Michael Everson scripsit:
> The famous example I know (probably I got this from Alain) would be if a
> newspaper headline wrote LE PRESIDENT ASSASSINE, which doesn't tell you
> whether the Président is dead (LE PRÉSIDENT ASSASSINÉ) or a murderer (LE
> PRÉSIDENT ASSASSINE).
By Anglo-American standards, at least, the latter is not a headline, because
it is not a sentence. Until the Spanish-American War (1898), it was common
for newspaper articles to have simple captions ("The War"; "Foreign News"; etc.)
instead of headlines, although an 1783 example, "CORNWALLIS TAKEN!"
is unimprovable even by modern standards.
It is true that the copula can be omitted in a hed, but not when placed
between two noun phrases: "PRESIDENT [IS] ASSASSINATED" is a good
hed, but "PRESIDENT [IS] ASSASSIN" is not.
-- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban.
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