And Rosta wrote:
> Joe:
>
> "The Bob" is bad because generic mass nouns (which is what 'proper
> nouns' really are) do not normally occur with "the".
Proper nouns are generic mass nouns? I need some evidence for both claims:
that they're generic and that they're mass.
In any event, generic mass nouns can occur with articles in romance
languages like Spanish or Catalan:
El dinero es maravilloso.
The money is marvelous.
'Money is wonderful.'
yet the acceptability of EL PEPE 'the Joe' is at least debatable in
Spanish. Catalan uses the personal article quite regularly (it's dependent
on familiarity): EL PEP is perfectly okay.
> {-ster} generates nouns that have countable meaning and therefore
> occur with a determiner. This rules out bare "Bobster".
I find plenty cases of bare NAME-ster
It's Bobster's turn!
It's Bobster!
> "A/every/some Bobster" has the wrong meaning for referring to a unique
> individual, which requires "the Bobster".
Like I said, bare Bobster is okay too.
> We're probably arguing at cross purposes. I certainly recognize this
> Namester phenomenon as a pattern in usage with specific
> sociolinguistic properties. I'm arguing that in terms of the grammar
> -- the sound--meaning correspondence element of the pattern -- the
> pattern is completely regular and follows from the properties of its
> parts.
-STER optionally calls up THE, which is exceptional, because English
doesn't have a personal article under any other circumstances that I can
think of. Doesn't this count as a construction?
Joe
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