"like that"

Beverly Flanigan flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU
Mon Jan 15 17:31:48 UTC 2001


At 08:57 AM 1/15/01 -0800, you wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
> > It isn't the same at all.  It's simply a double complementizer, like "as
> > if" and "so that."  It's regionally restricted, as far as I know, to the
> > central South (Tennessee and southward, maybe in Texas also--I've hear GW
> > Bush use it)
>
>Well, it's rampant up here in the Northwest, even among them what one
>would think don't, like, do it.
>
>PR

But isn't this just the pause marker "like"? (or focuser 'like' or
intrusive 'like', to use variant terms for this syntactic
interrupter).   In contrast, "like that" is a real conjunction, introducing
an embedded (subordinate) clause.  "Like" has many functions: focuser,
quotative ("And he's like 'I don't want to go'"), preposition, and
conjunction--but in the last case, it's generally used alone; the double
'like that' as conj. is Southern, if I'm not mistaken.

_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm



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