[Ads-l] Coordinate Noun Phrase Constraint violated on Facebook

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Jul 21 18:18:56 UTC 2018


> On Jul 21, 2018, at 10:04 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> While this looks formally like a coordinate structure and so should obey
> the CSC, "stand by and" is more like "try and," "take and" or "up and"
> which have more of a modal function
> 
> You have to take and put this part in first.
> I think I'll try and leave early today.
> He up and walked out on me.
> etc.
> 
> Herb

The YGDP page on “try and” does make this point (with citations), and mentions other cases of “pseudocoordjination”, such as “be sure and”, “go and”, “come and”, “remember and”, etc.  But not “take and”, which may be more subject to regional variation.  Thanks for the tip, Herb!

I’m not sure if “stand by and” is in this class, and the ones mentioned by Goldsmith and Lakoff that I cited in my previous message to the list certainly seem quite different in that “and” is not used as a complementizer there.  

LH
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 1:52 PM Geoffrey Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
> wrote:
> 
>> Please ignore the political message (or not, as you choose) but there’s a
>> meme floating around on Facebook that straightforwardly violates Ross’s
>> Coordinate Noun Phrase Constraint (or any of its modern versions).
>> Apologies if you’re not into such syntactic minutiae:
>> 
>> How much treason do you need to stand by and watch Trump commit?
>> 
>> How much treason{i} do you need to [
>>     ]
>> 
>>                                     [stand by] and [watch Trump commit
>> X{i} ]
>> 
>> (FWIW George Lakoff found a few of these several years ago, but I haven’t
>> seen one live in a while)
>> 
>> Geoff
>> 
>> Geoffrey S. Nathan
>> WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
>> Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
>> http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
>> geoffnathan at wayne.edu
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list