"even still" ?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:54 PM -0600 3/10/06, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>      Abject apologies are a bit overdone.  Profound ones will do.  :-)
>When I sent the first message, there was a twinkle in my eye that
>didn't come across.  In any case, blends are important in
>language---of interest in themselves, for their role in
>idiomaticity, and for their relevance to broader issues in
>linguistics.
>      My list of blends doesn't contain "even still," so thanks for
>this additional item. Also, a few days ago there was mention of
>"irregardless."  This is evidently a blend of "regardless" and
>"irrespective."

I'm not sure how this could actually be proved.  In any case, this
isn't an isolated example when understood in historical perspective.
As the OED documents (un-1, 5a), 16th and 17th century texts were
rife with adjectives like

        unboundless     unguiltless     unnumberless    unshameless
        undauntless     unhelpless      unquestionless  unshapeless
        uneffectless    unmatchless     unremorseless   untimeless
        unfathomless    unmerciless     unrestless
unwitless

in which the prefixal negation in these forms was understood as
pleonastic, reinforcing rather than cancelling the negation in the
suffix.  The meaning of unmatchless, for example, was 'unmatched' or
'matchless', rather than 'not matchless'; unmerciless likewise meant
not merciful but merciless or unmerciful.  Is there any reason to
believe that these that these, or hence modern irregardless or its
German parallel unzweifellos [lit.  'undoubtless', but actually =
'doubtless'], are in fact blends, or how we could show this?  What
would they all be blends of?  (The non-pleonastic readings, on which
the two negatives would cancel each other out, are ruled out by the
same principle that rules out "unsad" and "unhostile" alongside
"unhappy" or "unfriendly".)

Larry

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