Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 00:44:23 CST

From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET

Subject: Re: Anyone familiar with the following expressions?



A. A. Hill quote in class a sentence he'd actually heard, with all the

"objects":

We've elected us Ike president.

As I recall, he indicated that the speaker gave signals of awareness that he

was playing with language, but not violating grammaticality. It seems to me

that the question is statistical probability or something like that rather

than straight-out grammar.

I'm gonna fry me an egg right now

I'm gonna buy me a Power Mac as a retirement present ('myself' would not have

the same reading for me)

I'm gonna read me a book right now

So you fried you an egg and ate it immediately, did you?

I bought me a good book yesterday

*He bought him a good book yesterday

?You bought you a good book yesterday



This construction has very limited probabilities of occurrence -- situationally

constrained. One could "dismiss" them as something like figurative use of

language. Or is this part of the creative element inherent in human language?

DMLance