[Ads-l] Another weird construction
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jan 29 15:38:53 UTC 2021
Correctly, it's "Barro."
JL
On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 9:06 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:
> Another motivation in this case might be to avoid having to employ
> singular agreement in “If you’re someone who was sitting at home...”, where
> the alternative plural agreement “If you’re someone who were sitting at
> home...” is even worse. I suggest that Barrow wouldn’t have invoked the
> same resumptive pronoun strategy in “If he’s someone who (*he) was sitting
> at home…”
>
> I seem to recall that French speakers are partially motivated to use the
> resumptive pronoun strategy to bypass agreement problems: “Toi et moi,
> nous allons…” or “Toi et moi, on va…” rather than #Toi et moi allons…”
>
> LH
>
> > On Jan 29, 2021, at 7:29 AM, Herbert F. Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > Not all that unusual. The use of resumptive pronouns for emphasis
> instead of deleting is pretty common, at least in speech.
> >
> > On January 29, 2021, at 6:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Probably not "new" but very bizarre:
> >
> > Josh Barrow, columnist for _Business Insider_, on MSNBC's _Morning Joe_:
> >
> > "So if you're someone who you were sitting at home, you were receiving
> your
> > salary, you had extra money [etc.]."
> >
> > "Who you were" for "who was."
> >
> > JL
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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