Michael McIntyre wrote:
>
> "
> 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.
That sounds right. We can dignify this conversation by noting that it involves the problem of adjusting theory to explain practice (or raising practice to the level of theory).
Incidentally, note that the problem only exists in the _written_ language. Hence for Saussure and his followers, who held that writing was _merely_ a transcription of speech, it would have been a pseudo-problem. But for post-structuralism, which sees written language as independent it would be a problem. The space is a crucial element for post-structuralism as it was not for structuralism. See Lydia H. Liu, "iSpace: Printed English after Joyce, Shannon, and Derrida," _Critical Inquiry_ 32 (Spring 2006), 516-550.
Carrol
>
> 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
> > ___________________________________
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>
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