I recently asked for attested cases of coordinate structures (phrases linked by the word and or, or nor) with large numbers of coordinates (the phrases that are linked). I have received some entries that are indeed fairly remarkable. Some are simply stunning. Read on for some syntactic wonders that will convince you of the fairly important theoretical point that you do not want linguistic theory to analyze all coordinate structures the way logicians do, in terms of binary coordinators.
Several people suggested that a nice 5-coordinate example would be the famous reference of Hobbes (often quoted only in part) to how things could be in the condition that mere nature would give us; "the life of man", he avers, would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
That is a nice, compact, quotable 5-coordinate case which cannot reasonably be analyzed without allowing 5 coordinate constituents of equal rank. But it is worth noting that in the original context it is contained within a much larger coordinate structure, which is quite staggeringly complex (this is why The Cambridge Grammar does not use unedited real examples for illustration most of the time!). I will put in brackets with labels showing the coordinates of seven different coordinate structures, labeled A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The second coordinate of coordination A has no main verb, but "there is" should be understood as carried over from the first coordinate; I've popped it in at the right point in green, for extra clarity.
In such condition [A1 there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain]: [A2 and consequently there is [B1 [C1 no culture of the earth]; [C2 [D1 no navigation], [D2 nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea]]; [C3 no commodious building]; [C4 no instruments of [E1 moving] [E2 and removing] such things as require much force]; [C5 no knowledge of the face of the earth]; [C6 no account of time]; [C7 no arts]; [C8 no letters]; [C9 no society]; [C10 and which is worst of all, [F1 continual fear], [F2 and danger of violent death]]]; [B2 and the life of man, [G1 solitary], [G2 poor], [G3 nasty], [G4 brutish], [G5 and short].]]"
So we actually have a 10-coordinate example there, the coordinate structure with the coordinates C1 thru C10. That coordinate structure forms coordinate B1 of the larger structure B, which itself is contained within coordinate A2 of the even larger structure A. Astounding, wonderful stuff.
However, Lance Nathan, from MIT's Department of Linguistics, tops it in sheer number of coordinates. Not with the example he quotes from William Shatner in Airplane 2, though I do like it:
I gotta say something about that guy up there, and I can sum it all up in just one word: courage, dedication, daring, pride, pluck, spirit, grit, metal, and G-U-T-S, guts!"
That's cute, but only 9 coordinates, which does not beat Hobbes. No, Lance's triumph was finding the following example from a song lyric by Andrew Lloyd Webber; the song is "Coat of Many Colors" from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat":
It was red and yellow and green and brown
And scarlet and black and ocher and peach
And ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve
And cream and crimson and silver and rose
And azure and lemon and russet and grey
And purple and white and pink and orange
And red and yellow and green and brown
Scarlet and black and ocher and peach
And ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve
And cream and crimson and silver and rose
And azure and lemon and russet and grey
And purple and white and pink and orange
And blue.
If we take that as a whole, it might appear to have 57 coordinates, which would definitely make Lance the current world champion multiple coordinate examplefinder. But unfortunately, after the first 28 coordinates, at the word Scarlet, it stops syntactically, and begins to repeat: there is no and after brown in the 8th line to continue the coordination; the song just goes back to a repeat starting from scarlet in line 2. So it isn't a single uninterrupted coordinate structure. It concludes, after a repetition of the first 28, with a final extra one, and blue. So the whole thing comprises two coordinations, the first being the complement of was. The second (starting at Scarlet), which is a coordination of either adjectives or nouns is a 29-coordinate example.
And that is not enough to earn the world record for Lance. The world champion multiple-coordinate example hunter, so far, is M. Crawford, who sent me this spectacular passage (about a bottled condiment of some sort) from Neal Stephenson's 1995 novel The Diamond Age:
If the manifest of ingredients on the bottle had been legible, it would have read something like this:
Water, blackstrap molasses, imported habanero peppers, salt, garlic, ginger, tomato puree, axle grease, real hickory smoke, snuff, butts of clove cigarettes, Guinness Stout fermentation dregs, uranium mill tailings, muffler cores, monosodium glutamate, nitrates, nitrites, nitrotes and nitrutes, nutrites, natrotes, powdered pork nose hairs, dynamite, activated charcoal, match-heads, used pipe cleaners, tar, nicotine, singlemalt whiskey, smoked beef lymph nodes, autumn leaves, red fuming nitric acid, bituminous coal, fallout, printer's ink, laundry starch, drain deaner, blue chrysotile asbestos, carrageenan, BHA, BHT, and natural flavorings.
That is a completely clear example of a coordinate structure with 41 coordinates arising in a natural context and printed in a novel. (It is actually an example of what The Cambridge Grammar calls layered coordination: the 18th coordinate is itself a coordinate structure (nitrotes and nitrutes). Congratulations to M. Crawford, the champion! His prize will be sent to him soon, unless...
Unless someone beats him. The contest now moves to a new level. We are searching for an attested coordination, published in a respectable print source (with respectability defined by me), having a number of coordinates that equals or exceeds the familiar number that in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy turned out to be the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything: 42.
Posted by Geoffrey K. Pullum at April 1, 2004 01:32 AM