>had had

>>8440553
If it's good enough for the cornfather it's good enough for me.

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>>8440553
>that that

i hadn't had cancer in my system before i saw this thread.

>>8440563
This

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>is is

>>8440553

past perfect tense of possession e.g. "I had had a cat, but then I had a dog"

>>8440565

clarification of a specific object e.g. "I had a cat that that the other cat bit"

>>8440578

okay I'm p sure this is just incorrect grammar

>>8440626
>"I had a cat that that other cat bit"

fixed

>>8440553
>>8440626
It's called the 'pluperfect'.
> I had had
The period of 'having' was in the past and ended in the past.

>>8440565
Subordinating conjunction 'that' with demonstrative pronoun 'that'.
> I had a cat that that dog had bitten.
> I had a cat which that dog had bitten.

>>8440640

>It's called the 'pluperfect'.

It sounds and looks terrible.

Like a flaw in the English language that should've been fixed.

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>>8440553
>booga booga

>>8440553
English is not even my first language and it doesn't sound weird to me. Maybe it did when I learned pluperfect years ago, but I don't have any problem with it now.

>>8440578
>>8440626
>is is

This can be done grammatically, but it is an awkward structure that might be better if worded differently. An example would be something like 'What a book is is a time machine.' Out of context this is probably not the best word order to use, but there could be a justification for it.
This is to say nothing of something like 'That depends on what your definition of "is" is,' which is kind of cheating. Also, when people say 'The thing is is that...', that is completely wrong.

>>8440680
>pluperfect
>terrible
No, it's completely legit and has a very long history

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>buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo

>>8440626
>That cat bit the cat I had
>That cat bit the cat I used to have.
Eh...there are plenty of ways to get around the that "that that" example :^)

>>8440553
>the child is four-years-old
When did this suddenly become acceptable? That usage is all over the place now, but it's totally wrong.

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>it's instead of its
Every time.

>>8440732
I've only seen "four year-old"

>>8440680
Literally every language has the pluperfect, and English is not alone in forming it with auxiliary verbs.

> I had read this thread
> J'avais lu ce fil.
> Ich hatte diesen faden gelesen.
> Hoc filum lexeram.

>>8440640
>subordinating conjunction
In your example it's a relative pronoun dumbass

>>8440760
*legeram

>>8440553
Many people think these constructions look odd in writing. That is a personal aesthetic preference. I personally avoid using "that that" or "had had" when possible, but I also acknowledge that it is part of the English language, and if I come across someone's writing and they use the construction, that is totally fine.

If anyone thinks there's anything wrong with these constructions (had had, that that, is is, etc), other than personal aesthetic preference, they are completely ignorant. "Had" as in possess/certain idioms is a different word than the auxiliary "had." You have no problem with saying "should have" or "was having," so why should you have a problem with "had had?"
The complementizer "that" is a different word than the demonstrative "that." You have no problem saying "which that" or "if that," why would you have a problem with "that that?"

All these constructions are undeniably Standard English. Just because two different words have the same phonological form does not mean they can't appear next to each other. There is clearly not a rule in English that states that two words with identical phonological form must not appear adjacent to each other. Such a rule rules out many perfectly normal constructions. In most American English dialects, "marry" and "Mary" have the same phonological form, and there's nothing wrong with saying "John wants to marry Mary." The only way you could rule these constructions out of the English language would be to posit a rule specifically for each one, and there is no reason to do so.

Additionally, you hear these constructions constantly in spoken English. They sound totally natural. For instance, the complementizer "that" is reduced phonetically, while the demonstrative "that" is not. They have a completely different vowel quality when they're next to each other in spoken English.

This is like saying you should avoid using the passive, or avoid using negation. It is just not consistent with English usage. If that's your personal preference then fine, but there is no reason to believe that it is "better English" to avoid these constructions than not.

>>8440746

If it's something like 'a four-year-old child', that's correct, as long as the whole thing is hyphenated since it's a compound adjective. 'Four year-old' wouldn't be correct either, unless it were something like 'I saw four year-old dogs, and all four of them were playful.'

