whenever

[Dennis R. Preston]

Ron,

Of course you can't say "Whenever I was a little boy..." (at last not in
the straightforward reading; if there was a time when you chose to be a
little boy [e.g., act like one], this reading is possible).

This means that the accused are not substituting "whenever" for "when," but
that others have conflated an aspectual distinction made by the two forms.

"when" = at/during a bounded time
        When Mary arrrived.... (she arrived at a certain time)
        When I was a child.... (at any time during this time period)

"whenever" = at/during "alternative" times
        Whenever Mary arrived (she arrived more than once or at an unspecified
                time)

In fact, one could argue that "when" conflates "when" and "while," the
latter being more appropriate for the "When I was a child....." since
durativity rather than punctuality is at work.

Since other features (verb marking, context, etc...) also mark these
aspectual distinctions, it is clear why we can dump them all into "when."
Varieties with "whenever and "while" simply keep more distinctions on the
adverb clasue marker.

Of course, I don't have a clue about the regional/social distribution of
these matters.

dInIs

>In a message dated 10/6/1999 5:35:49 PM, ronnieg at STARGATE.NET writes:
>
><< "Whenever" is used as "when" in the south, but more so by the older
>
>generation, I believe.  Children do hear this usage from their grandparents
>
>and 'learn' repeat it that way until someone tells them differently. >>
>
>EVERWHEN is an alternative form of WHENEVER (e.g., "You can come to my house
>everwhen you want"); I'm a little less sure about WHENEVER for WHEN, though.
>Could you give us an example? Would one of the old folks say, e.g., "Whenever
>I was I little boy, we didn't have indoor plumbing"?

Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736