"some many"?

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:45 PM -0400 6/11/09, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>This is the first eggcorn I've seen that violates a syntactic
>cooccurrence restriction.  "Some" and "many" don't cooccur, so what
>does it say about English speakers who write this eggcorn?  Clearly
>it's a feature of writing rather than of speech, although it seems to
>arise from the phonetic identity of reduced "so" before /m/ and
>reduced "some."  What doesn't make sense is how something that isn't
>syntactically possible shows up as the written form for [sm-'mEni].
>
>Herb

I'm not sure it's all that unlikely on syntactic grounds.  "Some
three", "Some five or six", etc. occur, so why not "some many"?
"Some several" also occurs widely, although I'd never say it, and
there's no likely reanalysis in that case.  What's odd about "some
many" to me is more the semantics, but perhaps here (as with "some
three", "some several"), the "some" functions as a specificity marker
for the relevant speakers--"Three/Several/Many X that I have in
mind..."

LH

>
>On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: "some many"?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 9:17 PM +0800 6/11/09, Randy Alexander wrote:
>>>On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Tom Zurinskas<truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>   The "some many" quote was written at this site.
>>>>
>>>>   =20
>>>>
>>>   >
>>>http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2009/06/10/bring-the-quick-launch-toolba=
>>>   > r-back-in-windows-7/
>>>>
>>>>   You bring up an intersting point. ? We don't know from quote marks
>>>>if it's a=
>>>>   ? written quote or spoken quote. ? We need a different symbol. ?
>>>>We'll make th=
>>>>   at `"yak yak yak"`=2C unless there is a precedent. ? The symbol
>>>>(`) is locat=
>>>>   ed on my keyboard at top row left with the tilde (~). ? I don't
>>>>know the nam=
>>>>   e.
>>>
>>>If we provide a link, then whether the quote was spoken or written
>>>should be obvious.
>>>
>>  Or we can google "some many" and find not just some but many
>>  instances, at least some (if not many) of which do seem to be
>>  eggcornish reconstructions of "so many".  Some may be from non-native
>>  speakers--
>>
>>  why are some many girl getting pregant so young these days?
>>
>>http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/lifestyle-discussion/why-are-some-many-girl-getting-pregant-so-young-these-days/t.50698569_16/?
>>
>>  Many people feel confused why there are some many different prices on
>>  so called "BB/CC" grade of Chinese Poplar plywood?
>>  http://www.globalholz.de/China-Plywood-Grade_and_Construction.doc
>>
>>  Perhaps we can combine this thread with the earlier one on the
>>  consequences of English globalizing to China.
>>
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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