Snow

[Bill Palmer]

I'm thinking that linguists are like economists, who, in the well known
phrase, could be laid end to end and never reach a conclucion.

Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: Snow


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Snow
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>
>        MWDEU's examples are "Ten dollars is all I have left," "Two
> miles is as far as they can walk," and "Two thirds of the area is under
> water."  In such cases, a singular verb seems far preferable, although
> you can contrive examples such as "I came to town with forty silver
> dollars, and now ten dollars are all I have left."
>
>        On reflection, I believe that the analysis given by Arnold
> Zwicky (and, posting earlier, Larry Horn) is superior to the one I had
> given (not that that should be surprising).  I had suggested that a
> singular verb could be used if the subject were considered to be a
> single expectation.  That doesn't hold up very well with sentences such
> as *"Thirteen crates of oranges is expected," although it again is
> probably possible to contrive an example allowing a singular verb.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Arnold Zwicky
> Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:04 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Snow
>
> (i've reorganized the postings in this thread to put them into temporal
> sequence.)
>
>> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Bill Palmer
>> <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net>wrote:
>>
>>> Bianca Solorzano of CBS News reported this evening that "13 inches of
>
>>> snow are expected in New York."
>>>
>>> The expectations are for what: inches or snow?
>>>
>>> "Is" or "are"?
>
>
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
>> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 10:26 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Snow
>>
>> The object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a sentence. So
>> "inches," not "snow," is (not "are") the subject, and "are" (not "is")
>
>> is correct.
>>
>
>
> On Mar 1, 2009, at 8:06 PM, John Baker wrote:
>
>>        I would think that the subject could be either "inches" (in
>> which case "are" would be correct) or "13 inches of snow,"
>> considered as
>> a single expectation (in which case "is" would be correct).  MWDEU, at
>
>> 56, seems to prefer the singular verb, though I am comfortable with
>> either.
>
> MWDEU's examples are not as complex as "13 inches of snow".  what makes
> this NP complex is that there are two possible analyses for it
> (corresponding to the two interpretations John Baker sees): one in which
> "13 inches" is the head and "of snow" is a complement to it, and one in
> which "snow" is the head and "13 inches" is a quantity determiner
> (requiring that the head be marked by the preposition "of").  in the
> first, the NP is plural, because its head is plural; in the second, the
> NP is singular, because its head (the mass noun
> "snow") is singular.
>
> like John Baker, i'm comfortable with either, though some circumstances
> would favor one over the other.
>
> arnold
>
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