Needs specimen

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 01:44 AM 3/10/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Sorry if this has already been addressed/disposed of earlier in the
>thread; I haven't actually been following the thread but this just
>caught my eye:
>
>Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> >
> > in central ohio, it is indeed frequent, and many locals do not use
> > NEED/WANT V-presprt.
>
>It's a technicality, I suppose, but surely the verb in the phrase "needs
>cleaning" (or whatever) is not a present participle, but rather a
>gerund.  It's the direct object.  The fact that this grammatical
>construction is so basic and straightforward ("The bed needs making"; "I
>need your loving": subject-verb-object) makes it seem much more
>"correct" to those whose dialect uses it than "The bed needs made" or "I
>need loved by you(?)" which is harder to analyze.
>
>I assume it is a shortening of "to be made," "to be loved"; if so, then
>it's not really a past participle (qua past participle) but a shortening
>of the passive infinitive--i.e., another noun construction used as the
>direct object.  It's just an elliptical construction that, to those not
>used to it, is as "non-English" as leaving out the "to" in "I need go"
>or "I want eat." (Or do those who leave out the "to be" of the passive
>infinitive likewise leave out the "to" of the active infinitive in such
>constructions?)
>
>James E. Clapp

The appropriate analogy is to "The cat wants out" or "Do you want in?"  No,
users of these constructions do not leave out the infinitive 'to' in a V to
V construction.

BTW, as a Northerner, I usually use the gerund form "It needs
cleaning"--which sounds as weird and "ungrammatical" to my southern Ohio
students as "needs cleaned" does to newcomers to this area.  So it's not
"basic and straightforward" to all!