"So big a house"

[Michael H Covarrubias]

Quoting Joseph Salmons:

> I've been corresponding with someone
> who's working on the history of the
> construction illustrated in the
> subject line,...
>
> Everybody I've asked says it's
> grammatical, but some people seem to
> think it's how other people talk: One
> man wondered if it was more likely to
> be female than male speech, but no
> woman I've asked shares that view. A
> Canadian said it sounded American,
> and so on. ...
>
> Does anybody know of work on this in
> contemporary English? Any obvious
> patterns of social or regional
> variation to it?
>
> Thanks,
> Joe
>

With a degree indicator (so/how/too) this sounds like a very natural
conversational construction to me. I wouldn't likely flinch even if I read it in
more formal writing.

"You shouldn't make quite so big a deal of it"
"You've made too big a mess for me to clean up."
"That was all too familiar an occurrence"

> One Wisconsinite did say that she
> was corrected when she used it in
> California -- to 'so big OF a house'.

Does adding "of" satisfy those who don't allow a degree-enabled
determiner-phrase projection?

Michael

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   English Language & Linguistics
   Purdue University
   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
  <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>

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