Re: It's vs. it is

In a message dated 4/16/01 6:45:21 AM, nsampat@IX.NETCOM.COM writes:

<< Someone brought up the fact that it's okay to say "It's a frog", but not
okay to say things of the nature of *"I don't know where it's".  I thought
about this a little.. it seems that there's some fine distinction between the
contraction and the phrase, that I'm at a total loss to describe. >>

Well, while part of my description didn't work (mood/aspect markers only), it
is still true that you can only contract in the relative subject position.
So, you can say "It's what I want", but also "I know that it's what I want",
since the last part's an embedded clause.  I think that explains it.  Any
other facets unexplained as of yet?

-David

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