Heard on "Jerry": "VP (PREP) _me/you/him_ NP"

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

<<Of the examples that you gave the one that strikes me as the odd one out,
as the awkward one is the "eating on me a hamburger", and it's because of
the inclusion of the prep. To my ear it should be either "eating me a
hamburger" or "eating on a hamburger.">>

 

I see "eat on" as a phrasal verb; this example shows why it is not
separable.  If one’s dialect impels him to use both a non-standard reflexive
"me" AND "eat on", he can get into “throw-Mamma-from-the-train-a-kiss”
territory, e.g., "I'm eating me on a hamburger".

 

Of Wilson's four memorable examples, 1 and 3 seem to me to be standard
reflexive syntax with a non-standard pronoun (standard would be "Get
*yourself* a tray!", but then there is "Get thee (thyself) to a nunnery!"
and “Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife:”).  2 is a
non-standard reflexive, at least in form.  In effect, it is more of an
intensive use.

 

This use of the reflexive, especially with the objective rather than the
reflexive form, is what I would use to indicate a hick or redneck speaker.

 

Seán Fitzpatrick

It’s a Gnostic thing. You wouldn't understand.

http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/

 

 

On 2/10/11 12:05 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:

 

>"A few weeks later [i.e. after he had left her], I got _me_ a

 >surprise_: my wife was pregnant with our third child!"

 

 

 >I've never been able to do more than to know intuitively how to use

 >this construction. I've heard it used by my fellow blacks and by

 >Southern whites all of my life. Yet, it remains a mystery to me, to

 >the extent that certain examples have stuck in my memory since

 >forever.

 

 >1) I _got me a eighteen-year-old jitterbug_.

 >2a) I'm just sitting here, _eating me some potato chips_.

 >2b) I'm just sitting here, _eating on me a hamburger_.

 >3) _Get you a tray_!

 

 

>Well, I've never been a syntactician. What do I know?

 

I've never been one either. But that doesn't stop me from shooting off

my ill-informed mouth.

 

But isn't there a parallel pattern in modern standard German, where if

the indirect object is a pronoun, it comes before the direct object noun

phrase?

 

Of the examples that you gave the one that strikes me as the odd one

out, as the awkward one is the the "eating on me a hamburger", and it's

because of the inclusion of the prep. To my ear it should be either

"eating me a hamburger" or "eating on a hamburger."

 

--

---Amy West

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