Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-24-2024
Volume
6
Issue
5
Abstract
This paper discusses the use of one as a disjunction marker occurring immediately after a DisjP, such as He was in Tennessee or Kentucky, one. Little research has been published on this construction, which is used predominantly by Southern American English speakers. My project aims to fill this gap in the literature by describing the distribution of one and examining various hypotheses for its syntactic derivation using data from Montgomery (2004) and the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project. Based on my descriptive analysis, I propose to treat this "alternative one" as a proform and matrix clause adjunct.
I compare the possible derivation of alternative one from one or the other (as suggested by Montgomery) with two alternatives: one of the two and one of them. I conclude that Montgomery's one or the other is the most plausible hypothesis owing to the compatibility of other with all kinds of antecedents rather than only concrete or quantifiable ones, as is the case for the two and them.
Finally, I consider whether alternative one is derived from one or the other as a result of ellipsis, or whether or the other is a silent element in the underlying syntactic structure. The latter option seems more likely given that an overt one or the other would need to occur elsewhere in the sentence in order for ellipsis to take place, but no corpus examples support this possibility.
Recommended Citation
Luna, Ester. 2024. Another One: On the Syntax of ‘Alternative One’. Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity 6 (5), 1–10.