Re: USAGE: Survey

Thomas Wier wrote:

>Okay, I know I'm not supposed to do this, but need some
>data.  I was attending Richie Kayne's class today at the LSA
>institute on comparative syntax.  A question arose as to
>whether in English there are any present participles that
>are irregular.  I mentioned the verb "to lightning", which
>in my dialect can only have the participle "lightning",
>not "lightninging".  So which is better:
>
>  (1)  It was lightning out last night.  OR
>  (2)  It was lightninging out last night.
>
>In my dialect, I can only get (1).
>=========================================================================
Neither of your "lightning" sentences is acceptable to my ears (native
Southern Californian living in N. California), nor do I recall ever
hearing "lightning" used as a verb.  Only nominal uses such as "There was
lightning..." or "I saw lightning..." work for me.

As to your other question, the only idiomatic phrases that pop to mind that
seem to seem to work outside their usual syntactical framework that I can
think of are the use of the various expletive phrases beginning with "the"
used quasi-adverbally, e.g., The hell I'll pay him! or Get the f**k out of
here!, etc.