Linguistics; double modals; dissenting in Arkansas... Inspired, might could be, by Governor Mike Huckabee's "So, if this bipartisan commission had actually studied the fair tax, they might would have had a different conclusion" -- on Fox News this past Sunday, linguists Benjamin Zimmer and Geoffrey Pullum have been sassing double modals recently over at Language Log.
In "Might Would Have," at
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005135.html#more , Zimmer offers a quoted example and a comment, as follows:
Example:
"I'm gonna give a little demonstration of what might would have happened to that guy if we'd have fought."
Comment:
"That sentence was spoken by Cliff Clavin on "Cheers," set in Boston. (And the actor, John Ratzenberger, is from Bridgeport, Connecticut.) That's a real anomaly, since as Mr. Verb recently pointed out, double modals tend to be heavily stigmatized even in regions where they're known and used."
Pullum goes even farther, in "Do Double Modals Really Exist?", at
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005136.html , suggesting that there might be no such linguicritters as double modals at all.
As a native speaker of the Ozark English variety of one of the "non-standard dialects in the South" Pullum refers to, and as someone who believes that "Yes, Virginia, there
are double modals!", I respectfully disagree with the claim that "double modals tend to be heavily stigmatized even in regions where they're known and used."
Not where
I live and speak and write, they're not heavily stigmatized, although most of us Arkansawyers are well aware that speakers of the hypothetical Standard American English go all sniffy when they hear them and we may therefore avoid them in mixed-dialect company as a courtesy. We consider double modals respectable and appropriate and grammatical as all getout. They are a dog that hunts. Senator Dale Bumpers, than whom few individuals have ever done Public Speaking more elegantly and eloquently, used double modals all the time. As do we all.
And while I'm here pontificating: In my own idiolect, "might could be" need not mean exactly the same thing as "maybe" and "perhaps." Suppose you tell me that my neighbor has been accused of stealing from the petty cash at his workplace, and you've asked me if I think he's really guilty of that. I might would then say one of these sequences in response to your question:
1. "Maybe." [Or "Perhaps."]
2. "Might could be."
Example #1, either version, is neutral; it just means what it says -- that I'm willing to accept as a possibility that my neighbor is guilty of the alleged pecadillo. Example #2, on the other hand, is biased. It means that I'm on my neighbor's side, leaning toward a belief that he didn't do what he's accused of, and inclined also to believe that even if he
is guilty he had a reason for what he did that I would consider adequate justification for the action.
Go, double modals!
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[
Note: On my way out the door, I'd like to suggest that there's a typo in the example sentence spoken on "Cheers." I suspect that it should ought to have been "I'm gonna give a little demonstration of what might would have happened to that guy if we'd of fought."]
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Nonfiction online: "How Verbal Self-Defense Works" at
http://people.howstuffworks.com/vsd.htm ; "Why Are Old Women Older Than Old Men And How Can We Fix That?" at
http://www.seniorwomen.com/articles/articlesElginOld.html ;
Religious Language Newsletter archive at
http://www.forlovingkindness.org .
Fiction online: "We Have Always Spoken Panglish" at
http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/Story-Panglish.html ; "What The EPA Don't Know Won't Hurt Them" at
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/epa.htm ; "Weather Bulletin" at
http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/Weather.html ; "A Quorum Of Grandmothers" at
http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/QuorumOfGrandmothers.html ;
The Communipaths at
http://www.jackiepowers.com/SuzetteHadenElgin/TheCommunipaths.html . More stuff at
http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/SiteMap.html ; LiveJournal
blog index at
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=ozarque .