LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.05 (02) [E]

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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.04 (03) [E]

Ron/Reinhard writes

> " How have you been doing?
> Standard: Well.
> versus: Good.


I assume by "standard" you mean the "grammar book standard" which us
educated folks TRY to stick to. In fact, if "standard" means "most frequent"
then I think for THIS example, the two must be reversed; one hears "good"
MUCH more often than "well" (and "goodly" not at all ;-) ).

As to WHY this should be the case, I assume, along with R/R that in fact

> this US American tendency go back to historical developments


but disagree that it is goes back

> especially to early distancing from British norms and early
> non-English-speaking mass immigration


I think instead it goes back precisely to the very important Scots influence
on American English -- the Scottish having been a goodly portion of
"English" immigrants to MY part of the country. (That is in fact one of the
reasons I got "hooked" o Scots; it reminds me -- oh so many miles from home
-- of HOME. IT sounds like home-folk talk ... only MORE so!)  While Scots
does in fact -- and Sandie, etc correct me if I am wrong -- frequently have
adverbs in -lie, it also equally often uses adjectival forms unchanged /
unsuffixed.

And even in "standard" English (of whatever variety) I think the choice of
"adjective" (without -ly) or "adverb" (with -ly) BOTH when used adverbally
AND when used adjectivally is a semantic one ... motivated in some way when
we choose one over the other (when both are possible), and ALSO when we have
no choice:

1) Where there is a clear difference in meaning:
good vs well
poor vs poorly
hard vs hardly (a REAL stumper for ESL learners!)
near vs nearly
etc.

2) and some cases where the difference MAY not be so clear, but there DOES
seems to be some difference.
Do it quick. (focus on the results, get it over and done with ASAP) vs Do it
quickly. (focus on the manner of "doing")

3) Where only one (the "incorrect" one) possible:
Make sure you do it right this time. *rightly

Alas, though I have thought many times over the years to make a study (a
tribute to CH van Schooneveld, my mentor, who did a paper LONG ago on Dutch
adjectives with and without -e (memory fails me as to what exactly the title
or details were , and the paper is still with the remainder of my belongings
in Japan) but have never gotten around to it. NOW I have NO time. C'est la
vie! (Say, lovey!)

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド

----------

From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.04 (04) [E]

From Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

Ron/Reinhard wrote:  My other main point was that colloquial American
English tends toward *not* marking adjectives (e.g. "He don't hear so good,"
"It's goin' quick"), and I wonder if this is due to influences of immigrant
languages other than English.

Surely these examples are ' of not marking adverbs' as they are modifying
verbs and the adjective form is being used in preference to creating an
adverb  'quickly'  or using the accepted adverb  good >> well

Heather

PS who is of the opinion that American English is FULL of mixes between
English and  former native languages - per force. If you have " 'Het gaat
goed" ringing in your brain, of course you are going to tend to use 'good'
rather than 'well'

The important point about any language use is " Is it acceptable? Is it
accepted".  If every time an American said " I'm good" for 'I'm well' ( as
opposed 'I am not bad/evil') they were given a 500 volt electric shock [
;-) ]or the person being spoken to said to them 'I beg your pardon. What do
you mean? I was asking after your well being not your character' then they
would make the final cognitive step and tag 'good' in this context =
wrong/unacceptable and add 'well' to this meaning.

If instead, nothing is said and they hear other people saying it too, then
it becomes the local norm.

Once it is heard outside the local norm, it becomes the general norm.

The next step is that people then insist a new dialect has arisen which is
'correct' by its own standards.

This example is now generally acceptable in american english and people who
then reply 'I'm well, thank you' are immediately taken to be English!!!!!!!

The influence of american English via the media is such that many many
English people ( especially teenagers) think it cool to copy and so  "I'm
good" can now be heard here as wellas "How goes it?" " Can you do it quick"
etc etc

----------

From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.04 (04) [E]
Okay, I am always taking objection (but NOT offence), so once again:

Orville (manbythewater) writes

It is always easier to just parrot what we hear, for better or worse. A
> person has to decide if it really matters to them not to use sloppy and lazy
> grammar.


