LINGUIST List 3.580

Wed 15 Jul 1992

Sum: Dog the

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1. David Stampe, Dog days (Re: 3.466 Rules)

Message 1: Dog days (Re: 3.466 Rules)

In June I posted a note on the issue of whether `dog the' is an NP,
citing a study by Niemann and Noone of an English dialect where
`Beware of the dog' has become `Beware of dog the'. I've had fifteen
or twenty inquiries about that study. (Really.) Here's a summary:

1. Several respondents questioned Niemann and Noone's claim that
 examples like `cat in hat the the' represented performance errors
 rather than grammatical competence.

 Noone replies that all speakers rejected such examples.
 Niemann says that they only rejected them because Noone left off
 the quotation marks.

2. Others noted that `dog the' would be a translation of `hundet' in
 various Scandinavian dialects, and asked whether the speakers were
 Scandinavian immigrants.

 Noone says that they were indeed.
 Niemann says they didn't look Scandinavian to him.

3. Most respondents asked where to get a copy of Noone and Niemann.

 Noone says that one day Niemann started screaming `Any utterance
 that refers to itself is a grammatical noun phrase is a grammatical
 noun phrase is a grammatical noun phrase ...', and destroyed all
 the copies.
 Niemann says dog the ate them.

David Stampe <stampeuhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, <stampeuhunix.bitnet>
Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawaii/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822