have, of, and a

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

> On Tuesday, October 14, 2003, at 06:53 PM, Herbert Stahlke wrote:
>
>> "Have" and "of" merge phonetically in constructions like "I would [@]
>> gone"
>> and "two [@] those", leading to the common writing slip "I would of
>> gone".
>> I found a variant of this phenomenon while reading Tom Clancy's _Red
>> Rabbit_
>> on Fall Break.  (It occupied a cold, rainy day on Georgian Bay last
>> week.)
>> On page 349, Clancy writes
>>
>> "That would be a major complication, but not so vast of one as to be
>> impossible to arrange."
>>
>> This is the first time I've seen "a" replaced by "of".  Usually it
>> goes in
>> the other direction.
>
> something a bit different might be going on here.  "so" is one of the
> degree modifiers that trigger indefinite marking on the following noun
> (what i've called "exceptional degree modifiers"):  a very vast
> complication, so vast a complication, *(a) so vast complication.
> you're assuming that the "a" here is what's been reinterpreted as > "of".
>
> but that's standard english.  a widespread nonstandard variety of
> american english has double marking with exceptional degree modifiers,
> involving the preposition "of" as well as the indefinite article: that
> big of a tree, so vast of a complication.  perhaps this is the variety
> clancy is representing in his novel.  if so, the speaker would be
> expected to say "so vast of a one", which strikes me as awkward to
> pronounce -- an awkwardness that could be alleviated by omitting one
> of the unaccented words, and the "a" has the least accent and the
> least phonetic substance, so it's the prime candidate for omission.
> then the "of" that appears would be just the "of" of the nonstandard
> degree modifier construction, not an indefinite article in
> prepositional clothing.
>
> arnold, doubting that asking clancy what he was doing would be of any
> use,
>   even if he was willing to answer
>