Fwd: RE: Bogoyvalenskiy, D

[Beverly Flanigan]

"No real way to test any of these claims"?  A particular part of speech is
not fixed forever, but it is testable!  Again, Annette K-S's "I did
good"-->"I did better" is a good test, in context, of course--which is the
point.

>X-Sender: lmenn at psych.colorado.edu
>Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 15:28:07 -0600
>To: jonmach at informix.com, Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at oak.cats.ohiou.edu>
>From: Lise Menn <lise.menn at colorado.edu>
>Subject: RE: Bogoyvalenskiy, D
>Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
>
>Dear colleagues
>I suggest that the fact that we have no real way to test any of these
>claims points up serious limitations to the whole notion of
>'part-of-speech'. Which is not exactly a new observation...
>         Lise Menn
>
>At 5:18 PM +0100 8/14/01, Jon Machtynger wrote:
> >> The adverbial use of "good" in the States may have begun as a dialect
> >> variant, but it is now simply idiomatic in certain phrases:  "You did
> >> good," and after "How are you?" "I'm good, how are you?"  But hasn't the
> >> same change occurred with German "gut"?  Isn't "wohl" reserved mainly for
> >> idioms like "Leb wohl"?  Such regularization is not unusual; adverbial -ly
> >> is also falling away in many dialects:  "Go slow," "Do you say this
> >>different?"
> >
> >I don't think that "you did good" uses good as an adverb, rather a noun, as
> >in "let's do some good".  The fact that people may consider this in an
> >adverbial sense is probably a misunderstanding.
> >
> >Also from a German perspective, I think the context is understood to the
> >native speaker.  I'm no native speaker, but I believe that answering 'gut'
> >would be implicitly considered "mir geht's gut" (i.e. goes well with me).
> >
> >Wohl would be different from gut (just as well is different from good)
> >e.g. ich
> >fuhle mich wohl.
> >
> >Jon
> >
> >> >At 18:06 13.08.2001 +0100, you wrote:
> >> > >Don't Americans say "I did good" - I hear them say in response to
> >> > >"how are you"  = "Good" and it is creeping into British english too,
> >> > >replacing "well".  I've heard anecodatlly bestest, betterest amd
> >> > >gooder but never goodest..
> >> > >Annette
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> >Thank you for this -- I never heard that. This might make it more
> plausible
> >> >that those using "I did better" are somehow aware of the relationship
> to "I
> >> >did good".
> >> >Of course, understanding "well" really well involves understanding the
> >> >relationship of the adverb to the adjective. Could it be that the
> >> >increasing usage of the adjective rather than the adverb is due to a
> >> >certain uneasiness with this irregularity? Maybe, for speakers, "well" is
> >> >somehow too remote from "good" to be used with the same ease (in contexts
> >> >where something "good" is to be expressed), so they increasingly prefer
> >> >"good"?! (I'm not too familiar with the mechanisms of language change --
> >> >I'm just speculating!)
> >> >- Thora
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >http://www.spatial-cognition.de
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >---------------------------------------------
> >> >
> >> >Thora Tenbrink
> >> >Spatial Cognition Priority Program & WSV
> >> >Universitaet Hamburg
> >> >FB Informatik
> >> >Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30
> >> >D-22527 Hamburg
> >> >
> >> >Tel.: +49/*40/42883-2382
> >> >Fax:  +49/*40/42883-2385
> >> >e-mail: tenbrink at informatik.uni-hamburg.de
> >> >http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WSV/hp/tenbrink-english.htm
> >>
> >>
> >> _____________________________________________
> >> Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
> >> Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
> >> Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
> >> http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm
> >>
>
>
>
>Beware Procrustes bearing Occam's razor.
>
>         Lise Menn                       office phone 303-492-1609
>         Professor                       home fax     303-413-0017
>         Department of Linguistics
>         UCB 295
>         University of Colorado
>         Boulder, CO 80309-0295
>
>Lise Menn's home page
>http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/faculty/lmenn/
>
>"Shirley Says: Living with Aphasia"
>http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/Shirley4.pdf


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm