Re: Is Globish (Global English) a pidgin?

In article
<90a54370-b39d-4726-b383-830b35f85cb2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
grammatim <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 21, 12:27 am, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<73048207-a37b-4fd6-8b44-7acd9ed8c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

 grammatim <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 20, 8:43 pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Furthermore, there are plenty of prepositions that do express degree:

     I missed the turn by three miles.
     I ran a mile in three minutes.
     I jumped up three feet.

not a preposition -- cf. I jumped up three steps

Yet, it can be conjoined with a prepositional phrase:

     I jumped up three feet and over the wall.

But not with an adverb:

     *I jumped up three feet and quickly.

You're pulling a Postal -- putting stars arbitrarily on the things
that fit/don't fit your theory.

My stars are not arbitrary, and I'd appreciate you refraining from
impugning my professional integrity.

Furthermore, I'm not a syntactician, so I have no stake whatsoever in
what the theory is, beyond its ability to account for the facts.

Neither of those is any better than a zeugma; the first is not
noticeably preferable to the second.

The first is perfectly grammatical (for me). The second is
ungrammatical in ordinary circumstances (for me), but I could see it
being used for playing with the language (similar to Morissette's "you
held your breath and the door for me").

Your data may be different. I'm nowhere close to claiming to have
taken a full survey of a representative sample of idiolects, but I did
ask the first person available who is not a linguist (and therefore,
untainted by theoretical concerns), and his judgements were exactly
the same as mine.

Perhaps this is a generational difference? He and I are both in our
30s.

     I went in three feet.

not a preposition -- cf. I went in three rooms

Again, the conjunction test suggests otherwise:

     I went in three feet and to the right.
     *I went in three feet and quickly.

You've miscoordinated: the first one is "I went in three feet and in
to the right."

Your revision sounds clunky, but grammatical (to me). My original
sounds just fine (to me).

There's nothing wrong with the second.

It's ungrammatical (for me), but again, with same potential for poetic
word play.

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
.

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