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Re: Disambiguation of arg ument reference

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Friday, October 11, 2002, 15:36
Nik Taylor wrote:


>Andreas Johansson wrote: >> >both. That would sound something like *"What are you putting on the
what?"
>> >invalid for obvious reasons. >> >> Please tell me what those obvious reasons are. I'm afraid I've used such >> constructions more than once, and nobody's ever complained 'bout it. > >Doesn't sound too odd to me. >
Nor for me, PROVIDED that the last "what" (or even both "what"s) receives emphatic stress-- you'd have to be asking for clarification of something just said or heard that you find odd, shocking, unbelieveable etc. e.g. A: "I think I'll put kitty-cat decals on these antique Ming vases....." B: "(What/WHAT) are you putting on the WHAT!!!???" Without those connotations, and with normal intonation, I find it odd. Unlike "Who wants what?" (e.g. asking guests what they'd like to drink), "Who said what?" (asking for a summary of a discussion) or "Who did what to whom?"

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Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>Disambiguation of argument reference