use(d) to

[Dennis R. Preston]

Never assume transparency. Ask non-linguists about the identity of
the second morpheme in "inept," for example.

dInIs

>--On Thursday, August 14, 2003, Peter McGraw wrote:
>
>>  >Grammatically, "didn't use to" seems perfectly straightforward to
>>  >me, since one would also say, "I didn't use the washrag", whereas
>>  >"didn't used to" seems problematical, since one would not say *"I
>>  >didn't used the washrag."
>>
>
>And Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> replied:
>
>>this, however, is problematic.  it assumes that speakers connect
>>the verb in [just@] (conveying tense/aspect semantics) with the
>>ordinary verb [juz] 'employ', which seems pretty dubious to me.
>>(maybe some do, but it's a pretty big leap.)
>
>
>I agree it would be dubious to assume that speakers connect [just@] with
>[juz] while using it in the normal flow of speech.  When they stop and
>wonder how to write it, though, it seems a pretty big leap to me to imagine
>that it would never occur them to refer to the "ordinary" [juz] for
>guidance.  It's pretty transparent that [just@] must have developed from
>[juz].
>
>Peter Mc.
>
>*****************************************************************
>Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290