I do believe that all ho’s can’t fuck with me and it seems that apparently that they just wanna be me …
Lord, that was the best manure that ever twas.
— Appalachian English / Zanuttini (2008) (via syntax examples)
Come on, get yourself wings, come on, become a bird.
— Maori / Polinsky (2001) (via syntax examples)
muroo: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Phrase structure tree auto reblog.
re idiom syntax
We spent a good half hour of class-time brainstorming and testing predicates and raising constructions for cat-out-of-the-bag sentences: the cat is begging/itching to be out of the bag, it is possible/probable…, etc.
Oh man we did that too. Although I think we started using “kicked the bucket” after a while.
Did you do “the shit hit the fan”? That’s a fun one because there’s no messy mental-state-of-cat problems, but the idiom is thinner and it’s harder to differentiate the idiomatic and literal readings.
- The shit hit the fan. / Shit hit the fan.
- Shit’s likely to hit the fan.
- Shit’s gonna hit the fan.
- Shit’s ready to hit the fan.
- #? Shit’s waiting to hit the fan.
- # Shit’s eager to hit the fan.
- # Shit’s reluctant to hit the fan.
![Cat In The Bag (via muroo, swas, dexae)
Oh man this is bringing back memories from Syntax I. All sentences labelled with # cannot refer to the idiomatic secret-that-could-get-out “cat in the bag” of (1) [see Carnie 2002]:
The cat is out of the bag.
# The cat thinks that he is out of the bag.
The cat is likely to be out of the bag.
# The cat is eager to be out of the bag.
# The cat is reluctant to be out of the bag.
I want the cat to be out of the bag.
We spent a good half hour of class-time brainstorming and testing predicates and raising constructions for cat-out-of-the-bag sentences: the cat is begging/itching…, it is possible/probable…, it is willed/fucking destined that the cat be out of the bag.
Edit: The “fucking destined” one is an actual English subjunctive. Boom!](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kp1ngjYl3z1qz4a62o1_500.jpg "Cat In The Bag (via muroo, swas, dexae)
Oh man this is bringing back memories from Syntax I. All sentences labelled with # cannot refer to the idiomatic secret-that-could-get-out “cat in the bag” of (1) [see Carnie 2002]:
The cat is out of the bag.
# The cat thinks that he is out of the bag.
The cat is likely to be out of the bag.
# The cat is eager to be out of the bag.
# The cat is reluctant to be out of the bag.
I want the cat to be out of the bag.
We spent a good half hour of class-time brainstorming and testing predicates and raising constructions for cat-out-of-the-bag sentences: the cat is begging/itching…, it is possible/probable…, it is willed/fucking destined that the cat be out of the bag.
Edit: The “fucking destined” one is an actual English subjunctive. Boom!")
Cat In The Bag (via muroo, swas, dexae)
Oh man this is bringing back memories from Syntax I. All sentences labelled with # cannot refer to the idiomatic secret-that-could-get-out “cat in the bag” of (1) [see Carnie 2002]:
- The cat is out of the bag.
- # The cat thinks that he is out of the bag.
- The cat is likely to be out of the bag.
- # The cat is eager to be out of the bag.
- # The cat is reluctant to be out of the bag.
- I want the cat to be out of the bag.
We spent a good half hour of class-time brainstorming and testing predicates and raising constructions for cat-out-of-the-bag sentences: the cat is begging/itching…, it is possible/probable…, it is willed/fucking destined that the cat be out of the bag.
Edit: The “fucking destined” one is an actual English subjunctive. Boom!
![kened:
probably the most famous sentence ever written by noam chomsky. he wrote it to show that an utterance can be linguistically, at least syntactically, valid, yet utterly meaningless. is it.
if i’ve parsed the phrase structure rules incorrectly let me know (for example:are Det1 and Det2 co-terminous? or is Det1 super-ordinate to Det2? - is it the ‘green-ness’ which is without colour or the ideas?)
