'Nother blend (or, telling on myself)

[David Bowie]

From:    Dave Hause <dwhause at JOBE.NET>
: From: "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>

:: I've got more than two days' of clean clothes
:: but very different from
:: I've got more than two days of clean clothes
:: which is like
:: I've got more than one day of clean clothes.

: I see these as essentially identical in meaning:
: I've got more than two days' [worth] of clean clothes
: or
: I've got more than two days of [being able to wear] clean clothes

I'll agree with Dennis that there's a difference (though slight) on this
one, as far as my intuitions go, but i'd also note that there's no way for a
listener to be able to tell the difference between them.

I *do* think, though, that there's a difference between

  (1) I've got more than one day's of clean clothes

and either of

  (2) I've got more than two days' of clean clothes
  (3) I've got more than two days of clean clothes

Whereas--purely from personal intuitions here--(2) and (3) are both
perfectly acceptable, (1) is at best questionable to me, and if i were
marking sentences as grammatical or not for a theoretical syntactic study, i
would probably give (1) a full asterisk.

I have no idea why the difference in intuition exists.

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.