good vs. well

[bruce d. boling]

     Those interested in the problem of predicative GOOD  vs. predicative
WELL may find the following of interest.

     In the use of adjective GOOD and adverb WELL as the complement of  BE
English and Irish (as in several other important instances) form a
Sprachbund.  The normal means of forming an adverb in Irish is to prefix
the particle GO to the adjective:

                        ADJECTIVE                               ADVERB

                        adj.                                    GO +  adj.

        Example MAITH  "good"                           GO MAITH "well'



     Either of these predicative forms can appear as the complement of TA-
"is", but with a significant difference in meaning.  TA SEAN MAITH means
"John is good", in the sense that goodness is a (not necessarily permanent)
quality of his BEING.  TA SEAN GO MAITH means "John is good", in the sense
that goodness is a quality of his ACTIVITY.  The semantic distinction
between being and acting is the organizing principle of the Irish
grammatical system, and in this system adjectives prototypically pattern
with BEING, adverbs with ACTING.  Certain phenomena are protoypically
assigned to the ACTIVITY  side of the dichotomy; thus, for example, health
and weather are regarded as dynamic, therefore as activities.  So, with the
form BREAGH "fine, beautiful'' describing the weather (AIMSIR) the natural
comment is, TA AN AIMSIR GO BREAGH; in Hiberno-English this is likely to
come out as "the weather's FINELY."  Conversely, in talking about the
goodness of God the natural expression is, TA DIA MAITH (TA DIA GO MAITH
could mean "God is in good health" or "God acts/exists well)";  when
children are told to behave in Irish, they are told to look to the quality
of their being, not their activity (BIGI MAITH "be good", not *BIGI GO
MAITH, which would mean "exist well" or "be in good health").  A further
and final example of the phenomenon is the expression, TA GO MAITH "fine!",
lit. "things are well "; i.e. not good in themselves, but as the result of
some process; cf. English "all is well" (?"everything has been taken care
of").

     This predicative good-well, bueno-bien, maith-go maith system is not
widespread.  Spanish and Portuguese have it, but French, German, and
Italian lack  it; English and Irish (and Scots Gaelic) have it, but it is
wanting in Welsh.  It's unknown in Slavic.  If English has developed the
pattern as a result of living in the Irish neighborhood, the development
has nonetheless remained fairly unelaborated; there is for example no
counterpart of the "weather pattern" (ta an aimsir GO MAITH [adv.] vs. the
weather is GOOD [adj.] ).  Like English, Spanish also has no "weather
pattern" (el tiempo esta BUENO [not BIEN] but shows the health pattern
(estoy BIEN)  beside SOY BUENO "I am good."

                        IRISH                           ENGLISH                         SPANISH

     GOODNESS           Ta Sean  MAITH                  John is GOOD                    Juan es BUENO  ("is a good
person")


     HEALTH                     Ta Sean GO MAITH                John is WELL                    Juan esta BIEN


     WEATHER            Ta an aimsir GO MAITH           The weather is GOOD             El tiempo esta
BUENO


     Bruce D. Boling, Assoc. Prof.
     Zimmerman Library
     University of New Mexico
     bboling at unm.edu