>>8440803
"Relative pronoun" is not a valid lexical category, and neither is "subordinating conjunction." Funnily enough, it turns out that most of what people call "relative pronouns" and "subordinating conjunctions" are part of a real lexical category called "complementizers." Also, the use of "that" in a sentence like
>John thinks that Mary likes him
and
>John likes the food that he ate as a kid
are the same thing. There is a gap in the second example, "John like the food that he ate as a kid," but "that" is not moved from the gap, "the food" is. Notice that you could say both of these sentences:
>John likes the food he ate as a kid
>John likes the food that he ate as a kid
In other words, you start with the clause [that he ate the food as a kid], and move [the food] to the left edge, giving you [the food [that he ate t as a kid]] (with "t" representing the gap). "That" starts out on the left edge, and "the food" moves around it.

>>8440874
>"Relative pronoun" is not a valid lexical category, and neither is "subordinating conjunction."
I'm cooking some popcorn on my monitor with the heat emanating from that take

>>8440874
Continuing this, if "that" were moved from the gap in that sentence (John likes the food that he ate as a kid) like a WH-word (i.e. "what"), then both forms wouldn't work. For instance,
>John likes what he ate as a kid
is fine, but
>John likes he ate as a kid
is not.

>>8440894
Learn some syntax, bud. Complementizers are legit, "relative pronouns" aren't.

>>8440820

It's an old saying that goes back to Middle English and it's perfectly grammatical.

>>8440626
> I had had a cat that that the other cat bit

>>8440922
It's nigger speak.

Complementizers are a useful concept for anyone interested in Japanese, as the language deals with subordination rather differently from English. There are no relative pronouns in Japanese, but there are obviously complements.

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>>8440626
>>8440722
>>8440819
>>8440922

I love these grammarfriends just blowing everyone straight the fuck out

>>8440563
What is the cornfather ?

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>>8440578
it depends on what the definition of is is.

>>8441122
see two two twin
>>8440722

>>8441122
Iced him

>>8440737
Dumb anime poster

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>James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

>>8440943
every word out of your mouth and text made by your hands is nigger language.

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LEMON

>>8440553
im stealing this meme for redditupvotes

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>I could care less

>>8440626
>what what?

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>>8440692


>>8441741
>should of cared less

>>8440726
What are all possible parse trees of this?

>>8441790
That image isn't true, however I can tell you that the pronoun "I" in Somali is "aniga".

>>8442057
James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.

>>8440818
Thanks.

Why lego and intelligo have different perfects is beyond me.

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>me hi menoy

>>8441603
>dumb anime poster
>on an anime website
ok

>>8440626
>past perfect tense of possession
No. I did have a cat. I had had is a different sense of had like in having a sandwich or a cold. I had had too many drinks.

>>8442372
I hope this is bait, but I'll respond anyway. "Had had" is past perfect. It can be past perfect of possession or past perfect of an idiomatic use of "had." "Have a sandwich" means "eat a sandwich," not necessarily "possess a sandwich." You could say "I had had a sandwich already by the time you got here." You could also use the "possess" use of "had" in past perfect tense to get "had had." "I did have a cat" is not past perfect. That's just simple past with "did" instead of past tense morphology on the verb. Notice that you can do the same with any past tense verb:
>I ate a pizza --> I did eat a pizza
>I invited John and Mary to the party --> I did invite John and Mary to the party
>I bet $20 with Anne on the race --> I did bet $20 with Anne on the race

"Had had" can use the "possess" version of "had." Just to be clear, those two "had"s are different words. You can use both in past perfect constructions, just like you can use any normal verb.
Past perfect "tense" conveys past temporal reference and perfective aspectual reference. That means that the reference time for the event being related precedes the present moment, and the event being related took place prior to the reference time with no overlap. Say our reference time is "when you were in college," and the event is "have a cat." If the event was completed prior to the reference time, then you could say "I had had a cat, but when we moved we couldn't keep it." That would be past perfect.

