disappearing prepositions

[Robert Wachal]

If 'absent' offers something more than 'without' or 'in the absence of',
how did we get along without it so damned long in non-legal discourse.

At 05:21 PM 9/28/2004, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: disappearing prepositions
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 2:23 PM -0700 9/27/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> >On Sep 26, 2004, at 11:45 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >
> >>At 1:26 PM -0500 9/26/04, Robert Wachal wrote:
> >>>
> >>>And what does the new preposition 'absent' have to offer that
> >>>'without'
> >>>lacks?
> >>
> >>A legal imprimatur?  Evidently, most of the cites are in a legal
> >>context:
> >>
> >>1944 Rep. Supreme Court S. Dakota (1948) LXX. 191 We think it clear
> >>that under this definition, absent any other facts, there arises an
> >>implied contract that the patient will pay.
> >>
> >>1953 Federal Suppl. CVII. 527/2 Absent federal legislation upon the
> >>subject, states may, within limits of reasonableness, regulate the
> >>use of their highways...
> >
> >etc. etc.
> >
> >there are at least two questions here.  one: why did the preposition
> >"absent" arise in legal language?  two: why did it spread to ordinary
> >language?  the two questions don't necessarily have the same answer.
>
>
>Note that "absent" does always seem to allow a paraphrase with "in
>the absence of", it doesn't necessarily always allow that with
>"without", nor (as Arnold suggests below) is it always a more
>specific version of "without", which would predict such a
>substitution.  Here's a naturally attested instance of "absent"
>outside (absent?) a legal context that I just happened upon in class
>reading for tonight; emphasis added:
>
>"But there is another sense of meaning in which, ABSENT lexical or
>syntactical ambiguities, two occurrences of the same word or phrase
>must mean the same.  (Otherwise, how could we learn and communicate
>with language?"
>
>--David Kaplan, "Demonstratives", in Almog et al. (eds), _Themes from
>Kaplan_, 1989.
>
>The context is Kaplan's argument that we need to allow for
>"character" as well as "content" in describing the semantics of
>indexicals, content for how my use of "I" and Arnold's use of "I"
>differ (have different contents, a la Kaplan, picking out LH and AMZ
>respectively) and character being the respect in which they're the
>same (have the identical character).    Obviously, Kaplan's "absent"
>here =/= "without", but = "in the absence of".  Thus, as Dwight
>Bolinger would put it, "absent" as a preposition earns its pay as a
>lexical item, there being no one-word alternative synonymous with it.
>
>larry
>
> >
> >(for what it's worth, this "absent" appears in neither garner's Black's
> >Law Dictionary (7th ed.) nor clapp's Dictionary of the Law.  which is
> >to say that it's a term of practice, not of art.)
> >
> >the easy answers are that lawyers wanted something latinate,
> >impressive, and technical-sounding to give, um, gravitas to their
> >language, and that non-lawyers wanted to borrow the authority of the
> >law in *their* language.  that is, it's all show.  i don't discount
> >these motivations, but (like dwight bolinger) i encourage people to
> >look beyond the obvious dismissive accounts as mere fashion, talking
> >the way the cool people do.  give people some credit for trying to
> >achieve their purposes as effectively as they can.
> >
> >remember the fusses about "since" 'because' and "while" 'although'?
> >(the American Psychological Association stylebook still condemns
> >these.)  people who use them -- virtrually every living speaker of
> >english, i think -- make subtle and complex choices between "because"
> >and logical "since", and between "although" and logical "while".  they
> >aren't just confused.
> >
> >so, i claim, it is with "absent" 'without'.  the point is that "absent"
> >is not merely a fancy-pants substitute for good ol' "without", but a
> >*more specific* expression.  "absent" expresses only a logical
> >relation, specifically a negative conditional: in brief, "absent X" =
> >"if X is absent" = "if there is no X".
> >
> >other uses of "without" -- and there are many -- cannot be replaced by
> >"absent".  try it out...
> >
> >"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."  bizarro: "A
> >woman absent a man is like a fish absent a bicycle."
> >
> >"Without seeing the full set of papers, I cannot rule on this
> >application."  bizarro: "Absent seeing the full set of papers,..."
> >
> >"Without prejudice to the defendant, I must say that this is an
> >extraordinary ground for defense."  bizarro: "Absent prejudice to the
> >defendant, I must say..."
> >
> >and so on.
> >
> >"without" has a wide range of uses; "absent" picks out just one of
> >these, and so saves the hearer/reader the effort of winnowing down
> >interpretations.  it is more specific than "without", and therefore
> >more informative.
> >
> >(think about connectives.  you *could* just string sentences together
> >with "and", but it's damn useful to have more specific connectives.)
> >
> >the irony here is that people who rage on about the necessity of
> >clarity and subtle meaning distinctions in writing and speaking simply
> >reject attempts to further these aims -- so long as the relevant
> >expressions are innovations.  New is Bad, No Matter What.  (in other
> >cases, it's brevity that's at issue, in still others
> >regularity/generality/simplicity, and so on.)
> >
> >in any case, the point is that the innovation does some real work, has
> >some communicative value -- and that communicative value favors its
> >spread.  people say, in effect, hey, that's a good thing to have; i
> >want it.  (in the case of the preposition "absent", the innovation
> >brings with it some stylistic/registral baggage that not everyone might
> >want to take on.  but, still, it's a potentially useful thing to have.)
> >
> >go back to the "hopefully" thing.  why should this expression have
> >spread so rapidly?
> >
> >because it's really really useful.  ("hopably" or "hopingly" would have
> >worked too; "hopefully" just happens to have gotten in first.)
> >
> >the question is: why not just say "I hope (that) it will stop raining
> >soon"?  well, that version doesn't package the informational units the
> >way the speaker/writer really intends.  its syntax has "hope" as the
> >main verb, and the proposition that it will stop raining soon wrapped
> >into an object clause.  that is, it's framed as a report on the
> >speaker's mental state.  but normally someone using this sentence
> >intends to claim that it will stop raining soon, but to hedge this
> >claim as a hope, rather than a bald assertion.  the syntax and the
> >informational structure are at odds; what we really want is a version
> >in which the hoping is expressed as a dependent element, in particular
> >an adverbial.
> >
> >ok, we can package the "i hope" stuff as an adverbial, namely a
> >parenthetical.  but then english syntax forces it to come later in the
> >sentence, as in: "It will stop raining soon, I hope."  this is ok too,
> >but it's rhetorically tricky, since it appears to assert the cessation
> >of rain baldly, then to qualify the assertion after the fact (sort of
> >like retro negatives: "It's will stop raining soon -- NOT!").  there's
> >nothing wrong with this, but it's a bit risky.
> >
> >what we really want is something that expresses the hoping as an
> >adverbial *and* puts this hedge right up front.  we want a
> >sentence-initial speaker-oriented sentence adverbial.  "hopefully"
> >fills the bill perfectly.
> >
> >my speculation is that once people heard a few instances of this use of
> >"hopefully" they said, in effect: now *that's* just what i want!"  and
> >so it spread.  almost as good as sliced bread.
> >
> >its only defect was that it was new.
> >
> >arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)