more astounding coordination

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

from David Fenton, on soc.motss, 11/9/05:
-----
Oberlin has legacies.

Were I to have a child and sent the child to Oberlin, she would be a
legacy.
-----

that counterfactual clause almost got past me, and then i had what
the Language Loggers call a WTF experience and realized that its two
parts were not a matched pair, the first part being an inverted
counterfactual clause, the second the VP of an ordinary counfactual
(with "if": "if I sent the child to Oberlin").  the full
counterfactual certainly could not have been
    *were I to have a child and sent I the child to Oberlin
    *were I to have a child and did I send the child to Oberlin
and even an uninverted second conjunct  (with a subject) is not
perfect, though it's a lot better than these:
    ?were I to have a child and I sent the child to Oberlin.  (1)

to get fully parallel conjuncts, you need to use the ordinary
counterfactual in the first conjunct:
     if I were to have and child and (I) sent the child to Oberlin.

still, the original
    ?were I to have a child and sent the child to Oberlin
and (1) above are really not so bad to my ear.  i am reminded of the
(inverted) yes-no question + finite VP WTF coordinations that i've
discussed here and on Language Log, things like:
     Have you finished your thesis and have no idea of what to do next?

arnold