Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
> >   "The rest of it is easy. " -> "The rest of it's easy."

> Yep standard contraction. As with the "not" the first example may be used  
> when you want emphasis e.g

> FP: "It's not easy!"
> SP: "It is easy!"
> FP: "It is not!"
> SP: "It is!"

  The problem I'm still having is that the subject in the example is
not 'it' but 'rest', and usually the verb "is" is contracted with
the subject and not some ancillary word.

  "The rest's easy" would be ok, because the subject is 'rest'. However,
"The rest of it's easy" sounds odd to me because the subject is still 'rest'
but the verb is not contracted with it...

  One could build a more extreme example:

  "The car which has its windows rolled down's parked there."

  The subject is 'car', and the verb is very far away from it, and
contracted with a completely unrelated word. Feels even more awkward.
When contracted, the verb looks like it's related to 'down', but of
course it isn't. It's related to 'car'.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message