English 101 with Trihan sometimes!

[Babar]

"It's" is a very commonly used, and (as far as I'm aware,) not incorrect contraction of "It is".


...not sure if that was being asked....

[Intense Degree]

Not quite i'm afraid!

I'm aware that "It's" is a contraction of "It is" (or has etc.) but my question was if it is appropriately used in the context of "or whatever it's in English" as this is something that would sound very strange to hear spoken, but appears to me to be technically correct as a contraction of "it is".

[Tuomas]

Both are grammatically correct, as you said, but it's a good rule, that writing scientifical text, you don't use the ', you write the whole words like do not and it is instead of don't & it's. This I learned in ground school.

[Snarky]

Again, not quite the point, I think.

I understand what you're saying, Intense Degree. There's something about the structure or rhythm of this sentence that means you wouldn't say, and therefore shouldn't write, "it's."

There are a number of contexts where contractions aren't used in English. For example, consider:

"I've got a new bike."
"Well, have you got a helmet?"
"Yes, I have."

In the first sentence, "I've" is fine, but it would be ridiculous to say "Yes, I've."

[Intense Degree]

That's exactly the point Snarky!

I think i'm going to assume that it may be technically correct, given a strict interpretation, but that conventional usage of the contraction demands it must be "it is" in this circumstance.

Although as to the reason for this I don't think I can do any better than the fact, as you point out, that it would be ridiculous to do otherwise!  (with no offence at all to the fine gentleman who originally made the post - just in case he also frequents this forum! )

[Snarky]

There's no hard-and-fast distinction between what's incorrect and what's just unidiomatic. I would consider this a mistake, although a not particularly significant one.

I do vaguely remember a story by some American staying in an Asian country (it might actually have been Dave Gilbert or Vince Twelve) and visiting an English class. They had taken the textbook and changed all the "don't"-s and "doesn't"-s and so on to the expanded form. This led to sentences like "Do not you want some wine?" When asked about this, they explained that the textbook was in American English, but they were teaching British English, "and there they always say it like that." He couldn't convince them that this was quite simply wrong.

I am pretty sure that there is a systematic rule that controls whether a contraction can be used, but I don't know what it is.

[Alun]

So therefore my question is, is this a technically incorrect usage of "it's", or is it just not the done thing in practice?

Well, in a sense, whether or not a grammatical formulation is correct depends on whether or not it's done in practice, so those amount to more or less the same thing.  Though admittedly it's another matter whether any respected grammar guides actually explicitly forbid such a usage of "it's", which I don't know.  (I checked Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, which is one of the best known such grammar guides (albeit one somewhat deprecated by linguists for its occasional flights into unfounded prescriptivism), and didn't find anything there.)  Certainly it's unusual, though.

I think another interesting question, however, is how one could define exactly when "it's" is and isn't used -- what is it about this particular example that's different from other sentences in which "it's" would be used?  My inclination is to say that "it is" is only contracted to "it's" when it occurs at the beginning of the clause, or at least before the complement (that is, the noun or adjective that the "is" is linking the "it" to).  I'm not sure this is completely right, but seems to cover the cases I can think of offhand.  In "it is raining", the complement is "raining", which comes after the "it is", so it's okay to contract it: "it's raining".  In "I'll go see if it is the police", the clause containing "it is" is "it is the police"; the complement is "the police", which comes after "it is", so it's okay to contract it: "I'll go see if it's the police".  In "whatever it is in English", the complement is "whatever", which in this clause is before the "it is", so contraction isn't allowed (or at least isn't idiomatic), which is why "whatever it's in English" looks and sounds wrong.

As I said, though, I'm not completely sure this rule works in all cases, or if it just happens to hold in a few examples I've thought of but perhaps with more thought I could come up with other examples that violate it.  It's easier for a native speaker to say whether or not a particular phrasing seems right than to be able to express exactly why it doesn't seem right...

EDIT: And, after glancing over Snarky's penultimate post, I already came up with an example that violates my proposed rule: You wouldn't contract "Yes, it is" to "Yes, it's", even though there's no complement before the "it is".  On the other hand, there's no complement after the "it is" either -- the complement here is elided and implied -- so maybe it's not a violation after all; maybe the rule is simply that the complement has to occur after the "it is", so it can't be contracted if the complement comes before the "it is" or if the complement is omitted.  And, indeed, adding a complement to this sentence does allow contraction: "Yes, it is the police" can be contracted to "Yes, it's the police".  Hmm...

[Khris]

Maybe when the emphasis lies on the "is", you don't contract?

[Alun]

Maybe when the emphasis lies on the "is", you don't contract?

Hm... also true -- in "I was wrong!  It is the police!" you wouldn't contract that to "I was wrong!  It's the police!"  But I'd be inclined to regard that as a separate, additional rule rather than as a replacement for the rule I stated.  After all, in "whatever it is in English", the emphasis isn't on the "is", so this doesn't apply.

