more astounding coordination

[Stacy Lewis]

My first impression was that the coordination was meant to be parsed:
"Were I to have (a child) and (sent the child to Oberlin), ..."
 Where the coordinate clauses might be restated as:
(a) Were I to have a child, and
(b) Were I to have sent the child to Oberlin, ...
 Which is weird for me only because these are two different 'have's.
 sll
  >
> 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
>