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Date: | Tue, 19 Sep 2000 11:31:04 -0500 |
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Joanna,
I find it grammatical. The context for "can" is established by
the "is" of the first clause. Of course, I may have been
influenced by Liz Riddle, our resident expert on sequence of
tenses. I suspect that in this case, as Liz has shown in her
work, choice of form is pragmatically conditioned, not
grammatically.
But I haven't been following this thread, and so I may have
repeated what everyone else has already said.
Herb
>>> [log in to unmask] 09/19/00 12:01PM >>>
"(1)The little child is lonely; he would be happier if he had
someone that
he can play with."
Do any of the native speakers on this list find this sentence
grammatical? I can't imagine this being acceptable to anyone, but
maybe
I'm wrong. The 'that' clause requires 'could'.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 Fax: (805)-756-6374 Dept. Phone.
756-259
E-mail: [log in to unmask] Home page:
http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
**
"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank
Oppenheimer
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