"so" as predicate modifier

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:19 AM -0500 7/23/07, Greg Pulliam wrote:
>All:
>
>Please tell me if this has come up before, and if anyone can
>remember, about when that was.  I've searched the archives, but
>haven't been able to find a thread--it's very likely to be my own
>lousy searching techniques impeding me.
>
>I'm interested in the use of _so_ one hears in statements like:
>
>I am so not going to class today.
>He is so over her.
>We are so going to get in the water today.
>
>Has this usage been looking into as perhaps confirming VP-bar structure?
>What are the edgiest usages of this that have been heard?
>What other thoughts do members have about it.
>
Besides looking at the extensive discussion by Arnold Zwicky et al.
in the ads-l archives of "Gen-X _so_" under that or other names,
there's now a nice draft entry for _so_ "as an intensifier, forming
non-standard grammatical constructions", with several cites, in the
OED, from March 2006.

LH

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