Burchfield's Fowler

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Aug 10, 2009, at 9:24 AM, Randy Alexander wrote:

> ... Readers interested in ["various of"] 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.

i am a proponent of this analysis, but in posting i don't always want
to re-do older conceptualizations and terminology in favor of my
current preferences, opting instead to try to make connections to
conceptualizations and terminology that are in the sources i cite and
are more familiar to my readers.  a difficult balancing act.

arnold

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