Aikman's Texan English

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:01 AM -0400 9/25/07, Dennis Preston wrote:
>With Ron, I also doubt regionality for the "as what,"

I'm sure it's not just Texan/Southern, but it's also not (in my
experience) part of New England/New York English.  I intended
"regional" descriptively, not pejoratively.

>  and I also
>suspect a nonsystematic error
>for the double "had";


Can we be sure it's an error, and not simply a variant?

LH

>  an easy thing to
>do if you 'thought' you started with "if," but I'd like to see more
>of them. The "had" counterfactual is surely a late-learned rule (as I
>have write elsewhere), and one would expect goofs. Anybody out there
>got any more 'had...had'? I've certainly heard the wonderful "If I
>had've had...." I've even heard "If I had've of had....," but this is
>another study.
>
>dInIs
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
>>Subject:      Re: Aikman's Texan English
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>In what way is this an example of "regional" speech? Do we really
>>KNOW that these constructions are regionally and not socially
>>distributed? The "what" construction seems to me particularly
>>pan-American (and maybe not just US/Canadian).
>>...
>>============
>>Had Carlos had been looking into the backfield and seen where that?
>>ball was bein' thrown, he had every bit as much of an opportunity to?
>>make a play on that ball as what Burress did.?
>>============
>>
>>LH
>>

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