>>8442569
>That's just simple past with "did" instead of past tense morphology on the verb.
That is terribly incorrect my pseud friend.

>If the event was completed prior to the reference time, then you could say "I had had a cat, but when we moved we couldn't keep it." That would be past perfect.
That would be "did have" again. I think there's a question of mood, that is you can say "had had" under specific circumstances for bona fide possession, but generally no and in all your examples also no. In p much any other sense of had you can use had had though.

The rest of your comment is fluff from dancing around after getting something wrong or, weirdly, agreeing with me.

>>8440553
>>8440565
Steppenwolf 101

>>8441788
>in the butt

>>8442591
"Did have" is interchangeable with "had", ESL-kun. They're both simple past, with differing levels of emphasis.

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>>8440626
>I had a cat that that the other cat bit

>>8442591
I don't know where you learned English, but you don't have a standard dialect. "Did have" is NOT past perfect. "Did + bare verb" is simple past, not past perfect. I don't know how you don't get that. Find any situation where you can use simple past and instead use "did." You get the same meaning. Think about what happens when you form a question with a past tense verb.
>John ate a pizza --> What DID John eat?
It is not past perfect there. You could also say
>John DID eat a pizza --> What DID John eat?
If it were past perfect, it would be
>John HAD eaten a pizza --> What HAD John eaten?
What makes you think "did have" is past perfect? Do you think all the other examples of "did + bare verb" are past perfect too? Also, are you a native speaker of English?

>>8440565
That that that you're angry over this is a sign of illiteracy is really nothing new.

>>8440578
What the fact that stupid is what your comment was and is is is obvious.

>>8442678
Oh, and by the way. 'I had had had a cat' is correct too.

>>8442703
Please explain

>>8442709
I had a fat cat. (past)
I had had a fat cat. (past + participle)
I had had fat a cat. (inversion)
I had had had a cat. ('I had had a cat that is had', namely, that is owned, via grammatical equivalence of adjectives and participles)

>>8442714
>>8442709
The sentence could mean something like 'I used to have a cat that long ago that has been changing owners a lot recently.'.

>>8442591
Notice that when you speak, you would not say "had had," you would almost certainly make the first one into a contraction. This is possible because the first had is an auxiliary verb.
>I would have gotten you a nicer present if only I'd had enough money.
vs
>I would have gotten you a nicer present if only I had had enough money.

>>8442716
>>8442714
I don't understand what's happening with "inversion" in those examples. Could you give an example in an unrelated sentence?

>>8441790
"ooga ooga booga browsing lost" - Google

dooga is grass

dooga mooga on the otherhand is browsing lost.

>>8442723
Sure. I meant inversion in the sense of 'I have a brilliant dad' -> 'I have brilliant a dad'. This rule can be applied to participles like 'had' ('he was had by...') too.

>>8442724
What if you change "ooga" to "uga" or "oga"

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>>8440819

>>8442719
I would never say 'gotten'.

>>8442832
I think it's generally an American English/British English split on whether or not you use "gotten." I do know some older Americans who don't use "gotten" though.

>>8440553
>>>8442709
>I had a fat cat. (past)
Yes.
>I had had a fat cat. (past + participle)
Nope. Where is the 'participle'? It's just the pluperfect of 'to have'.
>I had had fat a cat. (inversion)
Nonsensical.
>I had had had a cat. ('I had had a cat that is had', namely, that is owned, via grammatical equivalence of adjectives and participles)
Nonsensical. If 'had' were to be used in the sense of 'pre-owned' (which it never is), it would be 'I had had a had cat'.

Poor grammar.

>>8442860
What the fuck do you think the 'pluperfect' is? It's past tense with a participial argument. In fact, English only has two tenses, past and present.

As for the rest, it's just 'I haven't heard it, so it's wrong'. Close your syntactic gaps.

>>8442875
>It's past tense with a participial argument.

(As the example goes, the passive of 'I have had' is 'had is had by me'.)