In NP[ DP[ A[colourless] A[green] ]DPN[ideas] ]NP—what you have pictured—neither colourless nor green strictly modify the other, so I gather a conjunctive reading as in “colourless and green ideas” or “green and colourless ideas” (ordering does not matter in a conjunction).
That is an okay reading, but I’ve always parsed it with green ideas being modified, i.e. NP[ A[colourless] NP1[ A[green] N[ideas] ]NP1 ]NP. The difference here is that the green ideas are colourless.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kotw9o7vxd1qz9q98o1_400.png "kened:
probably the most famous sentence ever written by noam chomsky. he wrote it to show that an utterance can be linguistically, at least syntactically, valid, yet utterly meaningless. is it.
if i’ve parsed the phrase structure rules incorrectly let me know (for example:are Det1 and Det2 co-terminous? or is Det1 super-ordinate to Det2? - is it the ‘green-ness’ which is without colour or the ideas?)
In NP[ DP[ A[colourless] A[green] ]DPN[ideas] ]NP—what you have pictured—neither colourless nor green strictly modify the other, so I gather a conjunctive reading as in “colourless and green ideas” or “green and colourless ideas” (ordering does not matter in a conjunction).
That is an okay reading, but I’ve always parsed it with green ideas being modified, i.e. NP[ A[colourless] NP1[ A[green] N[ideas] ]NP1 ]NP. The difference here is that the green ideas are colourless.")
probably the most famous sentence ever written by noam chomsky. he wrote it to show that an utterance can be linguistically, at least syntactically, valid, yet utterly meaningless. is it.
if i’ve parsed the phrase structure rules incorrectly let me know (for example:are Det1 and Det2 co-terminous? or is Det1 super-ordinate to Det2? - is it the ‘green-ness’ which is without colour or the ideas?)
In NP[ DP[ A[colourless] A[green] ]DPN[ideas] ]NP—what you have pictured—neither colourless nor green strictly modify the other, so I gather a conjunctive reading as in “colourless and green ideas” or “green and colourless ideas” (ordering does not matter in a conjunction).
That is an okay reading, but I’ve always parsed it with green ideas being modified, i.e. NP[ A[colourless] NP1[ A[green] N[ideas] ]NP1 ]NP. The difference here is that the green ideas are colourless.
![Give me a break, frontpage. The post about irregardless gives a completely vacuous justification:
-less already indicates “a lack of”, so adding ir- is redundant.
In terms of morphological composition, you could still have a cromulent word in “[irregard]less” (a lack of “irregard”) which would make the -less irredundant.
The truth is, we’re dealing with negation, and once you start playing with negatives, all bets for logical composition are off. For instance, many dialects and older variants of English employ concord negation where the presence of one negative particle sets off a bunch of negative switches. “I ain’t never…” etc. Then, you also run into over- and undernegation where people trip up with negation:
“As for the site, I’m going to try to get back on track with updating soon, but don’t be surprised if the new story doesn’t debut as late as April.” (*)
“To date, he’s held 118 (and counting) jobs, from missionary to garbage commissioner to grease salesman to fortune cookie writer, which wouldn’t be such a damning statistic had almost none of them been particularly funny.” (*)
“You guys never fail to disappoint me.” (*)
And then you have a whole field of syntax dedicated to negative polarity items. NPIs pose a question about whether certain words require some form of negation:
I don’t give a fuck.
I never gave a fuck.
I might not give a fuck.
(?) I give a fuck.
(?) I always gave a fuck.
(?) I might give a fuck.
Ask me if I give a fuck.
Do you give a fuck?
I seldom give a fuck.
(?) He failed to give a fuck.
Once you start studying negation, you immediately observe that (a) people don’t use negation in accordance to principles of logical negation, (b) people often use it to intensify statements even if they are already negated, and (c) your brain immediately turns to mush once you start trying to parse statements with three or more negations, especially if you throw in soft negations like “seldom”, “rarely” or “fail to”.
