Frozen Custard and Raising/Control in NPs
You might not want to read this story from CNN entitled "Customer finds employee's finger in frozen custard," but I think this usage of a regional term is worth noting anyway. I don't have this term in my dialect, but there's at least one place where it's used in LA, on the marquee of a little place on Hollywood Way in Burbank that specializes in Chicago-style food.
Last week of class here-- I'm VERY happy about this. My last paper of the year is for my syntax class, and I'll be writing about the possibility of raising & control in nominals. I'd be very thankful for judgments about the following three sentences (in English or whatever your L1 is; the claims are, I think, cross-linguistically relevant):
1) John's likelihood to deliver pizzas depends on the weather.
2) John's attempt to deliver pizzas was thwarted.
3) The president's appearance to be sick caused a panic in the White House.
7 Comments:
1) Slightly awkward, but fairly OK.
2) Same as 1.
3) No good.
Good luck with everything!
Hmmm... judgments, eh?
1) John's likelihood to deliver pizzas depends on the weather. BAD.
2) John's attempt to deliver pizzas was thwarted. GOOD.
3) The president's appearance to be sick caused a panic in the White House. BAD.
Here are some Spanish judgements
La posibilidad de Juan repartir pizzas
the likelihood of Juan deliver pizzas
BAD (but...)
La posibilidad de que Juan reparta pizzas
the likelihood of that Juan deliver.1sg.subjunctive pizzas
OK
El intento de Juan de repartir pizzas
The attempt of Juan of deliver pizzas
La apariencia del presidente de estar enfermo
The appearance of the president of be sich
BAD
Hope it helps
All three are intelligible, but only (2) is, in my view, a good sentence. (3) is somewhat more deprecated than (1). None is acutely painful.
TWO doesn't even put a blip on the radar, ONE is something I wouldn't notice in conversation but never produce myself, THREE is brain-meltingly salient.
2 is fine, 1 and 3 no go.
Now, what's this about a "regional term"? We have it in New York (OK, I don't actually live in NYC anymore, but I still identify with it), and googling I find that there are frozen custard places in St Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, Rochester (NY), Alexandria (Va), Las Vegas... What kind of region is that? Why not say that you're not familiar with frozen custard?
LH: That's surprising to me. I first heard of frozen custard when it was described to me as a Chicagoan term, but apparently its distribution is much wider. I stand corrected.
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