"package store"

[Lynne Murphy]

Larry said:
>This is fun stuff to ponder, though maybe more for Lynne and me as
>lexical semantics junkies than for the prototypic ads-er.

I'm not taking this off-list, in case it does interest anybody else.
But if not, apologies!

>   I think
>there are a couple of different issues here.  We can agree that the
>selling of mixers and peanuts doesn't affect whether "liquor store"
>is compositional, since as you say it doesn't exist to sell those
>items.  But such a store, at least in the Northeast, DOES exist to
>sell wine as well as (hard) liquor, and in CT (although not NY) also
>to sell beer, even though beer is also sold in supermarkets/grocery
>stars.

If it exists to sell liquor, then (in the broad sense of 'liquor'),
it exists to sell wine.  Now, it's true that liquor stores often sell
hard liquor and wine, but not beer (as was the case where I grew up,
since grocery stores sell beer), which then seems to give 'liquor' a
sense that means 'hard liquor and wine (but not beer)'.  And I'd be
willing to argue it has that sense too.

Actually, I can give you an example of 'liquor' meaning 'wine and
spirits (not beer)'.  A certain member of my family gave up 'liquor'
because he couldn't handle it (won't even eat something in a wine
sauce), but he still drinks beer (he finds it easier to slow down
when drinking too much beer, I take it).


>And crucially beer and wine for many purposes are not liquor,
>whence the signs on many liquor stores "Wines and Liquors".

Yes, but this could be because if you use a broad sense of 'liquor',
then you'd expect beer too.  So these signs are telling you that this
is the kind of liquor store that sells wine and (narrow-sense)
liquor, but not beer.  I think they also like to put 'wine' out there
to let you know they have a good variety, rather than it just being a
sub-part of the liquor they carry.


>I'm going down to the {wine/liquor} store to pick up a merlot.
>I'm going down to the {liquor/#wine} store to pick up a single malt.
>What's your favorite liquor?  {Single-malt scotch/#Merlot}.

BUT the last one is bad because it jumps a stage in the taxonymy.  I
wish I could draw a tree diagram in e-mail.  I'll settle for this:

LIQUOR1 -->  LIQUOR2/SPIRITS    WINE    BEER    CIDER
LIQUOR2 -->  SCOTCH GIN VODKA  BOURBON  ...
WINE  -->  MERLOT, CABERNET, SAUV BLANC, PINOTAGE...

Sentences 1 and 2 use LIQUOR1.  If sentence 3 has LIQUOR1 as its
sense, then the answer 'wine' would be ok. The answer 'merlot' is
strange because the LIQUOR2 reading was expected, and merlot isn't a
kind of LIQUOR2.  On the LIQUOR1 reading 'merlot' is strange in the
same way that "What's your favorite performance genre?  Seinfeld" is
odd. In giving the 'single malt' answer, the LIQUOR2 reading has been
assumed.

>>Getting thirsty,
>>Lynne
>
>At least the sun is just about over the yardarm there in Sussex.
>Some of us have to wait HOURS.

Yeah, but who can see the sun in England (at least today)?

Lynne
--
Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH UK
phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax    +44-(0)1273-671320