<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 27 July 2009 - Volume 03<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)</span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</a></span><br>
===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Mike Morgan</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:mwmosaka@gmail.com">mwmosaka@gmail.com</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Grammar" 2009.05.28 (02) [EN]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">just back from the ALT (Assdociation of Linguistic Typology)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
conference at UC Berkeley, and one comment that was made during a Q&A</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
session (after Frans Plank and Aditi Lahiri's presentation</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"Macroscopic and microscopic Basic Valence Orientation", looking at</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
German transitive/intransitive and causative/non-causative verb pairs,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
with a few comparative references to English) reminded me of a</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
discussion here on Lowlands a bit back on drunk vs drunken</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
The comment (made by Susan Fischer I think) concerned the fact that</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
hanged (as opposed to hung) can ONLY be used in reference to</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
executions ...</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
so drunk-EN can only be used in refenrence to sailors</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
and</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
hang-ED only in reference to felons</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
(although of course</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
brok-EN refers not only to what happens to hearts, but also promises,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
tyreaties, arrows, computers, ...)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
... IS there maybe something going on here, with the longer (more</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
regular?) form having in fact RESTRICTED usage (collocationally ...</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
and semantically)?</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
JUST a thought ... but would love to hear of any additional supportive</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
(or opposite) examples</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
On 5/28/09, Lowlands-L List <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">> wrote:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
> ==============================</span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" id=":1l5" class="ii gt">=============<br>
> L O W L A N D S - L - 28 May 2009 - Volume 02<br>
> Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)<br>
> Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php" target="_blank">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</a><br>
> ===========================================<br>
><br>
> From: Mike Morgan <<a href="mailto:mwmosaka@gmail.com">mwmosaka@gmail.com</a>><br>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.05.28 (01) [EN]<br>
><br>
> Hi again all,<br>
><br>
> Heather replied to my comments:<br>
>> I'm not sure where Michael found his 80 odd examples from. I have just<br>
> googled for 'a half<br>
>> ate sandwich' and no examples appeared.<br>
><br>
> You get more without the extra indefinite article, but even 'A half ate<br>
> sandwich' turns up 12 on my google search... a re-search turned up the same<br>
> approximate number: 80 plus for the phrase w/o "A" ...<br>
><br>
> BUT, maybe google search is like lots of linguistic informatants: they tell<br>
> you waht you want to hear and so answers will vary from user to user... (And<br>
> to everyone except mom when she's mad at me, I am just Mike)<br>
><br>
>> perhaps these people were speaking sloppily and made mistakes! People do ,<br>
> you know!<br>
><br>
> Yes, and one man's messy desk is another's way of doing business!<br>
><br>
>> archaisms often linger longest in 'new' versions of a language ( american<br>
> Fall / gotten)<br>
><br>
> And maybe just as often in 'old' versions?<br>
><br>
>> appear not very current - in America, they certainly aren't here in the<br>
> UK.<br>
><br>
> We must however remember that the internet, for all its informality, is<br>
> STILL a written medium, and that MOST the people using it were educated in<br>
> what was "proper" in writing. SO chances that deviations from written<br>
> standard are UNDER-estimated by google seraches, not over...<br>
><br>
> So I am not saying that a number like "80 plus" PROVES popularity or NOT...<br>
> and CERTAINLY not that it shows "correctness". For example, if I type in the<br>
> single word "whom" I get 147 MILLION hits on google ... and unless you go<br>
> through them somehow it is hard to say how many of them are just saying<br>
> simply that the rule we learned in school is DEAD! (and so to a<br>
> descriptivist dead WRONG)<br>
><br>
> We often make definitive statements, here and elsewhere, and I am certaily<br>
> not innocent of that "crime". But, in truth, the statement that I feel MOST<br>
> certain of is of the "*I* wouldn't /can't say that" type ... and even there,<br>
> sometimes, I realise later I was wrong!<br>
><br>
> PS I tend to be as excited by an asterisk in front of an "ungrammatical"<br>
> sentence as I am by the asterisk in front of a reconstructed<br>
> proto-Dene-Basque word...<br>
><br>
> mike || U C > || мика || माईक || マイク || ሚካኤል<br>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++<br>
> (( Michael W Morgan, PhD ))<br>
> to be Assistant Professor in Linguistics<br>
> Ethiopian Sign Language & Deaf Studies Program<br>
> Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia)<br>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br>
> וואָס לענגער אַ בלינדער לעבט, אַלץ מער זעט ער.<br>
> The longer a blind man lives, the more he sees.<br>
><br>
> ----------<br>
><br>
> From: Mike Morgan <<a href="mailto:mwmosaka@gmail.com">mwmosaka@gmail.com</a>><br>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.05.27 (06) [EN]<br>
><br>
><br>
> Dear Cheryl & Kevin<br>
><br>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar"<br>
><br>
> You wrote:<br>
>> What about:<br>
>> His eyes were sunken.<br>
>> Or…<br>
>> The ship was sunken when they found it. Vs.<br>
>> The ship was sunk off the coast of Florida 400 years ago. Vs.<br>
>> The ship sank off the coast of Florida 400 years ago.<br>
><br>
> No, it doesn't work like that. Allow me to rephrase... I'm sure it doesn't<br>
> work like that.<br>
><br>
> Here goes:<br>
> The galleon was sunk off the coast of Florida 400 years ago.<br>
> The sunken galleon yielded a cargo of doubloons.<br>
> & as follows:<br>
> 'The sailor was drunk' aot 'the drunken sailor'<br>
> 'Her hair was of gold' aot 'her golden hair'<br>
> 'His suit was of fine wool' aot 'his fine woolen suit'<br>
><br>
> The system has broken down of course, English being the international<br>
> working argot that it always was, hostage to any passing linguistic eddy.<br>
> Consider 'open' - but 'ope' is dialect, 'broken' & 'broke'. 'Happen' yes,<br>
> but no 'hap', though you get 'hapless'.<br>
><br>
> However, in Afrikaans we still have a strong degree of consistancy in<br>
> something similar:<br>
> 'Die deur is oop' aot 'die ope deur' (The open door).<br>
> 'die omie is rustig' aot ' 'die rustige omie' (the extremely laid-back<br>
> [restful] dear uncle).<br>
> 'die draad is kort' aot 'die korte draad' (the short thread).<br>
><br>
> The rule in Afrikaans is that the adjective or adverb immediately preceding<br>
> the relevant noun or verb becomes part of a word-pair, & the relationship is<br>
> indicated by the '-e' suffix.<br>
><br>
> Having gone that far, once in less formal conversation a complete sentence<br>
> has introduced the subject, the noun or verb can be dropped, & the verb<br>
> stands in .for the whole pair.<br>
> For example:<br>
> 'die dierbare kind' is followed later by reference only to 'die dierbare'<br>
> (the darling one).<br>
> 'die slimme skepsel' to 'die slimme' (the sly creature [a devius fellow]).<br>
> 'Die skone jagt' (the trim-lined jacht) to 'die skone' (the trim one).<br>
> This last example is to my mind a survival of the Dutch substratum in<br>
> American English. What else is a 'schooner' but a trim-lined yacht?<br>
><br>
> All Yrs,<br>
> Mark</div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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