September 22, 2003

A ban on quotative inversion?

I conjecture that the New Yorker Magazine has an unmotivated editorial policy against inversion with direct quotation complement to verbs of saying (e.g., "I see," said Ed). Such inversion is usually, perhaps always, optional, so it is hard to find evidence in favor of the conjecture. However, tortured examples like the following could only be the result of a slavish editor's pen:
"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," Christopher Hitchens, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky, says.
(Larissa MacFarquhar. The devil's accountant. The New Yorker, March 31, 2003 (p. 67, column 2).)
The example is unexceptional if it reads ... says Christopher Hitchens, who....

English does have a strict requirement that a supplementary relative (in the example, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky) appear directly adjacent to its anchor (Christopher Hitchens). Deviating from this results in ungrammaticality or a change in meaning:

*"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," Christopher Hitchens says, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky.
This genuine restriction combines with the conjectured ban on quotative inversion to leave says stranded at the end of a long and complex appositive expression.

This is not the only such example I have found in The New Yorker, but I'm afraid it is the only one that I jotted down. I hope to strengthen the conjecture with additional evidence soon. Posted by Christopher Potts at September 22, 2003 11:08 AM