Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 08:19:37 -0700

From: Allen Maberry maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU

Subject: Re: acceptability/grammaticality judgments, please -Reply



1. seems normal. 2. seems odd. I understand 2. to imply that someone said

who ate the cake, the question is: Who does she think said it?

I read it as: Who does she THINK said ate the cake? As if she could well

imagine who said it.

Allen

maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]u.washington.edu



On Fri, 22 Sep 1995, Molly Dickmeyer wrote:



Bob:



As an editor, if I ran across these sentences I would edit thusly:



1. Kim and Dale think that each other is the best.



Note that two meanings could be derived from the above:

Kim and Dale each think that the other is the best.

Kim and Dale like each other.



But of course, written English is not spoken English. In

conversation, I would find this acceptable and inflection would

indicate which meaning was meant.



2. Who does she think said ate the cake?



This one is harder for me to understand. Perhaps:

Who does she think said "ate the cake"?



Or is there an understood "you" here?

Who does she think that you said ate the cake?

(still not sparkling prose, but...)



If there's another meaning I'm not getting, please do explain.





Molly D.

dickmeye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]phl.lrpub.com