Comments on: "Would of like to of VERBed"

By: Ellen K.

Ellen K. — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:53:12 +0000

For me, it seems like the vowel is a bit fronter in "what've" than in "could've" ("could of"), and thus is doesn't match "of".

As for "why of you" and "Who of you", when I say those "have" is reduced to just the v, no vowel at all, and I believe that's pretty typical. So, based on pronunciation, we shouldn't expect and "of" spelling there.

By: Pflaumbaum

Pflaumbaum — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:21:39 +0000

Isn't that evidence against the 'mis-spelling' analysis? After all, it's still pronounced the same as of in that position. A cursory look on Google shows a similar paucity of Why of you... and Who of you examples. Doesn't this support the theory that people are analysing could of, should of and other examples following a modal, as well as (sometimes) to of, differently?

By: Catanea

Catanea — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:14:14 +0000

An why doesn't the "of" spelling seem to come out in a construction like "What've you got"? I might write it like that, but I tried (badly?) googling "What of you got" and all but one of the remarkably few instances that appeared were mis-typing-ish for "What if you got…"
That really surprised me.

By: Nancy Jane Moore

Nancy Jane Moore — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:16:01 +0000

My 9th grade English teacher corrected this particular usage on one of my papers, and while I would like to have never made the error, it made me very aware of the difference between the way something sounds and the way it should be written.

By: Pflaumbaum

Pflaumbaum — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:31:16 +0000

@ Faldone -

In my idiolect it's /ɔ/. But that only applies in rare examples where it's stressed, or unstressed but in its strong form, as the above Well you SHOULD of. Normally it's /ə/.

By: Faldone

Faldone — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:01:09 +0000

Just a question for the proponents of the LOT vowel. Would that be /ɔ/ or /ɑ/?

By: Barbara Partee

Barbara Partee — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:39:32 +0000

Didn't we discuss this some time ago? I seem to recall reporting on my first realizing that not all these "of"s could be seen as versions of "have" when my son (maybe age 9 or so) said "If you had of been there, you would of liked it"; and since neither he nor I had "had have" in our dialect, I figured this "of" must be emerging as something like a counterfactual-conditional-marker -- but I've never studied it, though I would of liked to of. [(myl) You're right. You posted "Wouldn't of have", 2/21/2009. Two other somewhat-relevant posts are "Ask Language Log: 'will have had gone'?", 3/6/2012, and "Couldan't, shouldan't, wouldan't", 7/31/2004.]

By: M

Wed, 09 May 2012 07:49:40 +0000

I understand the misanalysis, but it still grates with me because "of" and "'ve" are *not* homophonous in my dialect (and therefore, when reading, the voice in my head says something that sounds rather weird). The reduced form of "have" has a schwa, while "of" has a LOT vowel.

By: Pflaumbaum

Pflaumbaum — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:56:40 +0000

Thanks, Professor Lawler. Very clear as usual.

By: John Lawler

John Lawler — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:53:51 +0000

@Pflaumbaum: The syllabic peaks are all syllabic consṇṇs. If this is what you call a "vowel", then, yes. If not, then no. Digital terminology is of little real help when dealing with a continuous spectrum. I certainly tend to say personal as trisyllabic ['pʰṛsṇḷ], though often enough I go bisyllabic and the [ṇ] loses its syllabicity. But others vary, too. Think how many milion times the word personal is actually pronounced (and remembered in the muscle habits) by the many million English speakers in the world every day. Each event is unique, and we have various ways of representing some parts of that uniqueness. That's all.

By: Pflaumbaum

Pflaumbaum — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:33:35 +0000

Are we really talking about a vowel-less personal here? Or is it that the vowels are r-coloured and/or vocalic [l̩]?

By: John Shutt

John Shutt — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:54:15 +0000

@chh

I *like* hurdlers; it seems more robust than my example, i.e., I'd expect to pronounce it vowellessly in a wider range of circumstances. Whether I put vowels in personal seems to depend (as best I can figure) on how quickly I'm speaking, which is in turn somewhat related to degree of formality. I might say quellingly "It's prsnl", but "I would deem it a prsonal favor".

By: YM

YM — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:27:11 +0000

In written form, at least, this goes back a long time. Google Books has examples of 'should of' and 'ought to of' going back to the 19th century.

By: Pflaumbaum

Pflaumbaum — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:36:33 +0000

@Ellen K, Matt_M Not as a preposition, then, but nevertheless as of rather than have. I believe that, when not being careful, I have NW's /ɔv/ in phrases like Well you SHOULD of. I was going to mention this before but decided it was too anecdotal to count as evidence on LL. I should of probably stuck to that decision, but I seem to have reanalysed it.

By: Mark F.

Mark F. — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:32:45 +0000

This reminds me of the I'm'a/I'm gonna/I'm going to phenomenon. There is at least some debate over whether "I'm going to" is an accurate transcription of "Ima", but a lot of people think it is accurate for "I'm gonna". But "did not" isn't considered accurate if the person said "didn't".

With "I'd like to have met her", the pronunciation of "have" can range all the way from /hæv/ in rare cases of emphasis down to just a schwa in especially reduced cases. "To've" is sometimes used, but "to have" is I think more a common spelling for all those pronunciations.

It makes it easier to see how Latin could evolve into the Romance languages.