The form ’s, representing either has or is, along with ’m (am), ’re (are), ’ve (have), ’ll (will), and ’d (had or would) are called clitics, and they are a variant of what are known as weak forms of words, which are pronunciations of words like a, have, from, you, etc. (about fifty in total) with a reduced vowel, such as schwa.
This is covered in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) in Chapter 18, “Inflection Morphology and Related Matters”, section 6, “Phonological reduction and liaison”.
In the discussion of weak and strong forms, CGEL points out that there are certain grammatical contexts that require strong forms, and one of those contexts is something called stranding, where the object of a phrase is preposed (moved before the phrase). These are examples they give of stranding requiring strong forms:
a. Who did you give it [to __ ]?
b. We’ll help you if we [can __].
c. They want me to resign, but I don’t intend [to __].
In each of these cases, the word in the brackets has a weak form, but it cannot be used in this context because its object has been stranded. Of course, in written English, there is no difference between weak and strong forms—it’s only a spoken difference—but clitics are distinguished in written English, and the restriction on weak forms also extends to clitics. (There are additional restrictions on clitics, but they are not relevant to this discussion).
So, thus we can say that the second is in the sentence It is what it [is __] cannot be reduced to either a weak form or to a clitic because of the restriction to strong forms in cases of syntactic stranding.
Answer from nohat on Stack ExchangeNow this is a difficult thing to give a direct example of. To give an example, "I went to the park with that girl next door, there." "I went to the store and bought a can of peas, there." "Did you get my text message, there?"
Maybe it's somewhat antiquated for people to put 'there' at the end of a sentence. Obviously this is improper grammar, but what's the purpose for it? I've found myself using it lately and it just feels right to move the conversation forward. What is the purpose of it and why do people do it?
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The form ’s, representing either has or is, along with ’m (am), ’re (are), ’ve (have), ’ll (will), and ’d (had or would) are called clitics, and they are a variant of what are known as weak forms of words, which are pronunciations of words like a, have, from, you, etc. (about fifty in total) with a reduced vowel, such as schwa.
This is covered in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) in Chapter 18, “Inflection Morphology and Related Matters”, section 6, “Phonological reduction and liaison”.
In the discussion of weak and strong forms, CGEL points out that there are certain grammatical contexts that require strong forms, and one of those contexts is something called stranding, where the object of a phrase is preposed (moved before the phrase). These are examples they give of stranding requiring strong forms:
a. Who did you give it [to __ ]?
b. We’ll help you if we [can __].
c. They want me to resign, but I don’t intend [to __].
In each of these cases, the word in the brackets has a weak form, but it cannot be used in this context because its object has been stranded. Of course, in written English, there is no difference between weak and strong forms—it’s only a spoken difference—but clitics are distinguished in written English, and the restriction on weak forms also extends to clitics. (There are additional restrictions on clitics, but they are not relevant to this discussion).
So, thus we can say that the second is in the sentence It is what it [is __] cannot be reduced to either a weak form or to a clitic because of the restriction to strong forms in cases of syntactic stranding.
You can end a sentence with a NEGATIVE contraction (Is he here? No he isn't), but not a POSITIVE one (Is he here? Yes he's).
The title is an example of what I am talking about. I have lived in the US (Washington State/PNW) my whole life, and until recently I have never heard someone use "on there" to end pretty much every sentence. Now, I have a coworker (male) that uses "on there" to end almost every sentence, even if it doesn't actually make sense for what was said before it. It feels almost.... colloquial? Like it's something he doesn't realize he's doing. Has anyone else ever encountered this? If you have, where did you hear it?