>>8442714
wouldn't the 'a' need to be removed there?

>>8442880
No; why? There is really no difference between past participles and adjectives (cf., oh, 'wasted', which can be seen as both), and the adjectival inversion of 'an adjectival noun' into 'adjectival a noun' requires preservation of the article.

>>8442875
No, it really is not a participle.

The pluperfect in English is formed with the past tense of the auxiliary 'to have', e.g.

> I had read your post

Just because the pluperfect of 'to have' is the awkward 'had had' doesn't make it not an auxiliary verb.

>>8442891
I was talking about the *argument* of the 'had'. 'Had had', 'had gone', ...

>>8442875
>What the fuck do you think the 'pluperfect' is? It's past tense with a participial argument.
No, pluperfect is similar to the perfect (re completed action), but the difference is that unlike the perfect, the effect of the pluperfect action is confined to the past.
>In fact, English only has two tenses, past and present.
We'll start with the future tense for now and leave the rest for later

>>8442897
>pluperfect is similar to the perfect (re completed action), but the difference is that unlike the perfect, the effect of the pluperfect action is confined to the past

Translation: the participle can be an argument of either past ('had done') or present ('have done') tense. Why bring some ridiculous superfluous Latinate terms into this?

>future tense

The bullshit so-called 'modal verbs' are just present tenses with a missing third person marker. Can + could, shall + should, will + would, present + past. No future tense in sight.

>>8442902
>>8442897
In other words, 'I will go' is present tense with an unmarked argument.

>>8442902
>present + past

Or I should rather day 'pass + passed'...

>>8442907
>>8442902
Okay, there is a difference of terms here. I see in particular your point on tense, from a morphological standpoint

>>8442860
A participle is the part of the verbal morphology paradigm that appears with perfective aspect in English.
Here's the paradigm for "go"
Bare: Go
Present: Goes/Go
Past: Went
Participle: Gone
Progressive: Going

The participle appears in the past perfect in English.

Shall we settle this for the undereducated teenagers here with a nice conjugation table. English has more than just present and past tense, it merely doesn't conjugate for them and uses auxiliary verbs.

Present active: I write this.
Present passive: this is written by me.
Present continual active: I am writing this.
Present continual passive: this is being written by me.
Past active: I wrote this.
Past passive: this was written by me.
Imperfect active: I was writing this.
Imperfect passive: this was being written by me.
Future active: I shall write this.
Future passive: this will be written by me.
Perfect active: I have written this.
Perfect passive: this has been written by me.
Pluperfect active: I had written this.
Pluperfect passive: this had been written by me.

With the auxiliaries of condition and supposition, that's it.

>>8442923
>a morphological standpoint
>>8442927
>morphology

Precisely. Education is excusively focused on the concept of 'semantic tense', to the effect of learners being overwhelmed by ridicuous things like 'English has 37 future tenses and 45 past ones' just because those are the ways to 'express' it. Starting with the morphemes is both less intimidating (there's just a couple: -d -t), and builds good habits of morphemic analysis/curiosity.

>>8442933
Oh Jesus Christ. This is exactly the horrible crap that we should get rid of as soon as possible.

>>8442902
You're right that there is no present tense in English. "Tense" in grammar refers to a morphological marker, such as -ed in past tense. Adding an auxiliary like "will" as in "we will eat later" is not future tense. It does let you use future temporal reference though.

>>8442902
>>8442897
>>8442891
"Pluperfect" is the same as past perfect.

>>8442933
Auxiliaries are not tenses. A tense is a morphological marker. What you have listed is a number of ways of expressing different temporal and aspectual references. Many Indo-European languages express these temporal and aspectual references using tense. English does not. Also, active vs passive has nothing to do with tense. It's an argument-structure transformation.

>>8442938
>morphemic analysis

For instance, if say 'gone' and 'written' share the same -n, then a slower student of English would definitely use being told this, so to take early notice of silent letters and how they obscure historical identity and such.

>>8442959
Very well put. I particularly agree with the voice point.