I am not sure, but I think, except when I am parodying, I am am not
parroting this "sloppy and lazy grammar". My handwriting is indeed sloppy
and so I alwasy print (or type ... though my typing is also a bit slopy!)
But in speech I think I am QUIET careful. And I carefully choose to use the
language as she is spoken by the people I respect and hold dear to me. In
some cases that is my mother (and so i preserve and use openly with great
pride the "lazy grammar" of the Apallachian foothills (and there ain't no
way I am about to stop doing so!). Yes, I can, with more or less effort
(much more effort when it comes to, say past participles!), choose to modify
that language to meet the needs of the situation (as when I know that the
person i am speaking to is so prejudicially biased against anything but
book-learned grammar.

Whether the reason for saying, 'I am doing good' and not 'I am doing well',
> harkens back to the older form of the language or being sloppy and lazy in
> the here and now or both;


Or a third option: that the two MEAN something different:
When I hear the question "How are you doing?", I will reply "well" ONLY if I
take it to be a question of my HEALTH; in other cases (e.g. as a question as
to how work is going, etc) I will most surely answer "Good". ...

> It is an interesting question, Ron.


Indeed it is!

And R/R himself writes:

> No, both languages (also German and other languages) use adverbs to modify
> the verb. The *goed* in *Het gaat goed* is an *adverb*, not an adjective.
> It is only -- and this was my main point -- that in the non-Anglo-Saxon
> Lowlands languages as well as in German and Yiddish *adjectives and
> adverbs sound alike* (and look alike written). There is an adjective *goed
> *, and there is an adverb *goed*. English, however, on the whole marks
> adverbs and thus distinguishes them from their adjectival counterparts.


Hmm, I think I disagree wholeheartedly (nb -ly) here ... on theoretical
grounds (which means of course if R/R's theory is different, his ground may
STILL be solid).

Formally, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein a  goed is a goed is a goed. One
form, one meaning. This one form, however, can be inserted into a sentence
in several ways. Whether by so inserting it you transmogrify (a favorite
word I have not yet posted to the list) its nature, is a theoretical
question. I think not. It IS what it IS. Contextually of course it interacts
differently depending on the differences in context. (the CH van Schoneveld
paper I referred to in a posting just a few minutes ago explored the
differences between Dutch ADJ+0 ( = zero) and ADJ+e, and if I remember
correctly came to the conclusion that the two are semantically distinct and
the
latter marked in an "adverbial" sort of way ... but alas as I read it LONG
before I knew a word of Dutch, the details do not stick. Would that I had
that copy at hand ... IF you are interested I can at least dig up the
biographical details so if you have access to an academic library you can
find it for yourselves.)

My other main point was that colloquial American English tends toward
*not*marking adjectives (e.g. "He don't hear so good," "It's goin'
quick"), and I
> wonder if this is due to influences of immigrant languages other than
> English.

But to my knowledge ALL the main immigrant languages that would have been an
influence themselves mark the distinction between adjectives and adverbs
derived from adjectives. Of course, in creole-like situations (and I don't
think we calling American English a creole, right?) we sometimes see grammar
being lost in strange ways, i am not sure I am inclined in this case (though
I CAN be convinced!).

I remain sincere(ly),

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド

----------

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.04 (03) [E]

Ron, what do you think was the original situation in Germanic: the one as
in English, with marked adverbs, or the one as in the rest of the Germanic
languages? I guess the latter, and I think English has got its adverbalism
from French, where it's a rule to use adverbs as well.
Maybe American English was influenced here by the many German, Dutch and
Low Saxon speakers in the early days, and the many slaves from Africa? Or
was 17/18th century spoken English less strict in using adverbs anyway?

Ingmar

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

Dear Lowlanders,

I'd like to invite you to revisit with me adverbial marking and its
historical aspects. I would be interested in your ideas and additional
information.

