anymore

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:24 PM -0500 4/3/11, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>That's the reading I was getting.
>
>O'Conner's statement that "Here, 'anymore' is an adverb meaning 'any
>longer' or 'still.'" led me to believe the intended meaning was
>something like "I can't believe you're still hungry." Larry's
>explanation suggests that the intended meaning is that "I firmly
>believe that you're not hungry anymore". Either way, the 'anymore'
>is supposed to have scope in the subordinate clause, right?
>
>-Matt Gordon

Yes, on the readings you give, i.e.

I can't believe [that you're hungry anymore]

rather than

I can't believe [that you're hungry] anymore

but Neal and Wilson were reading it in the latter way, on which the
statement could be paraphrased as "I can't believe anymore that
you're hungry", which strikes me as dubious, i.e. as the claim that
because of new evidence I've received, I now no longer believe that
you're hungry.  For me, the more plausible reading is the one you
give above.

LH

>________________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
>Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2011 5:04 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: anymore
>
>On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Gordon, Matthew J.
><GordonMJ at missouri.edu> wrote:
>>  "I can't believe that you're hungry anymore"
>
>Though there were times in the past when I *could* have believed that.
>But not anymore.
>
>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
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