"so Auxn't NP"

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 07:25 PM 7/18/2007, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      "so Auxn't NP" (was: Re: "until" vs "before" or "to")
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>
>At 5:48 PM -0400 7/18/07, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
> >The distribution has been generally established, AFAIK (probably by
> >Virginia McDavid? I'll check my sources when I have time), with reference
> >to the major dialect areas:  the North uses "to" and maybe "of" (I'm less
> >sure of this); the Midland (or at least South Midland) and South use "till
> >(not spelled "til," as Arnold has noted).  Midland extends west of the
> >Mississippi and tends to fan out, so it's not surprising that Colorado and
> >Washington State would use "till."  My western students (at least as far
> >west as Colorado and Kansas) use it, as they do "needs washed" and positive
> >"anymore," other Midland forms.  Lamont Antieau in Colorado is mapping this
> >Atlas region right now and should help to flesh out the mapping Arnold
> >asked about.
> >
> >BTW, our new local nsp publisher has written twice (mockingly, of course)
> >about the locals' use of "needs washed/done" and exhorted his writers NOT
> >to use it.  Gotta write to him one of these days.
> >
>Speaking of mapping and atlases, but not I think of South
>Midland--does anyone (Joan H. H., for example) know of any reliable
>isoglosses for "So Auxn't NP"?  This is the (in)famous [hey, try
>pronouncing that!] pleonastic--or, to adopt John Lawler's
>label--spurious) negative construction that canonically involves
>responses like B's below (to a positive declaration):
>
>A:  I can do that.
>B:  So can't I.
>
>--where the response indicates that B is capable (rather than
>incapable) of doing that.  This has been touched on in the literature
>from time to time and is often (e.g. on the web in various blogs)
>regarded as a shibboleth of New England*, but others have attested it
>in New York State and as far west as DeKalb County, Illinois (as in
>Lawler's 1974 paper in CLS 10) or even Hawa(')ii.  Others, of course,
>claim that it couldn't possibly exist with that meaning, or that it's
>a sign of mental defect, but that's not unusual (cf. the outrage
>provoked by positive "anymore").  One issue is whether it means
>exactly what "So Aux NP" would mean in the same context, another is
>whether its use or diachrony involves irony/sarcasm (native speakers
>typically insist it doesn't, at least synchronically), and a
>third--the one I'm focusing on here--is just who uses the
>construction and where.  I'd check DARE, but I'm assuming the head
>word for the entry would be "so", in which case the relevant volume
>won't be appearing for another two years.   Anyone?
>
>LH
>
>*My favorite instance of this construction is a headline in the
>sports pages of a Boston paper in the fall of 1971:
>
>THE COLTS WANT THIS ONE?
>SO DON'T THE PATS!
>
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I once asked Labov about this, and he immediately confirmed the positive
meaning and said New Englanders use it.  I don't recall where I first
heard/saw it, but I assumed it meant "Neither do I"--the usual
misapprehension, of course.

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