'what everything' hypercorrection

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 1, 2006, at 11:35 AM, Jerry Cohen wrote:

> It's not a hypercorrection but a blend: "for what all she went
> through" + "for everything she went through." "What all" (in
> standard English)  is itself apparently a blend, from e.g. "for
> what she went through" + "for all she went through."

the blend analysis doesn't work for one of the examples i cited --
   what cards what gear what everything do i need to run sa for pc...
but this probably is genuinely a different animal.

the others could also be analyzed as truncations, somewhat on the
lines of the verbless "as far as" examples: e.g.
   learn what everything HelpDesk did for Dan was
with the final verb truncated, to give
    learn what everything HelpDesk did for Dan

but the analysis with "all" elevated to "everything" also seems
entire plausible to me.

be that as it may, the blend analysis for "what all" looks weak to
me.  the conjunctive (and complementless) examples from the OED can't
really be blends, since only one of the putative sources is available
for each of them:

   "and what all" in "there were mangos and papayas and what
all" [invented ex.]

      could be a variant of "and all", but "and what" isn't available
in this context

   "and I don't know what all" in "there were mangoes and papayas and
I don't know what all"

     could be a variant of "and what", but "and all" isn't available
in this context.

non-conjunctive "what all"  can occur in a main clause, and when it
does, only one of the putative sources is available:

   What all did you see in Vancouver?  What all happened in Vancouver?

could be variants of

   What did you see in Vancouver?  What happened in Vancouver?

but not of

   *All did you see in Vancouver?  *All happened in Vancouver?

and even in subordinate clauses, the "all" version isn't always
available:

   I wonder what all happened.
   I wonder what happened.
   *I wonder all happened.

"what all" looks to me like "what" with postmodifying "all".  an
idiomatic combination, with an uncertain history, but almost surely
not (in general) a blend.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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