EDIT: Meh, the police example is a bad example here, because there's nothing really wrong or ungrammatical about the second version; it's just a matter of what you want to emphasize.  If you want to emphasize one of the words, it makes sense not to contract them -- which I suppose holds for contractions in general.  But I don't think that's the only thing that prevents contractions, and in particular I don't think that explains the "whatever it is in English" example, since the "is" isn't emphasized there.  Still leaning toward my "only contracts if the complement comes after the 'it is'" rule for now...

[Andail]

I'd still say it's a matter of emphasis.

First of all, in all cases of ellipsis, you wouldn't use contractions.
As in
"is this your bike?"
"yes it is." (ellipsis for "yes it's my bike")
or
"Do you take Sarah Dumbleton for your lawfully wedded bride?"
"I do." (compare "I'd." which would be incorrect, and very weird)

I think in order for "it's" to be considered ungrammatical, the is has to be the main verb. In sentences like "it's raining" is is auxiliary and wouldn't need to stand alone unless there should be special emphasis on it, as in
"only bring your umbrella if it's raining"
"well it is raining!"
It is clear that when there is another main verb, you could contract "it is" without problems, as in "or whatever it's called in Swedish".

So...when it comes to non-ellipsis cases where you shouldn't contract....
I think what we have here is two different meanings of "is". When "is" has the purpose of identifying or defining something, rather than just classifying or pointing something out, or taking an auxiliary function, it somehow takes a deeper, more universal meaning and is thus not contracted.
Compare
"The bike's in the garage" and "a bike is a two-wheeled vehicle". The former statement is answering the question "where is it?" whereas the latter is answering the question "what is it?" a question of definition. I'm not saying this sentence would be ungrammatical if contracted, but my guess is that most people would say it with "is" standing alone.

"If that's what I think it is..." In this sentence, the 2nd is has a defining function. It could never be contracted.

Well I dunno, just brainstorming now really.

[Snarky]

Andail, how does your theory work with sentences like "That's it!" where "is" is the main verb? There must be some other factor that makes the contraction improper.

I'm also curious if there are sentences where "it's" is grammatical but "it is" isn't.

I think this might be the first time in this thread that we're discussing a question that is interesting and subtle enough that I think it might be worth bringing to a real language expert.

[Andail]

Andail, how does your theory work with sentences like "That's it!" where "is" is the main verb? There must be some other factor that makes the contraction improper.

I didn't quite say that no sentences with "is" as a main verb can be contracted - I said that one prerequisite to the no-contraction-rule (with neutral emphasis) is that "is" is the main verb.

And yeah, I agree that this is one issue we probably won't solve ourselves...

[Alun]

I'd still say it's a matter of emphasis.

But, again, that doesn't work in all cases.  It's certainly not a matter of emphasis in the "whatever it is in English" example.

I think what we have here is two different meanings of "is". When "is" has the purpose of identifying or defining something, rather than just classifying or pointing something out, or taking an auxiliary function, it somehow takes a deeper, more universal meaning and is thus not contracted.

Again, how does that work with "whatever it is in English"?  Is it "identifying or defining something" there?  Or, for that matter, in "What's that?"  "It is a whale", it is identifying or defining something, but it can be contracted -- "What's that?" "It's a whale." is perfectly natural and grammatical... much more natural than "It is a whale", in fact.

"The bike's in the garage" and "a bike is a two-wheeled vehicle". The former statement is answering the question "where is it?" whereas the latter is answering the question "what is it?" a question of definition. I'm not saying this sentence would be ungrammatical if contracted, but my guess is that most people would say it with "is" standing alone.

Not really.  "A bike's a two-wheeled vehicle" sounds perfectly natural to me.  Granted, you wouldn't see it contracted in a dictionary definition, but in everyday speech there's nothing unusual about that sentence.

"If that's what I think it is..." In this sentence, the 2nd is has a defining function. It could never be contracted.

But in "I think it is a whale," the "is" also has a defining function, but can be (and generally would be) contracted: "I think it's a whale."

Again, still seems to me that it's OK to contract "it is" only when the complement is after the "it is", and not okay when the complement comes before the "it is" or is elided.  Still haven't seen any counterexamples to that, and it doesn't rely on fuzzy notions of what function a word is serving in a sentence.  Of course, it's hard to analyze because native speakers don't really consciously think about why it's okay in some circumstances and not in others, but that still seems to me the most workable rule I've seen for it so far.

For a further example, consider the following exchange:

"Is that a shark?"
"No... looks like a whale to me."
"Ah, yes.  A whale it is."

That last sentence has exactly the same words, fulfilling exactly the same functions, as "It is a whale" -- just in a different order.  But while "It is a whale" would usually be contracted in everyday speech to "It's a whale", you'd never contract it that last sentence to "A whale it's" -- that sounds horribly unnatural.

Though you did bring up one case that does throw a slight curve to that idea, the clause "whatever it's called in Swedish".  The complement is "called whatever in Swedish", but, although the "called" appears after the "it is", the "whatever" appears before.  Still think this fits the rule, though, because, even though the complement is split up and part put before the "it is" and part after, the head of the phrase is "called", which comes after the "it is".  It makes sense that if part of the complement is before the "it is" and part afterward, it's where the head of the complement is that matters.

