that's all you have is X

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

from Brady Clark at Stanford, with a response from me:

>> I stumbled across an example yesterday that at first I took to be a
>> slip ("that's all you have" X "all you have is gangbanging"):
>>
>>  "[In Mississippi], that's all you have is gangbanging" (Trap of
>> Holla Point, XXL, September 2004: pg.90)
>>
>> and then I started Googling around and found similar examples of the
>> form "that's all you/I have is X"; e.g.,
>>
>>  "When you're a powerless backbencher, that's all you have is your
>> conscience."  (http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_marb22.htm)
>>
>> Have you seen this construction before?
>
> not that i recall.  off the top of my head, i'd guess it was a blend
> of a topicalization ("Gangbanging, that's all you have"), with the
> topic in front, and a cleftoid ("All you have is gangbanging"), with
> the topic in the predicate.  just a guess.

anybody else have something on this one?  it looks like a blend that
some speakers have grammaticalized.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)