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Your semantic principle is right on.<br>
<br>
Quirk et al have it right: the pejorativity of -ish shows up much more
clearly where there is contrast with -like or -ly or -y or -some or
something of the sort. And it is quite usually, to the point of being
predictably, the more pejorative of any such pair. But that does not
deny what John Roberts said, that pejorativity is not the primary
meaning of -ish. That is quite true. What would not be true would be to
deny that -ish has any pejorativity associated with it, or that is part
of its meaning.<br>
<br>
John mentioned the absence of new words with pejorative -ish in the
Oxford Dictionary of New Words, and concludes on that basis that <tt>this
usage does not appear to be<br>
particularly productive in current English usage. </tt>Interestingly,
some kinds of productivity are quite unlikely to show up in such a
list. It is only words that (1) are different enough from what might be
expected and (2) really "catch on", especially if they catch on more
than other logical possibilities. If something is saliently different
it may be listed even if it barely catches on, or if it catches on
egregiously (in the older sense of that word), it may be listed even if
it is so predictable as to be humdrum. What don't get listed are words
that are highly predictable and ephemeral; yet such may constitute the
majority of novel usages. For instance, given the new verb "to google",
the Dictionary of New Words will probably not list googles, googled, or
googling, even though they may be used thousands of times. Of course
these are inflectional forms, but that is in some sense the point I'm
trying to make. Word-formation processes that are predictable and
humdrum are considered inflectional and not listed. There is not a
clear dividing line between what is inflectional and what is
derivational: far from it. I think -ish is so productive, both in
non-pejorative and in pejorative-tinted usages, and so predictable,
that particular instances of its usage do not stand out, and it is
treated effectively as an inflectional affix. I know I use it
productively, but do not expect any of the particular words I coin in
using it to have the same sort of prominence that, say, a coinage with
-some or -age would have.<br>
<br>
"Bullish" to me is clearly opposite "bearish", and very much has to do
with the bulls and the bears on Wall Street. (For any who are not used
to the stock market terminology, bulls are those who think the market
is going up, and therefore charge ahead and buy stocks; bears think the
market will go down, and sell their holdings while the selling is good.
Wall Street refers to the stock market, not usually to the physical
street in New York City.) I don't think of the word as meaning "like a
male bovine" in any direct sense at all. (That of course doesn't mean
others don't make the connection more directly.)<br>
<br>
--David Tuggy<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Mike Maxwell wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid424961E1.7060902@ldc.upenn.edu" type="cite"><tt>
John Roberts wrote:<br>
> Quirk et al (1985)... say in a footnote: "Where -like and -ish
occur<br>
> with the same base, the latter is relatively pejorative and more<br>
> remote from literal comparison. In "manly", "manlike", "mannish",
the<br>
> first refers to physical or heroic qualities (in a male), the
second<br>
> is a simile, usually applied to nonhumans, the third refers to<br>
> unwelcome masculine attributes (usually in a woman)." So with<br>
> reference to your summary, "-like" gives a neutral comparison,
"-ly" <br>
> gives a comparison with positive connotations, and "-ish" gives a<br>
> comparison with negative connotations - at least when all apply to<br>
> the same base.<br>
> <br>
> However, I would still say it is the 'approximate' sense of "-ish"<br>
> that is primary and not the 'pejorative' sense. <br>
<br>
I suspect there's a general semantic principle here. Probably it's
well <br>
known in the literature (y'all can enlighten me)--words expand to fill <br>
the (semantic) space available. The space available is whatever is not
<br>
taken up by other words. So a word (like those ending in -ish) will <br>
mean "having the quality of" in both good and bad senses, except that
if <br>
there's already such a word having more or less the approximate meaning
<br>
(the -like or -ly words), that word usurps part of the meaning range, <br>
leaving only the specialized meaning for the -ish word. (I wonder why <br>
it's the -like or -ly words that take up the general meaning, rather <br>
than the -ish ones? Something like Aronoff's notion of blocking of '+'
<br>
affixes by '#' class affixes?)<br>
<br>
Maybe this has s.t. to do with semantic drift, too. So the word <br>
"bullish" no longer has the meaning "like a bull", rather it has some <br>
sort of "optimistic" meaning (not even the pejorative meaning). <br>
Although in this case I confess I'm uncertain what word usurped the <br>
"approximate" meaning, unless it's just the case that we don't need
that <br>
word much any more. (Most of us aren't very familiar with bulls, so <br>
maybe we don't need a word 'bull-like' any more than we need a word <br>
'aardvark-like'. BTW, I was about to say that we don't need a word <br>
'bully', then I realized that that word does exist, but has drifted so <br>
far from its etymological origins that I didn't even recognize it as <br>
connected--if indeed it is.)<br>
<br>
All in all, very relevant to lexicography.<br>
-- <br>
Mike Maxwell<br>
Linguistic Data Consortium<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu">maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu</a><br>
</tt>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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