"is-is"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Mar 18, 2006, at 4:32 AM, Bill Le May wrote:

> I think a local (NE Iowa) 'leading is' usage is related.  Here we
> often
> hear:
>
> "Is what you want to do is..."

there are many types of "extra is" constructions, of which the usual
examples (with a "thingy" noun or in a pseudocleft sentence -- "The
thing is is that..."  and "What the problem is is that...",
respectively) are simply of the most frequent types.

what the local Isis group had thought was the end development is
things like, "Is that we've got to leave now", where the initial "is
(that)" is essentially serving as an assertoric marker.  we had some
ADS-L discussion of this a while back, with examples from ron butters
(i also have examples from kathryn campbell-kibler, and dwight
bolinger's 1987 collection has one example that might be an instance).

this one looks different.  the initial "is" looks like it's serving
as a parallel marker to the "is" of pseudocleft construction.
fascinating.

arnold

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