[Grammar] contractions

[Bide]

I saw this joke, but I'd be interested to hear why this sounds so strange as to be unutterable. I can't explain it. Prosody?

"People say I use contractions wrongly. It's what it's."

 

[MikeNewYork]

The second "it's" is wrong. That is the joke.

 

[Bide]

Do you have any explanation for that?

 

[MikeNewYork]

The original is "It is what it is". The first "it is" can be contracted, but the second one cannot. The only explanation is "it is what it is".

 

[Bide]

We're getting closer. I know the situation. Now how about the wherefore? Any ideas?

 

[Tdol]

The person is denying the problem by illustrating it. It isn't very funny, and that is really all there is to the joke.

 

[Bide]

I see I am not expressing myself well. I am not asking about the joke, or why it is funny or not.

Why do we not contract 'it is' to 'it's' when it is the whole content of the predicate? Do you have any ideas about this?

 

[MikeNewYork]

It is not about the predicate. For example, It is perfectly normal to say "It's normal if it's acceptable. But it is not OK to say "It's normal if it's".

 

[Bide]

The Full verbs BE and HAVE are not contracted when they form the entire predicate:

It's a nice day today.
Yes, it's lovely. / Yes, it is. / XYes, it's.

Have to disagree there, see #5.

I suppose there is no rhyme or reason.

 

[tzfujimino]

Modal verbs are not contracted if they are not followed by the full verb, as in, for example, short answers:

Would you like to go to the theatre tomorrow?
Yes, I would. / Yes, I'd like to. / XYes, I'd.

The Full verbs BE and HAVE are not contracted when they form the entire predicate:

It's a nice day today.
Yes, it's lovely. / Yes, it is. / XYes, it's.

I wonder if it has anything to do with stress:

It's a nice day today.
- Yes, it's lovely. (The stress is on 'Yes' and 'lovely'.)
- Yes, it is [a nice day today]. (The stress is on 'Yes' and 'is'.)
- Yes, it's ... (It's what? Further information to put stress on is required.)

 

[Barb_D]

Have to disagree there, see #5.

I suppose there is no rhyme or reason.

How can you disagree with this? It's exactly what we do/don't do.

 

[Tdol]

I suppose there is no rhyme or reason.

Many language rules are arbitrary- they exist because they existed when we learned them. There is often no answer to the question of why something happens- we do it because everyone else does. Languages build speech communities and the way to do that is to do what others do. If you do what the community does, you will belong in it, so we copy the rules. Some languages have plural nouns and others don't- to belong to a speech community, you have to follow the pattern- there's no right or wrong here. It is, as top linguists Run DMC said, like that- it's just the way it is. :up:

 

[SoothingDave]

The original is "It is what it is". The first "it is" can be contracted, but the second one cannot. The only explanation is "it is what it is".

"It is what it is" is so cliche, that it sound odd to me if there is any contraction at all. The coach of the local NFL team must say this at least once in each press conference.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I suppose there is no rhyme or reason.

Do you think the following can be a reason?
A contraction is intended to shorten a word, but if a verb is followed by nothing, it is already short enough, so there is no reason to further shorten it.

Not a teacher.

 

[Matthew Wai]

Then could you think up a reason?