[lbo-talk] Linguistic Query

Michael McIntyre mcintyremichael at mac.com
Fri Sep 29 08:53:46 PDT 2006


" alot" would work just like the French "beaucoup", it seems to me. It's an adjective that requires the preposition "of" when it serves to quantitatively modify a noun. Hence: I like him alot. Je l'aime beaucoup. I like him alot.

Il y a beaucoup de gens ici. (or - Il y a beaucoup du monde ici. - although that raises the problem of when the definitive article is used in French but not in English). There are alot of people here.

Michael McIntyre

On Sep 29, 2006, at 9:56 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:


> As a general rule, if a construction or use becomes widespread among a
> literate population, then that construction or use is part of the
> language.
>
> On this grounds one would have to suppose that "alot" has replaced "a
> lot." And that "lead" rather than "led" is the past tense of "lead."
>
> The replacement of "led" by "lead" offers no particular problem.
> But how
> does one analyze the syntax of "alot of people" to make syntactical
> sense of "alot"?
>
> Carrol
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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