Klarinet Archive - Posting 000104.txt from 2000/02

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Jelly Doughnuts
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 23:22:57 -0500

--- Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk> wrote:

> > On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 09:10:30 -0600, vfreyer@-----.net said:

> > I am a Danish. (Short for Danish pastry, much like a jelly doughnut,
> > describing my eating preferences.)

> Yes. My point is that the second sentence, uttered by you, does not
> mean -- could not *possibly* mean -- that you are a pastry.

Not so. The only reason you can tell that the sentence refers to
nationality -- as opposed to a pastry -- is the capital D at the
beginning of the word. If somebody walked up to you and *spoke*
this sentence, you would have no way of knowing whether they were
revealing their nationality or having a serious identity crisis.
If interpreted in the former sense, the sentence is gammatically
incomplete, because the word Danish is a modifier, not a noun.
If somebody walked up to you and said, "I am a Danish," and you
assumed they were referring to nationality, your response would
be, "A Danish WHAT?" But if you chose the latter interpretation,
that the person was identifying themself as a pastry, your reaction
would not be to the sentence itself, since it is grammatically cor-
rect in this context. You might just take them seriously and, if
you haven't had breakfast yet, start gnawing on their left arm.

-- Neil
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