meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military history

[Jonathan Lighter]

One of the most memorable quotes turning on the word "do" (though not in the
meaniningless sense) is in John Wayne's much adored/maligned movie of _The
Alamo) (1960).

A pair of illiterates face instant, obvious, and inescapable death:

I. A.:  Do this mean what I think it do?

I. B: It do!

JL

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military
>              history
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I will not get into the historical debates on this, but can recommend an
> interesting take that our local syntax/semantics reading group wrestled our
> way through this week.  It's not well-written but has an interesting
> semantics-based argument for indigenous development:
>
> DEBRA ZIEGELER (2004) Reanalysis in the history of do: A view from
> construction grammar Cognitive Linguistics 15–3, 529–574
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> Faculty Liaison, C&IT
> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
>
> ----- "Amy West" <medievalist at W-STS.COM> wrote:
>
> > From: "Amy West" <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:09:49 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>  > Subject: meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military
> history
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > Subject:      meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military
> > history
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I've been reading the first chapter of McWhorter's _Our Magnificent
> > Bastard Tongue_   where he lays out the argument for meaningless-do
> > coming into English from Welsh. (As a medievalist I bristle at his
> > characterizations of the Middle Ages.) The part of the argument
> > dealing with why it doesn't show up in writing until the 1300s is, I
> > think, tortured and unnecessarily convoluted. My suggestion is that
> > it doesn't show up until then because that's about when it entered
> > Middle English. I think it is more likely related to England's
> > occupation and conquest of Wales in the 1200s and the use of Welsh
> > troops  in English campaigns from that point on (Adam Chapman of U of
> > Southampton has been investigating the Welsh soldiers in the English
> > armies) than to the Anglo-Saxon settling of England in the 400s-500s.
> > I can buy meaningless-do coming in from Welsh. I just can't buy it
> > not being reflected in the written language for hundreds of years.
> >
> > ---Amy West
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org