[rewboss]

Originally Posted by riverkid

I never said that you were taking a prescriptivist stance.

No you didn't; which is why attacking the prescriptivist stance was irrelevant to this thread.

The problem was that prescriptivists never took the time to figure these things out. They just fell back, still do just fall back on a catch all exceptions clause. Were this not the case, then proof would be forthcoming to support prescriptive positions. It never is because there's nothing there to provide the support

Here you set up the same straw man: even though nothing about prescriptivism was in your original post or my response to it, you construct an argument based on a flawed understanding of how prescriptivists work, and then attack that argument. You are not actually debating anything I have said; merely conducting a tirade against prescriptivism.

I never made the assumption that "speakers will frequently add a past time adjunct to a present perfect without bothering to go back and correct the verb phrase". I believe that was your submission.

I did not suggest that it was a frequent occurrence.

That is correct; why are you arguing as if I had suggested otherwise? This is another straw man; doubly so, since I was not making the point that it happens frequently, but constructing an example to illustrate my argument that your position and the position you are attacking are actually the same position worded differently. Besides, "frequently" is a very vague and relative term.

All I did was note that these overrides do occur, and I offered a potential reason for the same. I don't know for sure that it's right, but I do know that these overrides occur.

And all I did was to point out that "override" is merely a different label for "exception". What you are saying, in effect, is that there is a general rule, but that sometimes this general rule is superseded by a more specific rule; which is exactly what an exception is.

However, if I were to go further, I'd venture to say that you haven't actually advanced any reason for these overrides, potential or otherwise; merely that they happen because Swan said that such overrides exist. The theory I have advanced is that speakers modify aspects of their utterances in mid-flow causing constructions which do not adhere to established patterns (or, if you prefer, flout the rules of grammar, which is a prescriptivist way of saying the same thing).

You haven't actually commented on either of those last two points, preferring instead to attack prescriptivism for no apparent reason.