[Ads-l] A Texan on Facebook: (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

> On Dec 10, 2015, at 6:47 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
> william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:
> 
>> need killing
> 
> 
> It's the lack of _to be_ or _to get_between "needs" and "shot" in a comment
> posted by a Texan that was the point.
> 
> When I was first told of the existence of this structure, it was said to be
> peculiar to the speech of Northern Pennsylvania, specifically to that of
> the NWPA town of Erie. This structure is also used by my wife, a native of
> the NEPA town of Kingston.

The main studies on the "needs washed" construction, by Tom Murray and Beth Simon, associate it with SE Ohio, W Pennsylvania, West Va., and adjacent areas.  Their work, as well as a good recent paper by Elspeth Edelstein, shows that "need", "want", and "like" are all possible with bare past participles for some speakers, "need" and "want" for others, and only "need" for still others, so there's an implicational relation.  We have a page with these references and a synopsis of our research on this family of constructions at http://microsyntax.sites.yale.edu/needs-washed.

LH

> Next time, I won't assume that the ADS-L was listening, as I was mentioning
> this background to my wife. ;-)
> -- 
> -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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