Re: V2
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, November 14, 1999, 0:56 |
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"Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> *Only then I would have spoken to him
This is actually grammatical in my dialect IF "only" means something
like "except", i.e.,
"Only, then I would've spoken to him". Hard to say exactly when I'd use
it, I think it's more of a pragmatic thing.
> So, the adverbs seem to also trigger Do-support, as with
> questions and negations.
Well, the Do-support goes without saying, since subjects can never
follow the main verb in Modern English, unless that verb is _be_ or _do_
(or _have_ in some dialects), except perhaps in poetry and Yodaic.
--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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