Unobtainable is what he wants.

Question

Is this sentence ungrammatical?"Unobtainable is what he wants."At page 268 of CGEL, the sentence is marked ungrammatical.But I wonder if it is an inversion of "What he wants is unobtainable."Please let me know if you think it is grammatical or not, and if not, why you think it is not.Thank you.

Fivejedjon · Accepted Answer

You need to read about ascriptive uses of BE, starting on page 266 of the Cambridge Grammar of the English language. This explains that inversion is not normally possible in ascriptive constructions.

Anonymous · Answer

On page 266, there is another inverted sentence marked as grammatical: "Even better was her third novel." My question this time is why it is that the above-mentioned sentence ("Unobtainable is what he wants.") is ungrammatical whereas this sentence ("Even better was her third novel.") is grammatical. Please note here that both the sentences ("What he wants is unobtainable." and "Her third novel was even better.") are in ascriptive construction.
Thank you.

Fivejedjon · Answer

With inversion in specifying constructions, what comes before the verb is the subject of the verb:

Peace and quiet is what he wants.
What he wants is peace and quiet.

Inversion with ascriptive constructions generally results in ungrammaticality:

What he wants is unobtainable
*Unobtainable is what he wants.

Huddleston and Pullum refer to the inversion in Even better was her third novel as a 'special case (my emphasis) of subject-dependent inversion' - the subject of 'is' is 'her third novel', not 'even better'. You'll find more about this on pages 1385-90. However, I have to admit that, to me, the words 'special case' mean 'we can't think of a logical explanation for this'. I certainly can't think of one.

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you fivejedjon for your detailed response. I really appreciate it.
I fully understood your explanation.
Since you seem to be a native speaker of English, let's put aside for a moment the CGEL, shall we? Why don't you tell me what you think as a native speaker about the sentence "Unobtainable is what he wants". If you came across this sentence somewhere, would you consider it ungrammatical or would you-~~as an educated native speaker~~-rather think of it as an inverted form of "What he wants is unobtainable"?

Secondly, what if I change the sentence a little bit like: "Unobtainable is what he wants from his grandfather, who is almost 90 years old and has a great deal of money." Would it be still ungrammatical to invert the long subject and the complement?

FYI, English is not my first language, so your two cents as a native speaker would be much appreciated.

Unobtainable is what he wants.

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