Burchfield's Fowler

Randy Alexander strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM
Mon Aug 10 16:26:58 UTC 2009


On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Randy
Alexander<strangeguitars at gmail.com> wrote:
> Readers interested in this might also be interested in the more modern
> solution in _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_ of
> analyzing these structures as "fused head" structures: fused
> determinative-head (few, many, several), and fused modifier-head
> (various).
>
> These are of four types (p411):
> 1. Simple -- While Kim had lots of books, Pat had [_very few_].
> 2. Explicitly partitive -- [_Few_ of her friends] knew she was ill.
> 3. Implicitly partitive -- We made numerous suggestions but [_few_]
> were taken up.
> 4. Special -- [Few] would have expected it to turn out so well.

Of course that last "Few" should be underlined as well.

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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