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