which we're going to get through this

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jun 4, 2009, at 8:19 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>> My theory is that the construction began (and possibly renews
>> itself from
>> time to time) in a vague intention to relativize and subordinate
>> which then
>> fizzles out for any number of reasons.

there are several different types, some of which we have posted about
on Language Log: e.g.

ML, 10/14/07: Ask Language Log: Gapless relatives:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005019.html
gapped/gapless relatives

AZ, 10/14/07: More gapless relatives:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005022.html
gapped/gapless relatives

AZ, 1/12/08: A Richardson relative clause:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005316.html
gapless relative

GP, 11/12/08: Some discipline where nobody knows what the hell it is:
  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=823
island violation/resumptive avoided by characterizing relative in
"where"

(the first two of these links i've posted on ADS-L before.)

some of the examples are restrictives, some non-restrictives.  the
type we've just been looking at (not covered in the LLog postings)
involves non-restrictives, with relativizer "which" and without a gap
in the relative clause (and usually without a resumptive pronoun in it).

>> I remember noticing constructions like this in college, not from
> hearing it form other people, but from trying to say it myself.  For
> example:
>
> -- I saw something that I didn't know what it was.
>
> I found this troublesome because you can say:
>
> -- I saw something that I didn't recognize.
>
> But once you put a verb like "know" with its wh- clause as complement
> in the relative clause, it breaks down.  It feels to me not like a
> garden path sentence, or an error that should be corrected as "I saw
> somethng and/but I didn't know what it was", but rather a kind of
> failure of English syntax.

this is a RES-ISLAND example (and also a restrictive relative).  a
gapped relative version would be
   I saw something that I didn't know what ___ was.
which is really rotten -- a straightfoward island violation.  but it
can be turned into something comprehensible with a resumptive pronoun
("it") in the place of the gap.  non-standard, but useful.

so: an interesting example, but not something of the sort we've been
discussing (which i've labeled WH-CONJ).

arnold

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