"at" at end of sentence

[Dennis R. Preston]

I believe in this useful reduncancy, and I'd even like to suggest a
motivating factor. Could normal sentence stress (which should fall on
"is") be possibly confused with contrastive stress (which on verbs
suggests "truth-value" questioning)? Notice that "Where's it at?"
allows contraction of "is" (disallowed without the "at" - "*Where's
it?").

dInIs (always muckin around in in phonology and prosody)





>This final "at" was perfectly ordinary in Detroit during my childhood. I
>can hardly believe that our cousins across the river in Windsor ON were
>completely uncontaminated. It is my impression that the final "at" adds
>useful redundancy in some cases. If I'm not paying attention, "Where IS
>it?" sounds about like "What IS it?" etc., but "Where's it AT?" is clear
>enough. "Where is it?" however has been OK everywhere I've been (I think);
>is anybody suggesting that in some region the "at" is nearly obligatory?
>
>-- Doug Wilson

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
740 Wells Hall A
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office - (517) 353-0740
Fax - (517) 432-2736