[Ads-l] like = 'as is the case with; as with''

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

> On Apr 13, 2016, at 1:19 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> This strikes me as more a case of lax syntax (maybe a blend of "Like all blood thinners, Xarelto should not be taken..." and "As with all blood thinners, don't take Xarelto...") than a new sense of "like" to be incorporated into a lexical entry.
> 
> LH
> 
> 
>> On Apr 13, 2016, at 2:40 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> 
>> I don't see this in OED.
>> 
>> TV commercial:
>> 
>> "Like all blood thinners, don't stop taking Xarelto without talking to your doctor."

these "like" + NP cases are pretty standard examples of so-called dangling modifiers; sometimes the "unlike" + NP cases are lumped in with them, but a great many speakers find the "unlike" cases much better than the "like" ones.

no blending analysis is necessary: the "(un)like" + NP constituent provides a framing comparison, intended to by people who produce these things to link to a highly topical NP in the main clause (which is sometimes not the subject of the main clause.

in the tv commercial, Xarelto is highly topical and well-established in the context -- the commercial is *for* Xarelto, after all -- so the link from blood thinners in general to Xarelto is pretty easy to establish.  taken in context, i find the example not at all bad.  but some people have internalized the prescriptive Subject Rule for interpreting subjectless predicative adjuncts to such a degree that they simply can't escape it.  (in fact the Suject Rule is just a default, and there are tons of types of examples where it can be overridden.)

arnold

piles of postings on so-called danglers linked to in this inventory:

https://arnoldzwicky.org/linguistics-notes/dangler-postings/

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