Watermelons are long to grow AND getting used to

[Damien Hall]

I was writing my second e-mail about this (much better than the first one)
as Larry sent his alternative analysis, which is plausible too, I think. I
didn't see this e-mail until after I'd sent mine!

On the other point:

>And FWIW, there's a construction I've always puzzled at:  "X takes
>getting used to" (where "time" is swallowed up the way it sort of is
>in your construction).

So, under that analysis, 'getting used to' would be something like an
attributive adjectival phrase describing (elided) 'time', from the full
version 'X takes time getting used to', which would be analysed as follows?

[X takes [time [getting used to]]]

Something else that might help with this is the possible BrE (AmE too?)
variant 'X takes some getting used to'. In my idiolect, four versions of
this phrase are possible - none of them is weird! - namely

- X takes some getting used to

- X takes getting used to

- X takes time getting used to

- X takes some time getting used to

but I think they are arranged in this order of frequency / normality.
Therefore, I'd always analysed 'getting used to' in this kind of
construction as the gerund of 'get used to', qualified by the determiner
'some'. It could also be a gerund, used adjectivally, in Larry's
alternative analysis, of course, but the two are different.

Damien

--
Damien Hall

University of York
Department of Language and Linguistic Science
Heslington
YORK
YO10 5DD
UK

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