars, druthers, Verbs/Serbian
>...
>-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------
>
>Date:  Sun, 1 Aug 1999 14:55:51 GMT
>From:  alex at compapp.dcu.ie (Alex Monaghan CA)
>Subject:  druthers
>
>does anyone have an account of how "i would rather" formed "druthers" in US
>english? or is there a different derivation? the change from gapped clause to
>declinable noun seems unusual to say the least.
>
>comments welcome,
>                       alex.
>
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>LINGUIST List: Vol-10-1155
>