Using "that would be".

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:27 pm

Any ideas as to why "would" is used here?

1. "...I do have some answers for you. You asked about one person declaring all the income and one taking all the expense. The answer to that would be no."

..............

2.

A: Are you Steve, the guy who lives near my sister?

B: Yes, that would be me.

.........

3.

Two travelers see a dog get hit by a truck.

A: Did you see that? Horrible!

B: That would be one dead dog.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 2:51 am

Mental distance

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 3:39 am

A subconscious desire to do more than "state the grammatically obvious"? > 'Variety is the spice of life' etc.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:44 am

Yup. Remote form of "will" which itself lends some distance to "is" here.

In other words, putting some grammar in to get "away" from "That's....."

as in

"Would you be Steve, the guy who lives near my sister?"

which softens down "Are you".

When English needs to broach delicate areas (taxes, identity, relationships and death in these cases) we get all squirmy and shovel in the grammar.

Might we perhaps not be about to have the ritual argument about He Whose Name Raises Hackles*, if nobody minded?

* You know, The L word. Lord Lovrmoted.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:08 am

Stephen Jones wrote:Mental distance

In which way?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:08 am

fluffyhamster wrote:A subconscious desire to do more than "state the grammatically obvious"? > 'Variety is the spice of life' etc.

Could you elaborate?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:57 am

JuanTwoThree wrote:Yup. Remote form of "will" which itself lends some distance to "is" here.

In other words, putting some grammar in to get "away" from "That's....."

as in

"Would you be Steve, the guy who lives near my sister?"

which softens down "Are you".

This is what i have so far:

(Coming from Palmer, I think), conventionally epistemic would shows that the speaker feels he/she has conclusive objective evidence for the truth of a proposition coded in the utterance. This would rule out things like wild guessing, decisions and predictions.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:58 am

JTT seems to be on the right tracks, as ever (hence him being let off of the metal hook).

All I can add is, I myself was thinking mostly about the dead dog - 'That is a dead dog' isn't far removed from 'This is a pencil', is it. Adding words or altering the verb makes it less of a bald statement and more relaxed, humorous, what's the word? 'Remote' or 'distant' doesn't always fo it for me, I'm afrai...Lord Vroomdlet! No, please owwwoooerrr...

(A trip to the Warlock Treatment Facility later (for removal of a magic wand))

I can imagine myself "asking" 'You're not/wouldn't be the Steve that lives near my sister, by any chance, are/would you?' (rising tag that functions to introduce the likely follow-up, 'Wow, you are, what a conincidence!' Tag is thus not to do with doubt/uncertainty that much if at all. Oops, should save that for that other thread maybe).

The person giving financial advice could be hedging and/or saying that they themselves 'have it on good advice that'...in short, that they themselves aren't responsible for things being the way they are, so please don't shoot the messenger.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:01 am

The site went a bit psycho on me as I was trying to post...your post got in before mine then, metal.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:16 am

All I can add is, I myself was thinking mostly about the dead dog - 'That is a dead dog' isn't far removed from 'This is a pencil', is it. Adding words or altering the verb makes it less of a bald statement and more relaxed, humorous, what's the word?

I'm not sure. I was also thinking of "remoteness", "softening" and so on, but... in a paper titled Epistemic Would, Open Propositions, and Truncated Clefts, Ward, Kaplan and Birner claim that there is nothing tentative, conditional, or predictable about examples such as those I posted in the topic post of this thread.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 4:16 pm

I suppose I'd agree that there actually isn't that much that is tentative or conditional about those examples (such is the force of humour), but that 'this, or that?' way of thinking can be avoided somewhat if we look at what enough people generally say in enough similar contexts (so the "unpredictability" certainly might be less warranted upon closer inspection). I'd say "attend" to (notice and note) the extra text where it does appear, and only "try" to infer the "extra" general function accordingly (i.e. students at least shouldn't get too caught up in forming explicit functional definitions, especially if it distracts them from attending to more text(s)).

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 4:33 pm

Perhaps I should have said, mental or emotional distance.

Let's look at the third example

"That would be one dead dog"

I don't think that if the truck had run over a baby we would be hearing
"That would be one dead baby". It would be harder to emotionally distance oneself.

Let's look at the second example.

I see a slight jocularity here - the question "are you steve" being treated by the responder as almost a hypothetical question. Think about the contsruction in the third person
"Is that Priscalla, the girl who's going out with the mad linguist, metal 56?"
"That would indeed be her." 'would be' instead of 'is; turns the question more into a logical conundrum than a direct question.

In the first one the 'would' may well be thought of as talking about a hypothetical possibility.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 4:57 pm

Right, so not '?That is a dead dog/That dog is dead' versus 'That is/would be one dead dog', but 'That would be one dead dog' as opposed to '!*That would be one dead baby' (>OMG! Call an ambulance! That poor baby!).

Thanks, SJ, I'll try those in that class I have that's made up exclusively of Japanese women.

kansai_mike · Post by **kansai_mike** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:32 pm

metal56 wrote:Any ideas as to why "would" is used here?

1. "...I do have some answers for you. You asked about one person declaring all the income and one taking all the expense. The answer to that would be no."

..............

2.

A: Are you Steve, the guy who lives near my sister?

B: Yes, that would be me.

.........

3.

Two travelers see a dog get hit by a truck.

A: Did you see that? Horrible!

B: That would be one dead dog.

1, 2, and 3 are King's English
http://www.bartleby.com/116/index.html

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:45 pm

Stephen Jones wrote:. Think about the contsruction in the third person
"Is that Priscalla, the girl who's going out with the mad linguist, metal 56?"
"That would indeed be her." 'would be' instead of 'is; turns the question more into a logical conundrum than a direct question.

Or, it does this:

Is that Priscilla, the girl who's going out with the mad linguist, metal 56?"

That would indeed be her/You're absolutely correct.

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