Re: "too smart a bird"
John Seal
news:too-a-2011...@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de...
> »This is too smart a bird.« (3')
»This is too smart of a bird.« (3'')
Judging from other threads, at least.
John Lawler
> »This is smart.« (0)
>
> »This is too smart.« (1)
>
> »This is a smart bird.« (2)
>
> *»This is a too smart bird.« (3)
> »This is too smart a bird.« (3')
>
> one gets (3), but instead one uses (3') IIRC.
>
> Is there a name for the construction as in (3')?
> Is there a rationale for not using (3) but (3')?
"Too" is part of a construction, and must be used
in accordance with that construction. Like many
English constructions, there is often material
left out that makes it hard to see what's going on.
"Too smart a bird" is a construction formed
from a NP like (putting back all the stuff that's left out)
a bird which is too smart for [the bird to VP/
(for one) to V the bird]
which in turn comes from
a bird which is so smart that [the bird does/can not VP
one does/can not V the
bird]
(where VP refers to a default Verb Phrase,
deleted in context, and V is the verb of that VP)
Note that it's not clear what role "bird" plays in the reduced
relative clause -- it may be too smart to eat poisonous food
(Subject), or too smart for a hunter to trap it (Object). As Mark
Brader pointed out recently in a different thread, this is common
in English.
If everybody already understands the context, they can dispense
with most of the stuff; but "too smart" has to go into the Quantifier
slot of the NP, where it precedes the article, because it *is* a
quantifier and refers to the stuff that's been deleted.
The ungrammaticality of "too small box" is part of
what makes the adventures of Maru so entertaining:
http://www.youtube.com/user/mugumogu#p/u/7/2XID_W4neJo
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue
"Because in our brief lives, we catch so little of the vastness of
history, we tend too much to think of language as being solid as
a dictionary, with granite-like permanence, rather than as the
rampant restless sea of metaphor that it is." -- Julian Jaynes
annily
seems to be common in the US. It makes no sense.
--
Long-time resident of Adelaide, South Australia,
which probably influences my opinions.
John Seal
news:4d3f...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> I hope you're not serious. I hate that needless addition of "of", which
> seems to be common in the US. It makes no sense.
It was a joke.
I had just been reading the thread about the extra "of", which is extremely
common around here (central Indiana).