"Till Death Do They Part"?

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:44 PM -0400 7/16/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>"Till the end of time,: as the "old standard" put it.
>
>Back in the 'Fiddies, a popular R&B tune of the day ended with, in
>four-part harmony embellished with melisma,
>
>"Till death do we part."
>
OK, given this observation (I'd forgotten that song, if I ever knew
it) and Neal's post, I'm beginning to see the light.  Or a possible
light.  Maybe just a flare.

So if one could imagine that this is a case of hyponegation (like
Spanish "en absoluto" meaning 'not at all', or of course "I could
care less" or "That'll teach you", only without the sarcasm), the
full structure would be something like "Not till death do you/we/they
part", with the fronted negative leading to the inversion and
do-support ("Not till midnight does the train come", "Never on
Sundays does she do business"), which makes sense.  The only problem
is the missing negative, which is a small (although for some of us,
still too dear a) price to pay for getting the rest of the
construction to sound like English.  It still doesn't make a lot of
sense in the current context, though--cryogenics, according to the
article, is in effect bringing it about that death *is* causing  the
couple to part, before death happens.  But for the wedding ceremony,
I see how the reanalysis could have been motivated.

LH

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