Herb,
It looks like I mistyped at the start of my post. I meant to say "I
don't think people would normally say "the two last people on earth."
The normal (or default) would be "the last two people on earth."
That's not to say your point isn't well made. We need to be careful
about "normal." And "the two last people on earth is certainly
possible," which means it can act as an adjective. On the other hand,
frequency is a very important part of meaning, and it does create a
great deal of stability in the system. I don't think of these as
"rules" so much because, as you say, we have a great deal of
flexibility. But I would stand by my analysis of "the last grill brush
you will ever need" as using "last" as an ordinal numeral. If it was
simply "the latest" grill brush, the whole force of the ad would
collapse. They are advertising durability and satisfaction. They want,
I think, to imply that you will never need or want another one,
however hyperbolic that might be.
There may not be a normal in intonation, but there are stable
relations between meaning and form. I can intone a statement as a
question by a rise in pitch. We can signal a word group as restrictive
or non-restrictive through intonation. In general, given is not
intonationally stressed, but new information is given tonic
prominence.
One of my favorite old words is "quick", which once meant "living" if
my memory is correct. And "kind," which was once closer to "natural."
We do have those remnants: "the quick and the dead"; "in kind." I
agree that "last" has some of its history intact.
Craig
Craig,
>
> As you're aware from both your functional and your cognitive work, what we
> would normally say depends entirely on situation. It wouldn't be hard to
> come up with a suitable context, say, a murder investigation trying to
> narrow down who saw the victim last. I'm not sure there is a "normal" in
> sentence structure, at least not in the sense I think you're using the
> term. As Susan Schmerling put it a long time ago in her dissertation on
> intonation, "There is no normal sentence intonation." ToBI analyses of
> English intonation bear that out.
>
> "Last," of course, behaves both as an ordinal and as a superlative, not
> surprising given its origin as a superlative and subsequent
> grammaticalization and reduction followed by the later development of the
> doublet "latest." Words carry their history with them and not
> infrequently upset our analyses because of it. Think of
> /cleave/clove/cloven/cleft/cleaved and all the specializations there
> arising from an OE strong verb and an OE weak verb. The two verbs are
> identical now, but they've left the lexicon littered with their castoffs.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
> Sent: Friday, December 24, 2010 11:15 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Independent clause or noun phrase
>
> Herb,
> I don't think we would normally say "She was one of the last two
> people to see him alive." Normal would be "the last two people," which
> is the usual order for ordinal and cardinal numerals. It is strange to
> say "the last second man" because there can only be one second man.
> ("This would differ if you meant something like "second baseman" or
> "second violinist"; last would be Ok there because they act like a
> compound noun (a set phrase.)
> I think there are occasions when "last" would mean something like
> "latest." The "last report" and "latest report" both leave open the
> chance of a new report, though there are contexts in which "last"
> would be a final element. "The last words she spoke," for example, would
> mean something very different from "the latest words she spoke".
> "Latest" would tend to translate to "most recent" and last would usually
> be qualified with a point in time: "before she died" or "before she left
> for Paris."
> In the sentence in question, I think "last" is acting like an ordinal
> numeral. "This is the latest grill brush she will ever need" doesn't
> mean the same thing.
> >
>
> Craig,
>>
>> You're right that "last" is not a negative polarity item. In this
>> example, "ever" is the negative polarity item. Many negative polarity
>> items occur in irrealis contexts as well, as Bruce pointed out, and
>> it's the "will" that provides the irrealis context in the sentence
>> we're talking about. I got the function of "last" wrong.
>>
>> "Last," however, behaves like the superlative it is, arising
>> historically from OE "latost." "Last" and "latest" are a doublet in
>> modern English and "latest" developed in the 15th c. We can say, for
>> example, "She was one of the two last people to see him alive" or, as
>> in the film title, "The Last Man on Earth." These are both places
>> where an number word cannot occur. We can get "the second last man on
>> earth" but not "the last second man on earth." This suggests that
>> "last" is an adjective. Semantically it overlaps with ordinals and
>> also can as an ordinal, just as nouns can function as other lexical
>> categories.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
>> Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 7:08 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Independent clause or noun phrase
>>
>> I would classify "last" as an ordinal numeral: first, second,
>> third...last. Different grammars differ in where they draw the lines
>> for the determiners, but ordinal numbers are often in that group
>> (sometimes called postdeterminers since they come after the core
>> determiners like "a," "the," "this," "his" and so on). It has an
>> identifying function. The one we are talking about (the one in
>> reference) is the last one.
>> I don't think it has negative polarity, just the sense that in the
>> continuing list of "grill brushes" this is the final one. You can
>> negate it: this is not the last grill brush you will ever need."
>> Maybe "ever" doesn't extend as much as never because "forever" is
>> an option (whereas "fornever" is not). "You will need the grill brush
>> forever."
>>
>> Craig>
>>
>>
>> The last grill brush you will ever need.
>>>
>>> Is this a sentence at all? To assume an understood "This is" or "It
>>> is" won't account for it as they have very different meaning possible
>>> references. One almost demands that the brush be in the vicinity for
>>> reference. The other might well reference a brush that has yet to be
>>> created.
>>>
>>> I'd take "ever" as a simple adverb with the caveat that it must
>>> precede the verb it modifies. Perhaps it also needs something such
>>> as "will" in front of it.
>>>
>>> The understood "that" not stated in the clause is a relative pronoun
>>> that serves as the direct object of "will need."
>>>
>>> Is "last" anything more than a simple adjective? Does it function
>>> any differently than, say, "ultimate"?
>>>
>>> tj
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday 12/23/2010 at 7:45 am, Scott Lavitt wrote:
>>>> Happy holidays all.
>>>>
>>>> I've been a member of this listserve for years and occasionally seek
>>>> your collective opinion. Question: how does one parse the following?:
>>>>
>>>> The last grill brush you will ever need.
>>>>
>>>> I could see this as an independent clause, with "you" as the subj.
>>>> and "The last grill brush" as the DO, but that doesn't seem right.
>>>> Seems there is an implied "It is," making the above a noun phrase,
>>>> and therefore not an independent clause. Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Thank you,
>>>>
>>>> Scott Lavitt
>>>>
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>>>
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