Among the living Germanic languages, it seems to be only the Anglo-Saxon
branch of West Germanic that regularly marks adjective-derived adverbially
used words. English uses *-ly* (< **-lig*) and Scots in many cases the
older
form *-lik* (< **-lig*), being cognates of Old Norse and Icelandic *-lega*,
Scandinavian *-lig*, and Continental West Germanic *-lig*, *-lich* and *-
li*.
This suffix does not strictly distinguish adjectives and adverbs in the
non-Anglo-Saxon varieties, though there are lexicalized adjective-derived
adverbs of this kind (e.g. Icelandic *ný* > *nýlega*, German *neu* > *
neulich*, both ("newly" >) "lately", "recently"). In the Anglo-Saxon branch
there is far more regularity. While there is a small handful of
adjective-derived adjectives with this suffix (e.g. "She is poor" versus
"She is poorly (i.e. of bad health)"), adjectives thusly marked are usually
noun-derived (e.g. "love" > "lovely", "saint" > "saintly", "ghost" >
"ghostly", "god" > "godly", n. "kind" > adj. "kindly" (versus adj. "kind" >
adv. "kindly" - "She's a kindly soul" versus "She treated us kindly")).

In mainstream English at least (and I'm not sure about the extent in
Scots),
adjective-derived adverbs are marked by *-ly*, as mentioned above (e.g.
quick > quickly, dainty > daintily, hard > hardly, angry > angrily, slow >
slowly, gross > grossly, fine > finely, shy > shyly, free > freely, wild >
wildly). Adverbial derivations are lexicalized (i.e. cannot be freely
derived, thus must be learned, except perhaps in cutting-edge literature,
e.g. "memories glowing dimly, redly" or "and followed succumbingly,
hangdoggedly" -- all made up by me). This is shown by the semantic shifts
involved in some cases (e.g. hard > hardly) as also in the limitations of
participially based adverbs (e.g. seeming > seemingly, supposed >
supposedly, but not seeing > *seeingly, standing > *standingly, despised >
*despisedly, famished > *famishedly, but hungrily, ravenously).
Furthermore,
there are clearly lexicalized cases such as adjectival "good" versus its
adverbial equivalent "well".

In the Continental West Germanic languages, related adjectives and adverbs
tend to be homophones, as in Low Saxon (adj.) *Dey olde was trurig* (*De
Ole
was trurig*) 'The old man was *sad'*, (adv.) *Trurig moyk hey dat licht
uut*(
*Trurig möök he dat Licht ut*) '*Sadly* he turned off the light'. This is
essentially the same as the exceptional English case of "fast" (e.g. "The
car is *fast*" versus "It runs *fast* (not *fastly)").

However, I have noticed that in US American English varieties of a certain
colloquial range there is a tendency toward not marking adverbs.

" How have you been doing?
Standard: Well.
versus: Good.

Standard: He doesn't hear very well. (or "He's hard of hearing")
versus: He don't hear so good.

While this is prominent in the case of "good" and "well", I have heard
similar expressions using other words, e.g.

Standard: "We got there quickly."
versus: "We got there quick."

And then there are generalized expressions such as "You've got to think
smart" and "She writes great".

Might this US American tendency go back to historical developments,
especially to early distancing from British norms and early
non-English-speaking mass immigration?

Regards,

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

Thanks, "guys," for those truly interesting responses.

Ingmar, that's a great point about Norman influence, a matter I have been
having in the back of my mind. Before we close the book on that one we need
to take a closer look at adverbial processes in Old English.

As for the said theoretical approaches, I wholeheart*edly* (though not all
that hurri*edly*) agree to wholeheart*edly* disagree with my brah Mike (*some
akamai doh*).

However, without wanting to snatch credit away from him (*not I, nevah*),
let me add that I've wondered about Scottish influence as a reason for the
American English development. I have a feeling that Scottish influence in
North America and elsewhere in former British colonies is less recognized
than it ought to be.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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