Zero-option

[Arnold Zwicky]

ron butters cites sentence-introducing "is", from his mortgage broker:
 >I thought I'd call and tell you about the current situation with
 >regards tdo interest rates. Is that you can get a five-year baloon
 >for 4.25%, but the interest-free rate is 4.5%. So I think you should
 >lock in on the regular baloon.  Is you can always drop the regular
 >baloon and pick up the interest-free, but is you have to lock in for
 >21 days.

beautiful!  *this* i have seen before, and several of my stanford
students have collected similar examples; one of them has *two*
family members (not kin to one another) who do this.

we're pretty sure this is where the "double is" ("The thing is, is
(that) we have to go") train has gone.  starting from a (cleftoid)
construction with a finite clause in the predicate, first you
reinterpret this as what i call a set-up/pay-off paratactic
construction (functionally parallel to things like "Here's the
problem: we have to go"), then the set-up part is reinterpreted as
some sort of sentence adverbial, and then the way is open (since
adverbials are usually optional elements) to have the pay-off part
stand on its own, without the initial adverbial bit, which is often
pretty much bleached of meaning (as in "(the) thing is...") anyway.

notice that the broker, like my student's family members, sometimes
has sentence-initial "is" alone, sometimes "is that" - remnants of the
construction's origin in "is" plus an embedded finite clause.

the result is that "is (that)" now serves, for some people, as an
sentence-initial assertion marker on main finite clauses.

all the steps are perfectly reasonable reinterpretations or
generalizations, so i think this is totally cool.

"isis" (which i like to think of with "O Isis und Osiris" playing in
the background), or "double is", has been around for quite a while,
and there are many (very educated) people who use it freely in speech;
i've taken it up myself, without intending to.  however, my impression
is that the assertion marker "is (that)" is pretty recent, but such
impressions are often drastically wrong.  people who use it don't seem
to be aware that there's anything odd about it, or indeed aware that
they say it, and it seems not to have been around long enough for
language complainers to latch onto, so it's now spreading happily.  i
try not to bring it to people's attention, for fear of robbing the
rose of its unselfconscious beauty.

could we all make a pact to keep this among ourselves, just us
linguist types?

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)