Re: More natural language questions

In a message dated 7/16/01 6:55:30 PM, fortytwo@GDN.NET writes:

<< That's probably a good way to view it, since it's often reduced to "a
lotta" or "alotta", I've also seen it written.  It seems to be perceived
as a single word by most English-speakers. >>

    I wouldn't go that far.  "A lot" may be thought of as one word, but not
"a lot of".  At least, in my experience with third/fourth graders.  They all
spell "a lot" "alot" (and I don't see why it shouldn't be that way), but
rarely "alotta"--they know that's wrong.  They do sometimes write "a lot a"
or "alot a", indicating that they're not sure what word follows "a lot", but
that it is a word on its own.

-David

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