Dick,
    The fact that it is not analyzable may be more relevant to the
spelling issue. Most people (including myself) would be hard pressed
to define "lot" in the noun phrase "thanks a lot." It's interesting
that we can use it without "a" in some contexts, but need to make it
plural, as in "Thanks lots." A singular "lot" and plural "lots" seem
to mean the same thing unless we bring in the fact that "a" seems to
make "lot" plural, a rather strange pattern, to say the least.
   It's another example, I think, of how language avoids neat categorization.

Craig


Craig,
>
> "A lot" is certainly idiomatic and probably unanalyzable to most speakers.
> It presumably comes from "lot" meaning share or property, with *odd lots,
> cast one's lot, *and *lots of* being other derivatives. It may be a
> semantic
> chameleon, but grammatically it is still a noun phrase with an article and
> noun. That is more obvious in sentences like this:
>
> Your message gave me a lot to think about.
> It took a lot of guts to admit her mistakes.
> A lot of times he does things he later regrets.
>
> Dick
>
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 10:58 PM, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Dick,
>>    That is convincing, though "a lot" translates more to "very much"
>> than
>> just "much," so that may be tantamount to a "very very." But putting
>> the adjective between seems to seal it as determiner plus noun. I
>> still think it acts more like a set construction than a two word
>> sequence. I don't think we think of "a" plus "lot" when we hear "a
>> lot." But the suggestion was never one that I expected people to take
>> seriously.
>>
>>
>> Craig>
>>
>> Craig,
>> >
>> > Adverbial yes, but a noun phrase used adverbially rather than a true
>> > adverb.
>> > Consider the intensifier:
>> >
>> > I do it often / very often.
>> > I do it a lot / *very a lot / a whole lot.
>> > I do it a bit / *very a bit / a little bit.
>> >
>> > Dick
>> >
>> > On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 9:09 AM, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>> >> Bill,
>> >>    I was thinking about situations like "I own a lot, which I check a
>> >> lot." Or "I check a lot a lot." If we had a different spelling for
>> the
>> >> adverbial use (which I hear as "alot," not "a lot" in the above
>> >> instances), I think it would better represent the way the structure
>> >> has evolved both phonetically and cognitively. I hear it and think of
>> >> it as a single word spelled as two.
>> >>   Of course, the written language is innately conservative in the
>> >> classic
>> >> sense of that term. People will treat it as an error. Even as I type
>> >> this, the computer puts a red squiggly line underneath "alot" to
>> cajole
>> >> me back.
>> >>
>> >> Craig
>>
>
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