Contractions vs. full forms...

Mark A Mandel mam at THEWORLD.COM
Thu Apr 4 15:27:21 UTC 2002


On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

#>There's two white cars in my yard.  vs. *There is two white cars in my yard.
#>?I suggest that you're early tomorrow. vs. *I suggest that you are early
#>tomorrow.
#>
#>Of course these are non-standard for "There are two white cars..." and "I
#>suggest that you be..." but the contracted forms are also acceptable to my
#>(and alot of people's) ears while the full forms are not.  So, yeah, has
#>anyone worked on this before?
#
#I don't know. But I can make a personal/idiosyncratic remark, as I happened
#to think about this very thing today.
#
#The second example above ("I suggest that you're ...") is not cogent in my
#own case; I'd be as likely/unlikely to use "you are" here as "you're" (I
#think).

Yah, me too. "... you be ..." at best, but more likely "you
come/arrive".

-- Mark M.



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