David,
I was writing in a hurry and didn't make myself as clear as I shoulda.
The "a" you refer to is the written respresentation of the schwa that
"of" reduces to. It's identical, incidentally, to what the auxiliary
"have" reduces to, which is what leads to students writing "should of",
a substitution that has a surprisingly long history.
Herb
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of dabro
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Two Questions
Herb,
What an interesting discussion.
It seems to me that the deletion of the preposition in "couple of" may
stem from a further deletion of the schwa in the spoken "couple a."
I don't have a problem with "couple" being used as both singular and
plural, as other posters have pointed out.
Isn' t "went missing" common in British English?
Thanks for the link to the Toyota paper. It brings to mind the "I need
you to move to the back of the bus." that I frequently hear from
(African-American) bus drivers.
David Brown
EFL/ESL teacher
Long Beach, CA
--- On Mon 09/25, Stahlke, Herbert F.W. < [log in to unmask] > wrote:
From: Stahlke, Herbert F.W. [mailto: [log in to unmask]]
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:16:09 -0400
Subject: Re: Two Questions
Christine.
I suspect the "a couple people" expression arose in speech through the
loss of schwa after the syllabic /l/ of "couple". The schwa resulted
from the reduction of "of", a very common phenomenon. "Couple of", as a
partitive is plural, just as "a pair of" is, but "couple", like "pair",
behaves also as a singular noun.
I don't have a problem with "went missing". I think it's on the model of
"went flat", "went sour", etc., just using the present participle as an
adjective. There are, however, other patterns of verb plus present
participle, like "needs fixing". There's a paper in the latest Lund
University Working Papers in Linguistics, by Junichi Toyota, that deals
with the latter variety and touches briefly on other such constructions.
You can find it at
http://www.englund.lu.se/images/stories/pdf-files/workingspapers/vol06/T
oyota_06.pdf
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of
Christine Gray
Sent: Mon 9/25/2006 8:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: Two Questions
Can anyone help me with these two questions from one of my students.
I replied that "couple" can be either singular or plural depending on
the
context and then gave her some examples. But the "couple of" I don't
know
about.
Also, I told her that "went missing" has always sounded awkward to me.
But
I hear it so frequently-is it correct?
See her questions below.
Thank you,
Christine Gray
Should we say, "a couple of people" or "a couple people?" I'm never sure
whether or not to put in the "of."
And, couple is plural, right? "There are a couple of day! s when I can't
help
you."
Or is "a couple" singular? "There is a couple standing on the corner."
Secondly,
I hear newscasters say "went missing." Is that correct? For example,
Natalie Holloway in Aruba: news people say, "She went missing last
summer."
I'm making up that example, but I heard it again on TV a few days ago.
Thanks!
Diane
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