>>8442959
>>8442938
Yeah, the kind of stuff you learn in English classes is usually pretty far from the way things actually work.

>>8440553
>Auxiliaries are not tenses.
Nonsense. Just because English (or French or German) forms tenses with auxiliary verbs, and not morphologically, doesn't make them less of a tense.

>>8442967
If I were an English teacher, the difference between morphemic structure and, like >>8442959 put it, 'temporal reference' would be the subject of my vety first class. Surface structure vs deep structure, isn't it? 'We're leaving' is usually taught to be indicative and present, while in fact the two layers are completely separate. In fact... it might only now have fully dawned on me that it's completely wrong to speak of any 'true' meaning of a morpheme like -d or -s; their histories and applications reach too far back and are too diverse, the senses have been changing too much. Perhaps the way to do it is to use terms like 'indicative' and 'present' solely referring to particular utterances, so here, 'we're leaving' would be future and, uh, 'we're-threatening-you-ive'. (I would have to coin the proper Latinate term.) And it needs to be stressed to students that affixes at no point have any 'true' denotation, because they're too dependent on historical and usage context.

Just a loose rant.

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>>8442981
>>8442981
You're thinking of temporal and aspectual reference. Temporal reference places the reference time of an action with respect to the utterance time. Aspectual reference places the event time with respect to the reference time. "Tense" and "aspect" are terms that refer to morphology. Tense and aspect are just one way to express temporal and aspectual reference.

You might think that the auxiliary forms a kind of "compound verb" with the lexical verb, so it's not that different from a morphological tense. That's actually incorrect, at least in English. The auxiliary takes the whole verb phrase as its complement. A sentence like "We will eat pizza" would have a structure like pic related.

It might seem like this is just a pointless terminological distinction, but it's necessary if we're going to be consistent when we talk about English. For instance, you could say something like "I'm visiting the zoo tomorrow," or "I leave for Paris next weekend." The verbs in those examples aren't marked for future tense, yet future temporal reference is conveyed. The words "tomorrow" and "next weekend" are what give you the future temporal reference. We wouldn't refer to those as "tenses." It wouldn't be consistent to refer to the use of "will" or other auxiliaries to convey future temporal reference as "future tense" either. They are separate words that convey future temporal reference.

Also, auxiliaries are marked for tense themselves. If you want to call the auxiliary a tense, you would have to say that tenses can be marked for tense.

>>8440722
>which is kind of cheating
kind of. I mean, to his point, is a blowjob cheating?

>>8443158

The sexual act is completely irrelevant here and only of puerile interest. Using his sentence as a valid example of 'is is' is cheating because what's in quotes is arbitrary instead of being itself integral to the grammar of the sentence (just like in this sentence, so no threefer for me).

>>8443158
It really is cheating. I'm looking up a thread from searching >same time three times in a row, and aside from this nice effort:

>If you were to second-guess your decision to book time to visit a Native American community, that would be a reservation reservation reservation.

Every attempt just uses quotes or names.


What I'm thinking about at the moment is the list of words that can occur infinitely in a row (outside of participles of course, 'considering considering considering...').

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>>8440553
>so so

>>8443190
He did so so so beautifully to state his point.

>>8443182
>reservation reservation reservation
nice one.

I know there's an example with "buffalo" multiple times in a row.

>>8443230
Yes, but it was posted in this thread already, and it uses a (city) name. Besides, it's uninflected: it's a flat borrowing, it's not really English.

>>8443244
Or more accurately: it's uninflected even in normally inflected contexts, e. g. in plural. That's what makes is somewhat lazy. A word that, unlike 'reservation', always has the same form is wildcard for this game (unlike 'that' or 'is' or 'had', which can't go everywhere.)

>>8443244
>It uses a city name
What's wrong with using a city name?
>It's uninflected
What part is uninflected?
>It's a flat borrowing
What do you mean by this?

You can get 3 without the city name too. "Buffalo which are buffaloed by buffalo" could be "buffalo buffalo buffalo."

