[net.nlang] redundancy in language and mis-pronunciations

crane@fortune.UUCP (John Crane) (11/25/83)

Sometime at work listen to how many times you hear the following:

Person A:
	What's this computer supposed to do?

Person B:
	What this computer does is sort records.

Now why couldn't person B just say: "This computer sorts records" or
simply: "It sorts records"? Why the long wind up before the pitch?
I hear people say this all the time and I'm wondering why they don't
just get right to the point. I realize oral language is more informal
than written language, but when you hear people start every sentance
with: "What ....is is a ....." or "What ... does is it does ... ", etc.
its just plain sloppy.

A word I think is redundant is societal. What's wrong with the word
social? They both mean "of or pertaining to society". Or do they? Am
I missing some nuance or meaning here?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Will somebody please tell all the sportscasters in the world that 
tennis star Bjorn Borg pronounces his name "Byern BorrY" NOT "Byorn 
BorG". In Swedish, the final G is pronounced like the Y in berry.

I thank you. Bjorn (with the butchered surname) thanks you.

liz@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/27/83)

One reason people repeat questions in answers (as in "What this
computer supposed to do?"  "What this computer does is sort records.")
is to clarify what was said.  For example, someone asks you about
the computer, but you're not sure exactly what he said.  You can
make a guess, and since you're pretty sure you're somewhere in the
right area, you go ahead and answer.  But, you use some redundancy
in the answer to confirm what you heard.  Another reason is if you
don't understand *why* someone is asking a question -- especially
if you think they know the answer already.

				-Liz Allen
-- 
Univ of Maryland, College Park MD
Usenet:   ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz
Arpanet:  liz%umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay

ags@pucc-k (Seaman) (11/28/83)

Another reason that people repeat questions as part of their answers
(perhaps unconsciously) is to give themselves time to think about the
answer while repeating the question.

				Dave Seaman
				..!pur-ee!pucc-k!ags

ix652@sdccs6.UUCP (12/03/83)

The construction:

        What this computer does is sort records

is an example of what Higgins (1979) called a pseudo-cleft
construction. 

He analysed these constructions as specifying a value or a set
of values for a variable.  Thus in the example above, the variable
is "what this computer does", and the value is "sort records".

Rather than being equivalent in meaning to their non-clefted counterparts,
pseudo-clefts tend to have an "exhaustiveness implication" associated
with them.  Thus

        What I saw on the table was John's apple and Bob's orange

has as an implication that I only saw 2 things on the table.  Not so
for the non-clefted

        I saw Johns's apple and Bob's orange on the table.

Finally, pseudo-clefts can often be confused with the superficially
similar free relative construction:

Pseudo-cleft	What John is is important to himself.

Free Relative	What John is is important to him.

For more, see Higgins "the pseudo-cleft construction in English"