Re: USAGE: Weird dialectal stuff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]On
> Behalf Of DOUGLAS KOLLER
> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 6:37 PM
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> Subject: Re: Weird dialectal stuff
> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > I happen to use constructions like "I didn't made"
> > instead of "I didn't make", that's to say I repeat the past on the
> > auxiliary and the main verb.
> I haven't done an empirical study on this, but my experience with
> this kind
> of phenomenon has been exclusively with Romance speakers (à la: *"He must
> has been.").
Speaking of "must has been," where did the phrase "must needs" come from? I
only started hearing it/seeing it a few years ago, but apparently it's used
in some older versions of the Bible, etc. It always seemed really strange to
me, first of all, because "needs" seems to me to be a conjugated form of "to
need," and second, because it seems redundant.


Eric Christopherson
raccoon@elknet.net