>>8443257
>It's uninflected in plural
There are a lot of words whose plural form looks the same as the singular. It applies to a lot of different animals, like deer, goose, moose, fish. I don't see why that should make them less English. Used as a verb it has inflectional verbal morphology like "buffaloes" or "buffaloed."

>>8443271
>>8443291
Also, "buffalo" has been in English for 400 years.

>>8443271
>What's wrong with using a city name?

Because there's a name for basically any short English word -- some Chinese town, for instance -- so you basically get a free qualifier ('Cat cat...', 'Shoe shoe', ...). Same as quotations: 'who say "say" say'.

>What part is uninflected?

As I said, the plural. It's not 'buffaloes', but 'buffalo', basically meaning that knowledge of minor points such as, off the top of my head, 'if' in 'pretty if useless' or inversions like 'what this is is' counts for less. It's as if you took a word that is never marked at all and said 'foo foo foo foo foo foo foo' because it means 'catty cats cat cats' uncatty catness cattily'.

>flat borrowing

I meant that it recognizable as one, unlike mediaeval ones.

>>8443306
For the idea that you want to exclude names because almost any word can also be a name, if you want that to be part of the challenge then whatever, there's no reason to do the opposite either.

On the inflection thing, I really don't understand what you're talking about.
>knowledge of minor points such as, off the top of my head, 'if' in 'pretty if useless' or inversions like 'what this is is' counts for less
I do not understand this

>>8443328
I meant that there's a difference between ONE word that is inflected except looks the same every time, so you can basically just repeat it in a regular sentence and say that it's inflected, only 'invisible', as it is in case of those plurals, and between homophones, or uninflected words like prepositions. Stringing three prepositions is possible, but not that trivial. 'Those I thought of of of course no noble extraction...'.

>>8443328
>'if' in 'pretty if useless'

That could be used for something like 'pretty if if I'm honest with you useless'. I'm not sure three ifs are possible.

>>8440553
>yfw germanic tribes were so retarded that had to use the demonstrative as a complementizer.

In Spanish, and all Romance languages, we have 'que'.

>>8443375
With the "pretty if useless" thing, is it a parenthetical? Like you're saying "It's pretty, if useless" and adding "if I'm honest with you" between "if" and "useless?" That would make sense.

>>8443402
"that" actually started out as a complementizer

>>8443517
Yes. Splitting phrases like that is a major part of linguistic evolution: cf. those people ITT who objected to my perception of 'I have a cat' and 'I've done that' as the very same lexical verb, insisting that the latter is 'another tense'. While the proper perspective is unification of the 'have' and, so to say, relegation of the difference from the whole fixed phrase to the type of the argument, if that makes sense.

>>8443517
Only I hope you appreciate the difference between 'it's X if Y' and 'it's X, if Y' (= 'if Y, then it is X')

>>8443544
>Have as in "have a cat" is the same as have as in "have done that"
In some dialects, "have" as in "have a cat" is an auxiliary, and so is "have" as in "have done that." But that's not the case in, for example, Standard American. One is an auxiliary and one is a lexical verb. If you're a native speaker, we can look at some of the properties of both "have"s in your dialect to see if there's any differences.

>some people insist that have as in "have a cat" and "have done that" are different because they are different tenses
They aren't different tenses, right. Both "have"s are marked for present tense in those examples.

>>8440640
>It's called the 'pluperfect'.

No it isn't. It's called past perfect.

>>8443556
My understanding was that your example was the paratactic construction "it's X, if Y" meaning "though it's Y, it's X," not the conditional "it's X if Y" meaning "if Y, then it is X."

>>8443626
Same thing, different names.

>>8443647
Sure but pluperfect or plus quam perfectum, isn't really used in normal speech.

>>8443619
>In some dialects, "have" as in "have a cat" is an auxiliary

Meaning what? What's the difference between 'regular' and 'auxiliary' having a cat?


