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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Analysis of "let's"

There are so many theories about a sentence such as "Let's go to the beach." May I ask you experts:

(a) What is the subject?

(b) How would you analyze "let's"? (Some say it is actually an auxiliary more than simply a contraction of "let us.")

Thank you for any insight.
  

Top answer

Quirk et al call 'Let's/ let us' a first-person directive formed by preposing the verb 'let' followed by a subject in the objective case. In another section they announce that 'let' (regarded as a pragmatic particle of imperative or optative mood) is "totally unlike auxiliary verbs". That's good enough for me (insofar as I can get my brain around it).

— Mister Micawber

  • Quirk et al call 'Let's/ let us' a first-person directive formed by preposing the verb 'let' followed by a subject in the objective case.
  • In another section they announce that 'let' (regarded as a pragmatic particle of imperative or optative mood) is "totally unlike auxiliary verbs".
  • That's good enough for me (insofar as I can get my brain around it).
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6 Answers
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Quirk et al call 'Let's/ let us' a first-person directive formed by preposing the verb 'let' followed by a subject in the objective case. In another section they announce that 'let' (regarded as a pragmatic particle of imperative or optative mood) is "totally unlike auxiliary verbs".

That's good enough for me (insofar as I can get my brain around it).
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All the properties of "Let's go to the beach" suggest it is a special idiomatic imperative clause. For example, it cannot have a subject, and it is negated with a fixed "don't" that is understood inside the clause: "Don't let's get all bent out of shape" means "Let's not get all bent out of shape". There is of course an ordinary imperative reading for "Let us go to the beach", where
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I may have glossed over the specific points in your post. Just in case, here's a bit more info.

What is the subject?
The reason it cannot have a subject is because you can’t say *“You let’s go to the beach”. In let-imperatives it’s the verb following "let" (in this case "go"), that is understood with a 1st person plur
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Thank you SO much for your obviously expert comments.

We ordinary folks are constantly told that EVERY English sentence has at least an implied subject.

So to make us ordinary folks comfortable, could I diagram it something like:

We = implied subject.
let = verb
us (to) go = prepositional phrase as object.
to the beach = modifying "go."

I read that i
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With let-imperatives, the verb following “let” is understood with a 1st person plural subject.

Analysing let-imperatives is trickier than with ‘ordinary’ imperatives. I’d analyse your example like this:

“Let’s”: catenative verb “let” together with the pronoun object “us” contracted to 's'.

“Go to the beach”: b
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A million thanks, BillJ, for taking the time and effort to answer me. I have noticed that not a few thread starters (at various helplines) never even push the "like" button to acknowledge someone who has been kind enough to respond. Well, I am NOT like them! I was taught good manners.

I cannot honestly say that I understand this construction, but I CAN honestly say how grateful I am to yo
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