Extension(?) of tough-movement

[Damien Hall]

Last night, on hearing the news of my engagement, a friend (Afr-Am, male, early
50s, hardware-store owner) of mine said

(1) "That's happy to hear."

The construction caught my attention and, sure enough, _CGEL_ (p1246, list
[6]i.a) doesn't have _happy_ in its sample of adjectives that license
tough-movement.  The _CGEL_ sample is just that, of course, a sample, and not
an exhaustive list, but it still seems to me that the use of _happy_ in this
construction extends the construction into a semantic area where it is at least
less usual (and which isn't discussed by _CGEL_).

_CGEL_ notes (p1246):  'The adjectives and nouns in [6i] have to do mainly with
the ease or difficulty of the situation described in the infinitival clause or
with one's emotional attitude to it'.  So, among the adjectives and nouns that
_are_ listed by _CGEL_, my friend could have said:

(2) "That's good to hear."
      ( ~ "It's good to hear that.")
      implies:  "That situation is good."
(3) "That's a joy to hear."
      ( ~ "It's a joy to hear that.")
      implies:  "That situation is a joy."

[where ~ is 'alternates with']

But _happy_ doesn't fit that frame:

(1') "That's happy to hear."  *~ "It's happy to hear that".
       rather                  ~ "I'm happy to hear that."

Similarly, the two examples I give above don't fit the _happy_ frame:

"That's good to hear."   *~ "I'm good to hear that."
  rather                  ~ "It's good to hear that."
"That's a joy to hear."  *~ "I'm a joy to hear that."
  rather                  ~ "It's a joy to hear that."

So it seems to me that there's something more to it than "one's emotional
attitude to [the situation]".  (Not that _CGEL_ ought to have provided a full
discussion and analysis;  that's what articles and conferences are for, not
grammars.)  Speaking of the class of adjectives and nouns that _CGEL_ lists,
not only does the A or N have to describe "the ease or difficulty of the
situation [...] or [...] one's emotional attitude towards it", but the A or N
also has to be one that can be used _in the same sense_ to describe the
situation directly.

What I mean is this.  Whereas I have a sense that _good_ in

(2) "That's good to hear."

is the 'same' _good_ as the one in

(2') "That situation is good."

I don't have the sense that _happy_ in

(1'') "That situation is happy."

is the 'same' _happy_ as the one in

(1) "That's happy to hear."

It seems to me that _good_, as in (2), and more generally the other As and Ns in
the class discussed by _CGEL_, aren't actually as intimately connected with the
attitude of the speaker as are _happy_ and other members of that class.  That
is, the _good_ / _CGEL_ class is a more objective description of the situation,
which doesn't have an obligatory connection to what the speaker personally feels
about it, though that situation can/maybe most often does exist.  On the other
hand, the _happy_ class is _only_ a personal description of the speaker's
attitude, which is maybe why, for me, it doesn't fit in the more objective

* "It's happy to hear that."

frame.

Here, my semantics fail me.  So my questions and observations are:

- What do others think of these generalisations?  Independently of the formal
semantics of it, am I making generalisations (about the _good_ class versus the
_happy_ class) that others recognise from their intuitions?
- Has this sort of extension, if extension it is, been noted before?
- What about the analysis?  How's that to be done?

I'd be happy to hear anything you have to say about it.  This was new to me, but
of course may be completely usual to others!

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania
wishing that this kind of linguistic observation and putting-out-there could be
counted as part of the thesis work that he ought to be doing

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