Aikman's Texan English

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 25, 2007, at 7:14 AM, Larry Horn wrote:

> At 10:01 AM -0400 9/25/07, Dennis Preston wrote:
>
>>  ... and I also
>> suspect a nonsystematic error
>> for the double "had";
>
>
> Can we be sure it's an error, and not simply a variant?

double perfects of several sorts are very well attested, and
commentators have been complaining about them since the 19th
century.  there's an entry in MWDEU; look under "plupluperfect".  one
class of cases even gets a mention in CGEL (p. 151), labeled as non-
standard; this is "had ... have" marking "modal remoteness".

the most common examples are of "had have" and "have had", but you
can find a considerable number of relevant "had had" examples by
googling on "had had been".

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org