So while the justification about “irregardless” makes sense in its own little way (two negatives make a positive!), it’s blind to the complexities and nuances of natural language negations.](http://28.media.tumblr.com/wAArp4Tbqkuemv2sKLW14Mpio1_400.jpg "Give me a break, frontpage. The post about irregardless gives a completely vacuous justification:
-less already indicates “a lack of”, so adding ir- is redundant.
In terms of morphological composition, you could still have a cromulent word in “[irregard]less” (a lack of “irregard”) which would make the -less irredundant.
The truth is, we’re dealing with negation, and once you start playing with negatives, all bets for logical composition are off. For instance, many dialects and older variants of English employ concord negation where the presence of one negative particle sets off a bunch of negative switches. “I ain’t never…” etc. Then, you also run into over- and undernegation where people trip up with negation:
“As for the site, I’m going to try to get back on track with updating soon, but don’t be surprised if the new story doesn’t debut as late as April.” (*)
“To date, he’s held 118 (and counting) jobs, from missionary to garbage commissioner to grease salesman to fortune cookie writer, which wouldn’t be such a damning statistic had almost none of them been particularly funny.” (*)
“You guys never fail to disappoint me.” (*)
And then you have a whole field of syntax dedicated to negative polarity items. NPIs pose a question about whether certain words require some form of negation:
I don’t give a fuck.
I never gave a fuck.
I might not give a fuck.
(?) I give a fuck.
(?) I always gave a fuck.
(?) I might give a fuck.
Ask me if I give a fuck.
Do you give a fuck?
I seldom give a fuck.
(?) He failed to give a fuck.
Once you start studying negation, you immediately observe that (a) people don’t use negation in accordance to principles of logical negation, (b) people often use it to intensify statements even if they are already negated, and (c) your brain immediately turns to mush once you start trying to parse statements with three or more negations, especially if you throw in soft negations like “seldom”, “rarely” or “fail to”.
So while the justification about “irregardless” makes sense in its own little way (two negatives make a positive!), it’s blind to the complexities and nuances of natural language negations.")
Give me a break, frontpage. The post about irregardless gives a completely vacuous justification:
-less already indicates “a lack of”, so adding ir- is redundant.
In terms of morphological composition, you could still have a cromulent word in “[irregard]less” (a lack of “irregard”) which would make the -less irredundant.
The truth is, we’re dealing with negation, and once you start playing with negatives, all bets for logical composition are off. For instance, many dialects and older variants of English employ concord negation where the presence of one negative particle sets off a bunch of negative switches. “I ain’t never…” etc. Then, you also run into over- and undernegation where people trip up with negation:
- “As for the site, I’m going to try to get back on track with updating soon, but don’t be surprised if the new story doesn’t debut as late as April.” (*)
- “To date, he’s held 118 (and counting) jobs, from missionary to garbage commissioner to grease salesman to fortune cookie writer, which wouldn’t be such a damning statistic had almost none of them been particularly funny.” (*)
- “You guys never fail to disappoint me.” (*)
And then you have a whole field of syntax dedicated to negative polarity items. NPIs pose a question about whether certain words require some form of negation:
- I don’t give a fuck.
- I never gave a fuck.
- I might not give a fuck.
- (?) I give a fuck.
- (?) I always gave a fuck.
- (?) I might give a fuck.
- Ask me if I give a fuck.
- Do you give a fuck?
- I seldom give a fuck.
- (?) He failed to give a fuck.
Once you start studying negation, you immediately observe that (a) people don’t use negation in accordance to principles of logical negation, (b) people often use it to intensify statements even if they are already negated, and (c) your brain immediately turns to mush once you start trying to parse statements with three or more negations, especially if you throw in soft negations like “seldom”, “rarely” or “fail to”.
So while the justification about “irregardless” makes sense in its own little way (two negatives make a positive!), it’s blind to the complexities and nuances of natural language negations.
Why are some summatives labeled "vague"? →
The straight dope on discourse-oriented uses of that/which as in “You talk too much, which bothers me.” I never realized that people discouraged these; indeed, I’m a big fan of using summative which to start sentences as in (arbitrary example) “There are too many self-proclaimed language experts out there. Which is a problem…”.
