Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 15:59:49 -0600

From: Mary Bucholtz bucholtz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TAMU.EDU

Subject: Re: WEIRD EXISTENTIAL



Might this be related to the structure "The thing is is that..."? The

reduplicated "is" isn't a speech error, and it's obligatory for those who

use it.



Mary



Mary Bucholtz

Texas A&M University

bucholtz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tamu.edu



I recently had a two-hour conversation with my real-estate-lending agent. He

has a peculiar syntactic form that I wonder if is just an idiosyncrasy or if

others are familir with it as well. He begins sentences with IS THAT used as

an existential, as in



"Okay. Is that we have to see copies of your 1996 tax returns."



"Well, now, thats done. Is that we need to calculate your gross income for

1997."



This guy is a native speaker. Born in New York. Is he weird or what?