"A Whole Nother" and "Alls I Know Is"

[John M. Spartz]

Katherine,

I don't know about the "Alls I know is," but it seems to me that "a whole
nother" might just be some sort of an infix, insofar as "linguistic phenomena"
go.  Another -> A - whole - nother.  But, this is just a guess as well.  I
actually found myself using it while teaching the other day, and I started to
think about why.  The aforementioned was all I could come up with. Good luck.

John
__________________________________________
John M. Spartz
jspartz at purdue.edu
English Linguistics
Purdue University


Quoting sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "A Whole Nother" and "Alls I Know Is"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Katherine Hageland writes:
>
> >I'm a PhD graduate student taking my first linguistics class in many, many
> >years. I guess I'm the traditional non-traditional student. I constantly
> >hear people saying "a whole nother" when they mean something like "That's
> >a whole other ball game." I also hear people saying, "Alls I know about it
> >is this" when they mean "All I know about it is this." I'm originally from
> >California, but now studying in the Midwest. Are the constructions I'm
> >hearing part of a dialect or are they some other linguistic phenomenon?
> >
> >Thanks!
> >
>  ~~~~~~~~~~
> I find looking back that it was just about a year ago that I reported
> hearing " a whole nother" on BBC!
>
> >  (9/28/05) " Heard on  BBC's "World Update" this morning, in a report on
> >Israeli reaction to rocket fire from Gaza,  correspondent Alan Johnson
> >used the expression "a whole nother"  [ level of &c.... ]."<
>
> I don't remember what dialect clues there may have been to Alan Johnson's
> origins.
> I first encountered the "alls" usage in  Ohio in the 70s, having lived the
> previous 40 years in Nebraska, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, and
> California.    I can't say it didn't exist in those places in those times,
> but I hadn't heard it until then.  "Whole nother" is a whole nother matter:
> that's been heard nearly everywhere now & then.
> AM
>
>
> ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
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