Re: What is this construction

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.