Just some observations about Bill's last post.

Bill writes: 

****
If we hear footsteps in the hall, and I look up
and say, "Bob, isn't it?" I'm not necessarily *thinking* "That's Bob in
the hallway, isn't it?" Instead, in the right context, "Bob" counts as
an assertion, and the *kind* of assertion (existence, ability etc.)
determines the tag. 

****************

If "Bob" is the assertion, then why can't it be:

1) *Bob, isn't he?

Under Bill's view of language, which appears to deny any explanation by ellipsis, why isn't (1) a possible statement.

Of, course, the following is right:

** Also, with tag questions, I *think* you can cases in which the domain
being "tagged" is clearly a clause, but not an independent one (if this
one seems like a stretch, I do have some cases in which a quick reply
like "No he's not" works with a subordinate clause):

We're canceling the play because the lead actor is sick, isn't he? 

**
How do you know what is an independent and dependent clause?

I don't like Bill's example very much.  However, I don't think this tag works in (2) at all. 

2) *We are canceling the play in which the lead actor is sick, isn't he?

If there is not concept of "sentence" why is (2) not a possible sentence?

(2) also shows that tags are not just based on the string of words before them: Both Bill's sentence and mine have the words "the lead actor is sick" in front of the tag.  How do we explain that without reference to clause?

The issue of corpus linguistics is interesting.  

One last point: Intuitive judgments of grammaticality do not simply
access one's grammatical competence -- they're heavily influenced by a
number of factors. One of the reasons corpus work is so important is
that one *can't* simply accept grammaticality judgments as immune from
social conventions. 

I'm glad Bill brought up the issue of corpus linguistics.  Consider his example sentence which he says his students reject.

3) "Seldom had he seen that"

Let's ignore the following.

 There are quite a number of language groups whose
speakers become quite baffled when linguists ask them to make
grammaticality judgments about their own language -- the idea of such a
judgment is itself a cultural artifact.  

Let's be a corpus linguist.  How do we know that there is inversion of the auxiliary with an adverb like "seldom"?  If we have no underlying competence and everything we know is from performance, how does a corpus linguist figure out what are relevant forms to search for?  More importantly, how does such a linguist figure out this is a relevant example or not of the structure to be searched?  

If it is an adverb of frequency that triggers inversion, then does an adverb like "frequently" also trigger inversion?

Because there are two had's in English, I recommend doing a google search for "seldom could" and "frequently could."  (What I say below can work for "seldom had" and "frequently had," the hits are just a little more complex to discuss.)

I got 12,000 hits for "seldom could."  On the first page, three of the hits have aux-inversion like (3).  

I got 24,500 hist with "frequently could," but none of the examples on the first two pages are aux-inversion like (3). They are either questions "how frequently could" or normal sentence order or frequently ends a clause boundary and could is the next word.  Granted, I used my underlying knowledge/competence of English to categorize the hits on "frequently could" just like anyone who examines the results from a corpus search.  

The point is that for corpus linguistics to have ANY results requires underlying knowledge of the language (1) to know what to search for and (2) to evaluate the examples for relevancy. 

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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