I'm also curious if there are sentences where "it's" is grammatical but "it is" isn't.

I'm almost positive there aren't.  After all, in formal writing, contractions are often avoided altogether, and it doesn't make sense that formal writing would be less grammatical.  There are some sentences where "it is" would sound stilted and grammatical in speech, but it would still be correct in formal writing.  Well, here's an example: "Who's there?" "It's me!"  I think it would be very rare to say "It is me!"  (Of course, technically the complement should be in the subjective case, and it should be "It is I!", but that's opening a different can of worms that's already been covered and probably isn't worth bringing up again... and anyway, almost nobody says that.  Although, come to think of it, "It is I!" still seems more natural than either "It is me!" or "It's I!"  I guess because the formal register matches...)

[Intense Degree]

Interesting discussions.

I'm now starting to think it could be simply about position in a sentence.

End of a sentence - clearly doesn't contract, i.e. "Yes it's.", "It is simply what it's.".

End of a clause, or part of a sentence (not sure of the correct termanology here but will attempt to explain) - doesn't contract.

So taking the initial example "or whatever it's in English", the sentence can be broken down into 2 parts (although not really clauses), "Whatever it is" and "in English". As the "It's" is then at the end of the first part of the sentence it must be "It is".

However, as pointed out, the sentence "or whatever it's called in Swedish" is fine, as in the first part "whatever it is called" the "it's" is not at the end.

Maybe?

[Alun]

That's more or less what I was saying; I just put it a little more technically (and therefore perhaps more confusingly).  Instead of trying to break the sentence down into parts, I was just looking at where the complement of the clause was (the part that the "is" works to equate to the "it") -- if the complement comes after the "it is", it's okay to contract the "it is"; if not (because the complement comes before the "it is" or because it's omitted), it's not.  I think you seem to be defining the "part of the sentence" in question as the "it is" plus the complement, which means that the "it is" comes at that end of the "part of the sentence" if and only if the complement doesn't come after the "it is".  So I think you're saying about the same thing I was, just in different words.

On a not altogether related note, though, I've been rethinking what I said in the last paragraph in response to Snarky about there never being any cases where "it is" is ungrammatical but "it's" is okay.  Actually, in fact, I kind of contradicted myself in that post by giving a counterexample: as I said, you'd rarely, if ever, hear anyone say "it is me".  ("It's me", sure, "it is I", rare and a little pompous but not altogether unknown, but "it is me" just sounds kind of weird.)  Don't know if it's ungrammatical, per se, but definitely a bit unnatural.  The same goes, I think, for some other phrases that might come  up in conversation but not in formal writing.  "Who's there?" "It's the police!" sounds perfectly natural.  "Who's there?" "It is the police!" sounds stilted and odd.  Again, perhaps not strictly ungrammatical, but definitely unidiomatic.

[Andail]

Yeah, Alun, I admit now that you're making much more sense than I was...anyhow, it was fun speculating, even though it was quite a wild goose chase...

[Khris]

I've often noticed a specific difference between German and English when it comes to expressing a negative.

Here's an example:
Say Person A is talented. Person B though thinks otherwise.
In German we say "Person B thinks Person A is not talented."
However, in English the usual way of expressing the same thing seems to be "Person B does not think Person A is talented."

Superficially, the sentences convey identical meaning; however I'd say that the second version would also apply to a Person B who hasn't made up their mind about A being talented, while the first version explicitly states what Person B thinks of Person A.

Thoughts?

Edit: Here's the piece of monologue from Admiral Adama that made me write the post:

-They don't think I see it.
-But I do.
-I see it.

Note how "I do" relates to him (actually not) seeing it; why doesn't he say "They think I don't see it"?

[Atelier]

It depends what the verb is I suppose. Change your A/B example Khris so you use a different verb.

• Person B knows Person A is not talented.
• Person B does not know Person A is talented.

In the second, it only implies an absence of knowledge, and cannot be read two ways. Therefore these sentences are complete opposites.

• Person B wishes Person A is not talented, (he does not wish A is talented)
• Person B does not wish Person A is talented, (he wishes A is not talented)

On the other hand, these two sentences are identical. If it's stated that he does not wish something, he must wish it, and vice versa; neutrality can't be assumed if the feeling is already created and stated. This is just philosophical rather than lexicological.

[Khris]

Of course, changing the verb will lead to completely different results.

I had a better example, I'm trying to remember it. I know, take this sentence:
"All of them didn't get the lecture." This seems to be a common way of expressing "Nobody got the lecture." which is how a German would put it. The first version sounds weird to us.

Is this a matter of dialect, or a colloquial thing?

[Atelier]

Personally, I've never heard somebody say "all of them didn't get the lecture", it sounds so clumsy. At least, on its own:

• "John, Joe, Anne... all of them didn't get the lecture."

This sounds a little better if you define 'them' beforehand, as it were. Whereas with 'nobody', its already defined in itself because it means absolutely zero people.

• "John, Joe, Anne... all of them got the lecture."

This sounds correct. So, it seems that as soon as a negative is involved like in the first example, it sounds odd. =S