Come with; was Re: Natural-Born Lover : Words

[Geoffrey S. Nathan]

At 10:37 PM 8/29/2004, you wrote:
>right--I know it from my four years spent in Madison, WI.  It's well
>known in the upper Midwest, and it is indeed usually assumed in those
>parts to be of German substrate influence, as Barbara notes.  We used
>to use this construction in dialect surveys for our intro classes
>there.
I grew up in Toronto in the fifties and sixties and used it all the
time--I've always been somewhat suspicious of the supposed German
attribution, since Toronto English has very little German influence.
FWIW the construction also exists in modern colloquial French (at least in
France):  'Se je peux venir avec?'  'Can I come with'.  I actually heard a
French waiter say once, in response to the question 'Est-ce que je peux
vous poser une question?' ('Can I ask you a question?'):

Je suis là pour.  literally:  I am here for [sc:  that]

Geoff
Geoffrey S. Nathan
Department of English/Computing and Information Technology
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202
<geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
Phones:  C&IT (313) 577-1259/English (313) 577-8621