Re: Losing languages ...

In a message dated 9/24/2003 6:31:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
elemtilas@YAHOO.COM writes:

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:

[snip]
>> Fair enough.  But I might say "The candidates
>> are here, and I've interviewed
>> the both of them.", but I would only do that if
>> the fact that there were only
>> two candidates were established.   Otherwise
>> I'd leave out "the" before "both".
>?? If you interviewed (the) both of them, then
>there's only two. I don't see what the difference
>is. If there's more than two candidates, you'd
>have to interview two of them.
>Padraic.

I think the distinction he's making is:

(a) If there are exactly two candidates, and he has interviewed both, and you
(the person he's talking to) _already know_ that there are exactly two, he
can say  to you, "I've interviewed the both of them." (with "the")

(b) If there are exactly two candidates, and he has interviewed both, but
_you do not yet know_ that there are exactly two, then he'd say to you, "I've
interviewed both of them." (without "the")

That is, "the both" is appropriate only if the two-ness of the set of
candidates has previously been established to the hearer as well as the speaker.

Doug

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