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In the question [What is the grammar underpinning] You're too clever a man to imagine this, Laurel explains that this is termed the Big Mess Construction (see Arnold & Sadler; 2014)

  • She made too rude a remark (for me to repeat).
  • She made so rude a remark (that we were shocked).
  • I’ve never heard as rude a remark (as that).
  • He doesn’t look the type to make this rude a remark.
  • He doesn’t look the type to make that rude a remark.
  • I wonder how rude a remark she could have made.
  • Don’t be offended, however rude a remark she makes.

(Contrast the positioning of the intensifier very in

  • She made a (very) rude remark.          NOT           She made very rude a remark.)

My question (we are agreed the paper does not address these):

Are the following structures also considered to be included in the 'Big Mess Construction'?

  • {[Det quant or Adv] + [Adj comp] + [a] + [N]} ( [How] much longer a journey was it to your old job?)
  • {[neg Particle] + [Adj comp] + [a] + [N]} structures (Theirs is no bigger a house than ours.)

And the variant with 'of' included (thanks to TimR, comment below), considered acceptable in at least some dialects:

  • {[neg Particle] + [Quant or Adv] + [Adj] + [of] + [a] + [N]} (It's not that big of a deal.)
Edwin Ashworth
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2 Answers2

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If we accept that this works for both embedded and direct questions . . .

I wonder how rude a remark she could have made.   How rude a remark could she have made?

And if we accept that much is an adverb and longer is an adjective here . . .

How much longer a journey was it to your old job?

Then I would point to The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p. 550), where it refers to:

(a) Predeterminer AdjPs
AdjPs occurring in predeterminer position in NP structure, before the article a, must meet one or other of the following conditions:
[40]   i   The AdjP begins with one of the modifiers how, as, so, too, this, that.
          ii   The AdjP has such or exclamative what as head.

It goes on to give these examples:

In the following examples underlining marks the AdjP, and brackets enclose the NP:
[41]   i   [H͟o͟w͟ ͟b͟i͟g͟  a company] is it?   It was [s͟o͟ ͟s͟e͟r͟i͟o͟u͟s͟  a matter that we called the police].   Don’t make [t͟o͟o͟ ͟b͟i͟g͟  a fuss].   I’ve never seen [t͟h͟a͟t͟ ͟b͟i͟g͟  a spider] before.   *They have [t͟h͟a͟t͟ ͟b͟i͟g͟  a house].   *It’s [e͟x͟c͟e͟s͟s͟i͟v͟e͟l͟y͟ ͟b͟i͟g͟  a risk].
          ii   It’s [s͟u͟c͟h͟  a pity] you can’t come.   [W͟h͟a͟t͟  a waste of time] it was!   *She’s [e͟x͟c͟e͟l͟l͟e͟n͟t͟   a pianist].

It adds:

The modifiers listed in [40i] need not modify the adjective head: the AdjP may involve submodification, with how, etc., modifying an adverb, as in [͟H͟o͟w͟ ͟r͟i͟d͟i͟c͟u͟l͟o͟u͟s͟l͟y͟ ͟t͟r͟i͟v͟i͟a͟l͟  a complaint] it had turned out to be!

Then again, it’s unclear to me whether CGEL would accept the big mess we have going here. More analyses can be found in The Big Mess Construction: Forms and Functions in Present-Day English. Search inside for much bigger a mess to yield: no bigger a mess, much bigger a mess.

Tinfoil Hat
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    +1 I think its *" They have quite big a house." – user424874 Feb 03 '24 at 07:02
  • "I didn't know they had that big a house" and "The really have that big a house?" and "When they want a midnight snack they have to take a shuttle to the kitchen, they have that big a house!" are all grammatical in my AmE dialect. – TimR Feb 03 '24 at 11:56
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    @TimR — I agree. But I think CGEL is making a case against it as, say, an answer to How big a house do they have? A: **They have that big a house.* – Tinfoil Hat Feb 07 '24 at 00:59
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I am fairly sure that these are included.

How much longer a journey was it to your old job?

Van Eynde 2007 (who I cited here) describes the Big Mess Construction as including "adjectival phrases which are introduced by as, so, too, how, this and that" (page 416). To me, "How much longer a journey was it to your old job?" seems to be included as it starts with "how". I guess you could argue that "how much" is different enough to count as a different introductory word.

Huddleston, Pullum et al. 2002:435 write

The degree adverb or determinative need not be modifying the adjective itself: it may be part of an AdvP modifying the adjective, as in It was so blatantly biased a report that no one took any notice of it.

(underlining replaced with bold since SE does not support underline formatting.)

Although this doesn't specifically mention How much, the word much is an adverb modifying the adjective longer in "How much longer...."

Theirs is no bigger a house than ours

Van Eynde 2007:417 states that

APs which are introduced by more or less [...] can either occur in the canonical position or in the exceptional one (Huddleston and Pullum, 2002, 435).

(6) a. This is a more serious problem than the other.
b. This is more serious a problem than the other.

Also here, the exceptional position is only possible in combination with the indefinite article.

Huddleston, Pullum et al. 2002:435 write

inflectional comparatives are restricted to internal position: Kim is a better player than Pat, not *Kim is better a player than Pat.

It isn't mentioned, but as far as I can tell negated synthetic comparatives such as "no bigger" can easily be placed in the "exceptional position" or after the noun.

I'm not sure how easily this or similar phrases can be placed in the "canonical position"; "a no bigger problem" sounds bad to me, but "a no less interesting conjecture" (cited by Jespersen 1914:436) sounds OK.

Works cited

  • Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; et al. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Jespersen, Otto. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Part 2. Syntax. Volume 1. Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung.

  • Van Eynde, Frank (2007). "The Big Mess Construction", in Müller, Stefan (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Stanford Department of Linguistics and CSLI’s LinGO Lab, 415–433. Page 416.

herisson
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