LINGUIST List 15.1224

Fri Apr 16 2004

Qs: 'Come','Go'/Adjectives; Comparatives/Syntax

Editor for this issue: Naomi Fox <foxlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. J-C Khalifa, Q: "come" and "go" as copula verbs
2. Heather Taylor, Syntax: comparatives

I'm doing a little bit of unformal work on the use of "come" and "go" 
followed by adjectives, e.g. "come clean / alive", "go scarlet / white / 
bankrupt", etc. Of course, it seems to be a clear case of spatial metaphor, 
movement towards or from referring to change of state. I was wondering 
whether any work had been done on such uses in present-day English or even 
early forms of English (i.e. when did such uses appear & why). On the other 
hand, I'm curious to know of any languages that might have parallel uses of 
COME and GO.
I'll be happy to post a summary if I get enough answers.

Best,

Jean-Charles Khalifa (University of Poitiers, France) 

I'm interested to know of any discussion in the literature of
constructions like (1) - (3):

(1) The bigger the dog, the harder to train
(2) The deeper a well is, the fresher its water
(3) The quieter the house, the more likely the baby is to sleep

If anyone knows of references, could you point me in their direction?
In particular, I'm interested in any proposals regarding the syntactic
structure of such expressions, but any information about a mention of
this type of data would be helpful. Also, I am interested in
discussion of this type of data in any language, but I am specifically
interested (right now) in discussion of it in English or any other
Germanic language.

I will post a summary of the responses. Thank you in advance! 

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Heather Taylor
University of Maryland, College Park
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