Fwd: disappearing prepositions

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu>
> Date: October 4, 2004 11:07:15 AM PDT
> To: "Sean Fitzpatrick" <grendel.jjf at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: disappearing prepositions
>
>
> On Oct 3, 2004, at 10:29 PM, Sean Fitzpatrick wrote:
>
>> <<to say it again, in slightly different terms: "hopefully" is
>> castigated because it leads to ambiguity only because it's
>> innovative.--Arnold M. Zwicky>>
>>
>> Actually, the objection to "sentence modifying" "hopefully"
>
> it's  sentence-modifying *speaker-oriented* "hopefully" (parallel to
> "frankly") that's under discussion here.  that's the innovation.
> sentence-modifying proposition- or subject-oriented "hopefully"
> (parallel to "joyfully") is the older usage, and is still available.
> the ambiguity is between the two uses of "hopefully".
>
>> is not ambiguity but the clarity of its inanity.
>> 1--Hopefully, he tried to talk sense with the doctrinaire
>> descriptivist.
>> 2--Hopefully, we won't crash on the way to the hospital.
>> 3--Hopefully, it won't snow tonight.
>>
>> The first is fine, the second inept, and the third preposterous.
>> Whatever it is that snows or doesn't snow, it is incapable of
>> hoping.  The adverb has completely lost any connection with the verb
>> or even the subject (2), and is just hanging out there, modifying the
>> ambience.  No ambiguity, but try to diagram it.
>
> (how do you diagram other speaker-oriented adverbs, like the "clearly"
> of "Clearly, your objection is groundless"?)
>
> it hadn't occurred to me that i'd see an objection like this one on
> ADS-L.  but for the record, here goes...
>
> the sophisticated objection -- the only one i entertained -- to
> innovations that produce new meanings for old forms (and these make up
> a large portion of innovations in language) is that they introduce
> ambiguities.  this is true; they do.  but ambiguity is everywhere, and
> rarely produces problems in context, so if there is some advantage to
> the innovation, the ambiguity objection carries little weight.  i
> argued earlier that speaker-oriented "hopefully" has something going
> for it, so that its potential ambiguity with "hopefully" having older
> meanings is of little consequence.
>
> your objection, which i'll call the *pigheaded objection*, is based on
> the claim that the innovation simply doesn't (or shouldn't or can't or
> mustn't) exist.  you are willfully rejecting the meanings that other
> people have for forms, in the face of the plainest sort of evidence
> about what these people are saying.  in the case at hand, you're
> saying that "Hopefully, it won't snow tonight" cannot mean 'I hope it
> won't snow tonight', when any idiot should be able to understand that
> that's what (huge numbers of) people mean by it.  you are pigheadedly
> refusing to understand other people's intentions.  this is
> uncooperative, ungenerous, and downright rude.
>
> this is another version of the objection to multiple negation on the
> grounds that two negatives make a positive, so that "I didn't see
> nothing" can mean *only* 'I saw something': nonstandard speakers,
> those ignorant boobs, therefore are saying exactly the opposite of
> what they mean.  (but wait: how do you know what they mean?)
>
> look, no one is telling you that *you* have to use innovative forms.
> no one is telling you that you have to treat them as standard.  but
> you can at least make the (mimimal) effort to *understand* what other
> people are doing with them.  if you don't, you just look like a
> self-righteous asshole.
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>
>