Timeline for What's this? What is it? but not What's it? - Why?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
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| Oct 5, 2015 at 20:37 | history | edited | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 8 characters in body
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| Oct 5, 2015 at 20:31 | comment | added | anongoodnurse | @JohnLawler - please forgive me, that answer was written a long time ago. You're correct, of course. I'll edit. | |
| Oct 5, 2015 at 19:34 | comment | added | John Lawler | What's it do? is not ungrammatical; it's the contraction for What does it do? The -'s (really a /z/, but devoiced to /s/ after /t/ from What) can stand for is or does (though not was, the same way -'d can stand for could or did); What's he do? is short for What does he do? | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 9:44 | comment | added | anongoodnurse | @Araucaria - Agree with the above; tchrist nailed the perfect example. You asked a very interesting question. Haven't been overwhelmed with those recently. It's been an interesting discussion! | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 9:37 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @tchrist Very true. As you say above, it's more like Who's It? in that example, so there does seem to be something requiring a stressed word after the contraction even if it's not a complement ... | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 1:06 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | How quickly we forget the childhood game of Tag! Tag, you’re it! Who’s it? I’m it! | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 0:09 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | It also reminds me that nouns derived from similar phrases seemingly always have contracted forms: whatsit, whatchamacallit, etc. Most of them have additional elements, so contractions aren't that odd, but whatsit doesn't. You'd really expect that to be called a whaddisit or something. | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 0:08 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | +1 for your previous answer ( no less for this one). But I don't think I follow with the theory that if there's no emphasis on is the phrase is simply What? If someone gives you a strange object why do you need to stress is in What is it?, but you don't in What's that?. The reasons for stressing is in both examples seem to be the same. What? on it's own doesn't seem to be an adequate response in this situation - imo. What do you think? | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 0:06 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | I think this answers something that is slightly, but crucially, different from the question. When you add more elements to the sentence, you change the basis for stress assignment and thereby also contraction, so though there are many instances of “what’s it […]”, those all end up being incomparable to the ‘simplex’ sentence “*What’s it?”. Now the game show and the Information Today titles, those are very interesting, because they actually do use something that isn't valid as a natural sentence. | |
| Sep 10, 2014 at 0:03 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | It's certainly helpful! :) One of my problems is that the necessary strong - ie not-contracted - form of is is the exceptional bit. As you show, when there are following complements or adjuncts, BE, of course, is always contractible. I'm not sure about the Information Today title, not because it's not a proper title, but because I'm not sure that What's it can be used in real speech as a question in so-called "standard English". Also why obligatory emphasis on is in what is it?, but not in What's that? | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 23:53 | history | answered | anongoodnurse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |