- 316 - 1415
“... I just TELL someone and GO in the BUS
1617
or in the CAR or in my SLEIGH.”
The third example comes from Shvinder’s Story E where she is describing a situation which is surprising and contrary to expectation:
23 And
WHEN he [Billy] got on the HO-ORSE
245 he DIDn’t FA-ALL or do NOthing.
26 He RI-Ided the HORSE.
This is in sharp contrast to Billy’s antics in the opening scene: 1
BILly was a HORSE rider 23
but
EV’ry TIME he GOT on his HORSE
HE FALLED. In 25 the or-clause is almost a throw-away comment, linking the negative statement “he
didn’t fall” with the positive “he rided the horse”. In both situations where or is used there is a degree of uncertainty and some unanswered questions: in Shvinder’s line 25, what else
besides falling did Billy not do? We are not told; in Humira’s lines 1517 which form of transport did Father Christmas finally choose? The answer seems to come in line 18:
1819 SO he TRIED a BUS
to GO to the FOOTball MATCH.
But the selection of the verb “tried”, rather than “caught”, still leaves the outcome unclear: was he successful in catching the bus, or wasn’t he? It is doubtful whether the lack of
clarity here is intentional, but the hearer is, nevertheless, anxious to solve the problem and so keeps listening attentively.
Toolan 1988 makes a general comment about the role of comparators which seems particularly applicable to or-clauses; he states that they “evaluate indirectly, by drawing
attention away from what actually happened by alluding to what might have been, what could be, but what doesn’t happen” p. 160.
7.2.6 Comparatives and Superlatives
Labov places superlatives before comparatives in his complexity scale, for he says that: Of the various comparators, it is the comparative itself which reaches the highest level of
syntactic complexity. 1972a:386
- 317 - Halliday and Hasan 1976 state that:
The most generalized comparative is, actually, the superlative: highest means, simply, “higher than any other”. Superlatives are non-referential because they are self-defining.”
p. 81 It is the referential factor which makes comparative constructions more complex than
superlative ones. In our data we have ten comparative constructions and nine superlatives; however, of the comparative forms, none are really complex and some are deficient, in that
they lack the overt mention of a standard of reference when this is clearly required, as in the following from Shvinder’s Story B:
25
“... The worsest team of ALL is MY team.
267
WHENever I see THEM THEY NEver WIN.”
289 SO they went
to have a DRINK.
30 And, at TWELVE O’clock in the AFterNOON, they watched the
FOOTball players. 31
THEY WERE WO-ORSE. In line 31, does she mean that they were as bad as the lady reported them to be, or does
she mean that they were even worse than they usually were? From the expressive phonology we could deduce that the second reading is the more likely. Interestingly, in line
25, it is the superlative which has the standard of reference overtly expressed as a means of specifying and defining the particular team in question.
Others are deficient in that, although the intention is clearly comparative, the form is not, e.g. the following from Humira’s Story F:
ter ter
1920
“They ALL like SAUSages and they get FAT and FAT
from them
212
for EATing SAUSages, SO WHAT shall I GIVE ? SOMEthing ELSE?”
Then lower down we find: 45
“I am GETting BORED and BORED”
instead of:
45a
“I am GETting MORE and MORE BORED”,
- 318 - followed by:
46
“and the Others are GETting FATter and FATter from
47
for eating SAUSage and SAUSage.”
where she does use an acceptable comparative form. Humira is still at the stage of experimenting with comparative constructions, and here she
is combining comparison with repetition in order to add more colour to her narration, but is not yet able to handle the degree of complexity involved. Labov comments on the
difficulty younger L1 speakers have with comparatives: Among the various syntactic forms that give younger speakers trouble, the comparative is
foremost, and in our “strange syntax” file we have collected a great many odd problems with complex comparative constructions. 1972a:386
In her Story E, Humira produces, and repeats, an acceptable and effective comparative construction, complete with an overt standard of comparison:
256
“I don’t CARE if you PLAY.
27
I can play with the FOOTball.
28
I’m MUCH BETter than YOU.”
29 BILly SAID,
30
“I’M GOing to be MUCH BETter than YOU at PLAYing
31
TO PLAY COWboy.”
Lines 28 and 30 are well-formed even if line 31 is not. Sheiba produces a well-formed construction in her Story A, where the comparative is an adjunct:
256
“It’s VERy HOT over HERE. I’m going to MELT. where
278
I’ve got to RUN as FAST as I CAN back to the COUNtry that I live.”
But in his Story C, Sakander attempts to produce a similar construction and leaves out a correlative “as”:
as
31
“YOU MUST go HOME QUICKly as you CAN ...”
- 319 - Although not regarded as being as complex as comparatives, superlatives do also cause
problems. On page 317 we quoted Shvinder’s overgeneralized superlative form “worsest” for “worst” which is repeated several times in the same narrative. Interestingly, she does
produce the target form once in: B17
but he couldn’t FIND not EVen O-ONE team – the WORST
In her Story E, she uses the antonym “best” in: 1819
“ONE day I’ll be the BEST, Ben,”
Billy said. It is significant that it is only the two most able L2 speakers who actually produce
superlative constructions; whereas, with the comparative we have two examples from Shvinder, three from Humira, three from Sheiba, one from Shazia, and one from Fehdah,
but in the main these are simple comparative adjectives and adverbs.
7.2.7 The Conversational Historic Present CHP
