Date:  Wed, 16 Mar 1994 16:18:44 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun?



Actually, there was quite a flurry of discussion on the emergence of 'thats'

as a dialectally attested form, and to what extent this demonstrates the

pronominal, as opposed to complementizer, nature of 'that'. (This exchange

was on Linguist List, not here on ADS.)  The respondents, as I

recall (this was back in Sept. 1991), claimed to have come across 'thats' in

the UK (North London, Scotland, and points in between) and in the U.S.,

although I'm not sure what the geographic distribution is on this side of the

pond. (It wasn't heard around New York, and I'd never come across it since

myself, but maybe it is, as Wayne's posting suggests, an innovative feature.)

Posters agreed that it doesn't occur as a relative on plural nominals (*the

books thats covers are torn) or after a preposition in a pied piping

environment, although the latter might simply indicate a conflict in register.



--Larry