Either way, people often object to correct forms owing to their rigid unwillingness to transform. For instance, over-binding 'is' + a qualifier, in that order, might result in people objecting to forms like 'awesome is what I would call this game if only...'.

>>8443717
>isn't really used in normal speech

By the way, I detest this pseudoargument. 'It's unusual!' 'It's uncommon!' So is, hopefully, every fucking novel and piece of art you read and see. You better start appreciating uncommon speech and rare words in everyday usage, or it seems that you're a hypocrite who only reads for the status of literacy and not out of universal appreciation of the new.

>>8443730
>You better start appreciating uncommon speech and rare words in everyday usage

Why? So you can gloat about your upper class education by using words the plebs don't?

Kill yourself my man.

>>8443717
fair enough. some people still will call it pluperfect

>>8443719
Also notice the difference between (1) 'beautiful is this girl' as an inversion of 'this is girl is beautiful', which still maintains the general order of 'class member has a descriptor', and (2) 'beautiful is this girl' as a new order, in which, so to say, and tap into equation of 'this girl' with the trait in general.

>>8443751
I have no higher education.

>>8443768
>in which, so to say, and tap into equation of 'this girl' with the trait in general
*we move beyond inversion and

>>8443719
>What's the difference between "regular" and "auxiliary" having a cat
The difference is syntactic. There are several syntactic properties used to distinguish auxiliaries from lexical verbs in English. For instance, auxiliaries can appear with negation and ellipsis, but lexical verbs can't. We can apply these diagnostics to "have," which can be a problematic case, since as I have mentioned, it is an auxiliary in some dialects such as very formal British English. Applying the test to perfective "have" (1) and possessive "have" (2) would look like this (in Standard American):
>Negation
I have not done that
*I have not a cat
1 is acceptable, 2 is not
>Ellipsis
I told you that I have done that, and now you see that I have __. (interpreted as "have done that")
*I told you that I have a cat, and now you see that I have __. (interpreted as "have a cat")

>>8443823
I see. Thanks.

'I have not a cat' is fine to me both as regular negation (= 'I don't have a cat') and emphatic negation ('I have not one cat'), but I agree that your second example sounds wrong to me. Not that it changed my mind with respect to that it's still correct, just uncommon. I firmly believe that arbitrary limitations on parallel transformations should be discarded.

>>8443845
>"I have not a cat" is fine to me both as regular negation and emphatic negation.
Nice, I didn't know that was possible. "Have" is one of the more problematic cases for these tests. There are two more tests as well, Inversion and Contraction. These are the tests that reveal that "have" (as in "have a cat") really is an auxiliary for speakers of certain registers. The tests would look like this:
>Inversion
Have I done that?
*Have I a cat?
1 is acceptable, 2 is not (Standard American judgments)
>Contraction
I haven't done that
*I haven't a cat
1 is acceptable, 2 is not (Standard American judgments)

You can find isolated examples where it seems like possessive "have" works in these tests, especially for speakers of more formal dialects. For instance, it wouldn't be marked to hear:
"have you any idea how this is supposed to work?" (inversion)
"no, I haven't a clue." (contraction)
Still, it's clear that "have" as in "have a cat" has different syntactic properties from "have" as in "have done that"

>>8443874
>I didn't know that was possible.

As my English teacher in university used to say, as you learn a language, you realize that more and more things you thought were wrong are in fact correct. In another schoolteacher fantasy of mine, I give a test of my students containing various caveates, likes of 'What say you?' rather than 'What do you say?' or 'extream' rather than 'extreme', and ask them to check all that they think are wrong. In reality, of course, all would be right.

Also, 'haven't a clue' is a great example of an exception.

>>8443900
>of my students
*for my students

>>8443900
>'haven't a clue' is a great example of an exception

(Although probably because the possessed object is semantically basically a state, 'haven't understood'.)

>>8443900
I'm a native speaker of Standard American, it's just that it's not possible in my dialect.

>>8443933
No, I didn't imply that you're not aware of something, you're clearly a specialist. I just shared a saying.

