this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
729 points (90.8% liked)

Comic Strips

12434 readers
3500 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

Web of links

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Sources for Salo Comics

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm no expert, but I think "you're already" doesn't work because the "anti-stress" on the contraction tells us the focus is later, but the focus of "already" is actually on the "are" in "you're". It trips us up because it sneaks the focus past us and then just ends the sentence before the focus the stress told us about arrives.

It may also be because "you are already" is a variant of the sentence "you are" which can't be contracted, so the contraction insinuates "you're already [something]". It makes us parse a different sentence structure than it is, then we get confused when the sentence ends early.