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Re: It's vs. it is

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 18, 2001, 3:23
Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Your twist, of course applies to the 3rd sg. "I'm leaving for Rome on >Saturday" won't easily be confused with "My leaving for Rome on Saturday".
Quite so. And if you substitute a real noun for the gerund, it's even clearer: Andrea's departure...., my departure....
>Hm, what about this? > >Andrea's leaving for Rome on Saturday, and I'm on Sunday.
No no no. Marginally better: .........., and I on Sunday. But still a little awkward. A non-native intuition: Spanish: Andrea sale para Roma el sábado, y yo el domingo is OK I think. Even Andrea _está saliendo_...., y yo el domingo is also OK?? Of course, no contraction to screw things up.
>Now, try this: > >Andrea's leaving for Rome on Saturday and my on Sunday will be good for our >careers.
Change "my" to "mine" and it goes from *-status to quite acceptable. Of course, "Andrea's leaving" as a NP ultimately derives from "Andrea is leaving", just as "Andrea's leaving" (as a S) does. In some mysterious Chomskyan or McCawleyan way-- I have to confess, my eyes glazed over at this point in the lectures. The other thing is, "Andrea's leaving..." NP will have a different intonation/stress pattern than "Andrea's leaving..." S.