Re: USAGE : English past tense and participle in -et

Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:

> On Sat, Dec 27, 2003 at 01:21:12PM -0800, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> > I like that notion of alot being a quantifier. In
> > this usage, it is clearly not the noun "lot"
> > though it's related.
>
> That's just overcomplicating the grammar to no purpose.
> The set phrase "a lot" may have collapsed into a
> monophonemic unit which is unanalyzed by most native
> speakers, but there's no reason to reinterpret it as a new
> word.
Assuming "monophonemic" is an error for "monolexemic", that seems a very odd
to me. What could the collapse of a phrase into a monolexemic entity be if not
the arising of a new word?

If "monophonemic" is intended, I don't understand at all - regardless of
spelling and analysis, the thing is certainly tetraphonemic!

                                                   Andreas

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