subjunctive or not

[birdeen's call]

The following sentence seems to refute the idea.

And then came Christmas.

[corum]

I mean, I find the idea interesting, but its ramifications will lead to problems:

Come in!
Come here!
Go West!
Jump ship!
Arrive London 2am.
The same argument would make prepos of the verbs here.

Also, if it were a prepo, you could use it in 'phrasal' type verbs: 'go in', 'put up', 'see through'. Can you find any examples of such use? 'go come'? Maybe: 'I will come', but no, that won't work.

Not every, say, 'provided' is a subordinating conjunction and similarly, not every, 'come' is a preposition. Sentence structure matters.

I have provided them with some fruits.

Does the fact that 'provided' above is part of a verb phrase exclude the possibility of 'provided' functioning elsewhere as a subordinator? No. Does the fact that 'come' functions as a verb somewhere rule out the possibility of 'come' functioning as a preposition somewhere else? I highly doubt it.

[Johnson_F]

1. Come in! Come here! Go West! Jump ship! Arrive London 2am.
The same argument would make prepos of the verbs here.

2. Also, if it were a prepo, you could use it in 'phrasal' type verbs: 'go in', 'put up', 'see through'. Can you find any examples of such use? 'go come'? Maybe: 'I will come', but no, that won't work.

1. These all seem to be examples of imperatives, a different kettle of fish from 'Come March'.

2. All phrasal verbs, almost by definition, consist of a verb and at least one preposition (or adverb, or particle). Not all prepositions are used in the formation of phrasal verbs.

Neither of your arguments suffices to prove that 'come' in 'come March' is not a preposition.

[Johnson_F]

The following sentence seems to refute the idea.

And then came Christmas.

Surely this is just a version of 'And then Christmas came'?

[birdeen's call]

Surely this is just a version of 'And then Christmas came'?

It is. I believe it's an extant VS version.

[Johnson_F]

Come March

1. subject
2. object of a verb
3. object of a preposition

Option 1. is out given word-order constraints. Option 2. and 3 are possible but at this stage yet to be determined.
If 2. (the object of a verb), then expect an implied subject; i.e., archaic come (ye) March; Cf. mark (ye) my words. But would that be too much of a stretch?
If 3. (the object of a preposition), then expect 'come' to gain its category via its position relative to the noun 'March' as we are constrained by the grammar to define it in any other way.

1. Corum asked in post 30, "Is English strictly an SVO language?, and, of course, the answer is no. Should you doubt that, re-read this sentence. Besides, the main argument against 'come' as a preposition in 'come March' seems to be that it is a subjunctive verb. If that be the case, then 'March' is the subject.
2. I feel that 'March' as an object of otherwise intransitive 'come' is far too much of a stretch.
3. I think I agree with you here, but do not really understand your, "we are constrained by the grammar to define it any other way."

[Johnson_F]

It is. I believe it's an extant VS version.

In that case, there is no doubt that 'came' is a verb in your sentence (indicative, too), so this example is not really relevant to this discussion, I think. Or is it?

[birdeen's call]

In that case, there is no doubt that 'came' is a verb in your sentence (indicative, too), so this example is not really relevant to this discussion, I think. Or is it?

Corum asked whether lauralie2 thought English was strictly SVO. I allowed myself to give a counterexample. As you said, English is not stricly SVO and I thought an uncontroversial example wouldn't be a bad idea.

[Johnson_F]

Corum asked whether lauralie2 thought English was strictly SVO. I allowed myself to give a counterexample. As you said, English is not stricly SVO and I thought an uncontroversial example wouldn't be a bad idea.

I apologise, Birdeen's Call. I misunderstood the reason for your post. It was, in fact, completely relevant.

[lauralie2]

It is. I believe it's an extant VS version.

It is, and I think your example is a great addition to the discussion. Well done! I stand corrected.