"like" and "as if"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:31:15 -0400, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>At 10:04 AM -0700 6/24/05, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>On Jun 23, 2005, at 1:30 PM, Larry Horn wrote:
>>>At 4:16 PM -0400 6/23/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>>When it's an ironic/sarcastic assertion, there is often heavy
>>>>stress on the NP following "like" (especially if it's a
>>>>monosyllabic pronoun):
>>>>
>>>>"Like *that* matters!"
>>>>"Like *you* care!"
>>>>"Like *he* would know!"
>>>>
>>>>The sarcasm can be emphasized by a preceding interjection ("yeah",
>>>>"oh", "ah", "hah", etc.).
>>>
>>>cf. also "a lot" in the same frames, e.g. "A lot *that* matters!"
>>>
>>>>This construction is hard to search for in the databases, but
>>>>here's an example of ironic assertional "like" from 1966...
>>
>>just to bring out something we're all assuming here: what makes this
>>construction "ironic assertional" is that it conveys the negation of
>>the expressed proposition.  "like that matters" conveys 'that doesn't
>>matter', and "like you've never done that" conveys 'you've done that'.
>>
>>(i'm weaseling by using "conveys", so as not to have to decide
>>whether it's implication or some kind of implicature that's at issue.)
>>
>Well, it's a strong enough negation to license negative polarity
>items, as I noted in a couple of old papers, citing the sentence:
>"A (fat) lot of good *that* ever did me".
>(Cf. the non-ironic "A lot of good has (*ever) been done by such
>efforts.")
>And along the same lines:
>"As if/Like *you'd* ever have a snowball's chance in hell of solving
>any of those problems."

Also:

As if/like *he* knows anything.
As if/like *he* cares anymore.
As if/like *he* gives a shit/damn/rat's ass/etc.

"A (fat) lot" doesn't work in these frames, however.  "As if/like" can
negate a yes/no proposition, while "a (fat) lot" requires a quantitative
assessment (how much one knows/cares/etc., vs. whether one knows/cares).
But I'm sure this is all covered in Larry's negation papers...


--Ben Zimmer