X to Y: Recency illusion?

[Wilson Gray]

Hasn't "time was" existed since the Deluge with a meaning something
like, "there was a time when ..." or "once upon a time"?

-Wilson

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 1:26 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
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>  Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>  Subject:      Re: X to Y: Recency illusion?
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>
>
>  On Apr 27, 2008, at 8:23 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
>
>  > For a few years, I've been noticing the omission of the preposition
>  > 'from'
>  > in phrases like these:
>  >
>  >   Buddha to Buffy...
>
>
>  > One guess I have is that this is a generalization
>  > from clipped "from X to Y" PPs in compounds like "cradle-to-grave
>  > insurance"
>  > or "head-to-toe coverage" or "wall-to-wall carpet".
>
>  it could just be omission of material that's predictable in context.
>
>
>  >
>  > What prompted me to ask about this today was something in today's
>  > newspaper:
>  >
>  >   "Tweens to teenagers are going to hear their parents say 'no' for
>  > the
>  > first time,"...
>
>
>  > I believe that's the first time I've seen the "X to Y" construction
>  > used as
>  > something other than a PP.
>
>  it is true that PPs can serve as subjects as well as adverbials --
>    From 10 to 2 is the busiest time of the day.
>    From 10 to 13 is a difficult age.
>      (cf. Under the rug is a bad place to hide a gun.)
>
>  and as postnominal modifiers --
>    The hours from 10 to 2 are the busiest of the day.
>    Children from 10 to 13 are often difficult.
>      (cf. The gun under the rug was obvious.)
>
>  and "from X to Y" has the variant "X to Y" in these uses --
>    10 to 2 is the busiest time of the day.
>    10 to 13 is a difficult age.
>    The hours 10 to 2 are the busiest of the day.
>    Children 10 to 13 are often difficult.
>
>
>  > Here, not only do I have to add in a 'from'; I
>  > also have to add in an 'Everyone'. to make it a full NP.
>
>  try "kids" or something of the sort; then there's no problem with
>  number agreement.
>
>  > ... At this point I have to conclude that "X to Y" is going or has
>
> > gone beyond a
>  > mere clipping and is becoming something else.
>
>  clippings often develop a characteristic syntax of their own, not
>  identical to their full alternatives; they become new constructions.
>  so nouns with clipped articles ("time was", "thing is") don't have
>  quite the same syntax as their arthrous counterparts ("the time was",
>  "the thing is"):
>    The thing is that we have to go.
>    The thing is, we have to go.
>    *Thing is that we have to go.
>    Thing is, we have to go.
>  (these clippings are not just casual-speech phenomena.  i have a pile
>  of examples from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the
>  like, and not just in quoted speech.)
>
>
>  > You can see above that 1999 is my earliest dating for it, but I
>  > wonder how
>  > long it's really been out there. It's hard to search for, since the
>  > only
>  > word that remains constant is the 'to', and I don't know what
>  > keywords would
>  > find me any scholarly research on this.
>
>  the category in my example files is Truncation, but that's not widely
>  used by linguists (and is used for plenty of other things).
>  "clipping" is usually used for clipped variants of words ("cig" or
>  "ret(te)" for "cigarette"), so searching on that will get you lots of
>  irrelevant stuff.
>
>
>  > Do any of you have antedatings or
>  > references?
>
>  alas no, but now i've made a XtoY file.  i probably just didn't notice
>  the phenomenon.
>
>  arnold
>
>
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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