Re: Have Had, Had Have (Was Re: Posting limits)

yonjuuni@EARTHLINK.NET wrote:

<<In the example given by David, he wrote "I would've had to've had
eaten", using the phrase "[ha]ve had eaten".

To me, that just sounds bizarre, and I don't *think* I've ever heard it
before, though I may have heard it and just thought it was an error.>>

I know I've heard it from more people than just myself.

Trebor wrote:

<<I agree. 'If he'd have gone' sounds fine, but 'If he've had gone' sounds
very weird...>>

You of course meant "If he'd've had gone", right?   Admittedly, out of the
blue it sounds strange, but given the right context, is sounds like the most
appropriate expression, to me.   So, if we were talking about a guy, X, who
was supposed to have had gone to the store by, say, five, and five o'clock
roles around, and he hasn't gone yet, and he gets in trouble, then I in this
time and place (talking about *that* time and place) could very easily say,
"If he'd've had gone, he wouldn't be in trouble now."   ("Now" meaning
"then",
of course.   Precisely: At the specific time in question.   English needs a
word
for that.)

Though Emily got the sentence wrong (missed a "had"), I think she may be
onto something with the modal idea:

Emily wrote:

<<However, the construction eludes me
a bit because the "would've" is a conditional past - as in "if i had
wanted to go, i would've...">>

To continue that sentence, "If I had wanted to go, I would've had gone."
That would be the way to *seemingly* complete the sentence, if the
sentence were a simple case of ellipsis.   (E.g., "I'll go to the store if
you will
[deleted part = "go to the store"].)   It doesn't seem to be, though.
Perhaps
"would've" or [wU4@v], in many cases [wU4@] is taking on a life of its
own, which is what helps to warrant a double "have"
construction--specifically
because the "-'ve" part is no longer analyzed as "have".   Maybe?

(Oh, also Emily wrote: <<plus the use of the "had to have Xed",
which is saying that at said time, I must have already eaten.>>   Those
weren't
the "have"'s I was talking about.)

And. wrote:

<<You can point out to people in your department (Berkeley,
isn't it? Surely they should know better! Hopefully at least the
people in Tom Wier's department would know better)>>

No, no, not anymore: UCSD.

Continuing with what And. wrote:

<<that McCawley,
peace be upon him & his blessed memory, discusses this in _The
syntactic phenomena of English_ & constructs an ingenious argument
about the auxiliary _have_ being an expression of past tense (the
grammatical feature, not merely the semantic notion).>>

That seems like something I'd very much like to take a look at.   Thanks!

-David
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"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

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