Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 06:38:22 CDT

From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CS.MSSTATE.EDU

Subject: Old Mail (topic: various)



Although I'm still out of town, at least I'm on a Unix-to-Unix connection

now, thank goodness, and can therefore lead a fairly normally e-mail life.

Here's some bounced mail from week before last:



Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 23:11:50 -0400

From: BITNET list server at UGA (1.7f) LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu

Subject: ADS-L: error report from UCLAMVS



The enclosed mail file, found in the ADS-L reader and shown under the spoolid

2174 in the console log, has been identified as a possible delivery error

notice for the following reason: "Sender:", "From:" or "Reply-To:" field

pointing to the list has been found in mail body.



-------------------- Message in error (95 lines) -------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 20:10 PDT

From: benji wald IBENAWJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UCLAMVS.BITNET

Subject: Re: Does Anybody Have Yesterday's Digest?



Hey! What happened to the ANYMORE discussion. I was gonna give a big spiel

on positive anymore, but only as compensation for changing the subject. Now

I see that the list is so volatile that I can dispense with that discussion

-- unless anybody wants to hear it -- and just change the subject.



If I WDA KNOWN YOU WERE COMIN I'D A BAKED A CAKE

IF I HADDA KNOWN ...

IF I WD KNOW YOU WERE COMIN ...

IF I WD KNOW SPANISH I CD GET A BETTER JOB

IF I WD BE YOU I WDN'T DO THAT



Do any of these strike anybody out there as peculiar? Which? Why? Where

are YOU from?



The main point, of course, is the "non-root" use of the WOULD in if clauses.

This seems to be sweeping the country in the last generation from problematic

origins. It is not part of my original New York City dialect, but I've even

noticed it there recently. The only comment I've ever seen on it outside

of my own is Trudgill & Hannah's assertion that it is "American". Trudgill's

the expert on British dialects, but I suspect it came to the US from Britain

even if it hasn't survived there. The "hadda", of course, is attested in

Britain at least as far back as Caxton. Jespersen says it's a back formation

from contracted 'd ( would) to "had", so ... In the US my impression

is that "hadda" is basically Southern, which, of course, includes Southern

California, since I think the definition of "Southern" is any place where

it's lower class to maintain the "which/witch" distinction.



Although spread of the modal (or its equivalent) from the consequent to the

conditional clause is a commonplace across languages, there seem to be

subtleties to the use of "would" according to the distinction between

active and stative verbs, hence the strangeness of

when I was six years old I WOULD (= USED TO) live across the street

from the school.

That's why I carefully chose the examples I gave above.

I first became aware of WD in if-clauses in studying the East LA community,

a bilingual English-Spanish community with English dominance. When I told

a class I thought it was Spanish influence I lost authority, because the

students told me "everybody" in LA talks like that. They were right. Like

other things you don't notice till you notice, then I noticed it just

about everywhere. However, there seem to be constraints along the lines

I suggested above. These are what interest me most, but I'm also interested

in the current geographical distribution of "hadda" and where, if anywhere,

there is across-the-board insistence on the simple pasts in if-clauses of

such conditionals, my native dialect -- but unfortunately for interpreting

judgments, also the standard.

I've written about the problems involved and the subtleties in an article

in Norbert Dittmar, ed. (1993) Modality and Second Language Acquisition,

Berlin: De Gruyter (I forgot the exact name of the article, something about

modality in East LA with notes on general American modal use in speech)



where I concentrate on East LA and limitations to linguistic assimilation.

But there's a lot more to be done on its use in other American English

dialects, and that can affect to some extent the conclusions I reached

even in that paper.



I fear that if it is not attended to until the next generation

it will have already taken over, it seems to be spreading that

quickly, and they will be arguing about how it started and spread, and have

a dim opinion of us for not noticing and documenting it. Benji Wald