Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.ac.net!news.bconnex.net!news.abs.net!news.scn.org!scn.org!lilandbr
From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Re: I take these books...
Message-ID: <DuEnA8.2Mn@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <fmart-0607962246500001@news.ua.pt>  
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 00:42:07 GMT
Lines: 47


In a previous article, fmart@relay.ua.pt (Fernando J. S. Martinho) says:

>I am working on ellipted nouns in the noun phrase, in both Germanic and
>Romance languages.
>
>What I need is to know if an English native-speaker accepts as grammatical
>(part of) the next six sentences:
>
>(What books do you take?     -I take these books.)
>1.    "    "         "             "       -I take these.
>2.   "    "         "             "       -I take these ones.
>3.   "    "         "             "       -I take three.
>4.   "    "         "             "       -I take both.
>5.   "    "         "             "       -I take every.
>6.   "    "         "             "       -I take the oldest.
>
>Do you unconditionally accept some examples?  Reject some others?
>Would you classify some of them in terms of grammaticality?
>What arguments would you invoke then?
>Would you always use 'one'  to end the sentence?
>
Dear Fernando,
I am a native speaker of a rather standard dialect of American English.
Here are my initial reactions to your six sentences and five queries:
Sentences 1 and 2 are more or less synonymous; I'll give a little thought 
to how they differ contextually, and get back to you.
The sentence standing in relation to Sentence 3 as 2 stands to 1 is
"I take three of them." (Not "I take three ones", which is unidiomatic 
and verges on unacceptability.)
Likewise "I take both of them." corresponds to Sentence 4.
Sentence 5 is not acceptable.
Sentence 6 is the only one where "one" could optionally be inserted at 
the end.
There's more to this than this, but I'll have to think on it before I 
further commit myself.

P.S. Aside from a first-year Intro to Linguistics course (Yale, 1972-73), 
I'm a pure layman.

Leland

--
Liland Brajant ROS'       "I don't care if my wheels are comin' off,
P O Box 30091                 long as I got my plastic Zamenhof...."
Seattle, WA 98103 Usono      USONA ANTOLOGIO Baptista Esperantistaro
Tel. (206) 633-2434                 English, especially under duress
