The first two sound almost like a variety of right dislocation, deriving from "Why don't you empty the garbage/be reasonable," rather than arising as tags. I find when I say them that the dislocated portion is all at a low intonation level, while tags have a rising intonation. The problem with sentences like the third and like some of the examples I used is that modals don't have symmetrical polarity. They don't work the same in the affirmative and the negative. Some of them do, but enough don't that a traditional Syntactic Structures type of tag derivation doesn't work. And it is, by the way, one of the oldest transformational rules in syntactic studies. Herb Chew on these: Empty the garbage, why don't you? Be reasonable, why don't you? Don't tease the cat, ...?? you (will? would? certainly not "do") ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Associate 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. 756-2596 . E-mail: [log in to unmask] . Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/