>>8443291
> plural form looks the same as the singular
> goose
geese

Also, fish technically has no plural, 'fishes' is in common usage.

>>8443874
> have I a cat?
> I haven't a cat
Fine in International/British English.

>>8443626
'Past perfect' and 'pluperfect' are the same thing.
>>8443717
Pluperfect *is* 'plus quam perfectum'.
> plus quam perfectum
> pluquamperfect
> pluperfect

And it's used all the time.

>>8440726
Hey Dan!

>>8443940
>fish technically has no plural
In the sense that the plural could be either "fish" or "fishes"

>fine in international/British English
That indicates that "have" is an auxiliary in those dialects.

>>8443979
> That indicates that "have" is an auxiliary in those dialects
No, it's just a verb meaning 'to possess'.

Switching the order of verb and pronoun is the older way to form questions without the auxiliary verb 'to do'.
> Do you understand?
> Understand you?
> Do you have a pen?
> Have you a pen?

Putting 'not' after the verb is the older way to negate without the auxiliary 'to do'.
> I do not understand
> I understand not
> I do not have a pen
> I have not a pen

Both fine, but old fashioned now.

>>8440726
You wrote this sentence incorrectly.

>Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

>>8444018
If it passes any of those tests, then it's an auxiliary. "Dare" and "need" are also auxiliaries in some dialects.

>>8443956
?

>>8444018
>>8444018
If your dialect allows "understand you?" and "I understand not" then you have a very rare dialect, and that's pretty cool. However, those expressions are unacceptable for most speakers of English today.

I just want this thread to go away

>>8444122
The instant I saw it, I wanted to ask you if grammar threads are regular here on /lit/. (In fact I'm not sure what made me check this board out in the first place.)

>>8444129
They come up every few weeks and it's never any fun for anybody. I don't know why I keep checking here.

>almost 150 posts of argument about grammatical correctness
>when OP almost certainly just meant for grammatical constructions that annoy you or look/sound stupid
/lit/'s autism is off the charts

>>8444088
The first is too odd, but the second is literally the same as 'I do not'.

>>8444152
> he doesn't enjoy arguing about the definitions of pluperfect verbs
What do you do with your life?

>>84444
yeah, you eggheads need to stop this crap and show me the memes

>>8444471
>the second is literally the same as "I do not"
It doesn't sound too weird when it's just a short sentence (that tends to happen with shorter sentences), but try adding arguments.
>I understand not this thread
>I understand not the point you're trying to make
>I understand not that this thread is ready to die
That sounds really bad to me. It doesn't have to sound bad to you, but these are the canonical judgments used in linguistics. Would you concede that the standard "I don't understand" sounds much more natural?

>>8444515
It may sound 'weird', but it's technically correct.

> This thread dies not.

>>8444515
I feel not that you're correct, but that you're simple.

>>8443158
lol underrated post

>>8444428
I had had made this thread just to shit post. Haven't even read posts that aren't replies to my OP

>>8444515
It does not sound bad as much as introduces uneasy ambiguity, because we suspect the 'not' introduces an opposition, '...not A but B'.

>>8444519
As much as I'd like us to speak like that, languages are not usually standardized, and thus the word 'technically' is pushing it.

>>8444552
>I had had made this thread

I believe that was a typo and you meant 'I made made this thread'.

>>8444519
By the way, your post made me realize that 'not' is an adjective. 'Not', 'more not', 'most not'.

I had had an idea to make a shit post thread and it it turned out to be to be successful in accomplishing its its goal.

>it it's
>it's it

>>8445164
>it's its
>its it's

File: 1341296977909.jpg (29KB, 283x357px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 283x357px

>>8440692
>and but so

>>8440563
>cornfather
'please no corn father'

>>8445164
is it it's?

File: burglarman.jpg (20KB, 419x419px) Image search: [Google]

20KB, 419x419px

>my my

File: goat.jpg (33KB, 311x263px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 311x263px

>>8445175
>ha ha

>>8447046

My myocardium can't handle much more of this thread