Sentence-initial "As well"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 22, 2011, at 10:26 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> sentence-initial "Plus".
>
> And plus besides, an extended, fuller, sentence-initial form, _and
> plus besides_, has been used colloquially by a subset of BE-speakers for at least the past sixty years.

wonderful.  i collect examples of "piling on" ("tad bit" and "tiny little", for example), and this is is a triple: "And plus" and "And besides" are well attested, but "And plus besides" has all three.

however, it wouldn't be hard to argue that in piling-on examples, the parts contribute slightly different meanings, rather than merely reinforcing one another. "And", "Plus", and "Besides" aren't simply free variants. (cue bow to Bolinger).

arnold

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