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Re: What is this construction

From:Ph.D. <phil@...>
Date:Monday, September 19, 2005, 19:14
caeruleancentaur wrote:
> > On Sep 19, 2005, at 7:16 AM, Peter Bleackley wrote: > > > > English occasionally uses a sentence structure of the form Pronoun > > Verb Object, Aux Subject where Aux is a form of "to do" or "to be" > > (or possibly another modal). For example, He liked languages, did > > Tolkien. It may be a particularly Northern English form. Does anyone > > know what such a construction is called? > > I do not know whether this construction has an official name or not. > I think it should be called an emphatic ellipsis. The latter part > ("did Tolkien") consists of "to do" used as a periphrastic emphatic > plus and ellipsis: "He liked languages, Tolkien did like languages." > > BTW, I couldn't form this kind of sentence using "to be" as the AUX. > I always wind up with a question!
I've only heard this with the auxiliary at the end: He liked languages, Tolkien did. The auxiliary can be "to be" only if the main clause has "to be": He was happy writing stories, Tolkien was. --Ph. D.