"jew" as adjective and compound nouns vs. adj. + n.?
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed May 15 16:44:29 UTC 2013
On May 15, 2013, at 12:20 PM, George Thompson wrote:
> LH writes: "There's no reason to assume that the meaning of a compound will
> be transparent. "Olive oil" is oil of olives, "baby oil" isn't oil of
> babies. . . ."
>
> Does this mean that "Olive oil" can be taken as transparent, whereas "baby
> oil" isn't? I'd deny that. "Olive oil" is transparent only if we assume
> that the essential aspect of an oil is its source, not its use. If we
> assume otherwise, then it's "baby oil" that's transparent -- as it should
> be. At least, my babies insisted that their oil should be transparent, not
> murky.
No, my point was that you can't expect nominal AB compounds (a category that, I argued, includes "Jew lawyer") to necessarily have the semantics of "Jew basher", because there is in fact a wide range of possible meanings for nominal compounds besides "a B of A(s)". Cases of A as source or use of B are two, but not the only ones. One possible, and frequently attested, meaning is "(a) B that is also (an) A", which would extend to "Jew lawyer" as well as "nurse midwife", "man friend", "student teacher" and so on. This is why it makes more sense to distinguish adjectives modifiers from nominal modifiers grammatically, whence the diagnostics I alluded to below (e.g. "the lawyer looks/seems/sounds Jewish"--OK, so adjective; "the lawyer looks/seems/sounds Jew"--not OK, so noun).
LH
>
> " A "monkey man" is a man who is (also) a monkey. . . ."
>
> I've always supposed that a "monkey man" is a man who shouldn't be taken
> to Chicago, because he will be out of place there.
>
> GAT
>
>
> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 2:42 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>> On May 14, 2013, at 12:33 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>
>>> Is "Jew butcher" a compound
>>
>> Yes
>>> -- "a butcher of Jews"?? -
>>
>> no
>>
>> There's no reason to assume that the meaning of a compound will be
>> transparent. "Olive oil" is oil of olives, "baby oil" isn't oil of babies,
>> or compare "alligator shoes" vs "horseshoes". A "monkey man" is a man who
>> is (also) a monkey, but a "child psychologist" isn't a psychologist who is
>> also a child. Judith Levi, Pam Downing, and others have provided
>> non-exhaustive classifications of compounds by meaning, with such
>> categories as (from Downing):
>>
>> Whole-part (duck foot) Place
>> (Eastern Oregon meal)
>> Half-half (giraffe-cow) Source
>> (vulture shit)
>> Part-whole (pendulum-clock) Product
>> (honey glands)
>> Composition (stone furniture) User
>> (flea wheelbarrow)
>> Comparison (pumpkin bus) Purpose
>> (hedge hatchet)
>> Time (summer dust) Occupation
>> (coffee man)
>>
>> No reason "Jew lawyer" wouldn't be an example of the monkey-man or,
>> better, nurse-midwife, kind rather than a hedge-clipper kind. Notice that
>> the "hedge-clipper" or "duck slaughterer" relation seems distinct from all
>> of Downing's categories; as noted, the list is non-exhaustive. Is "nurse"
>> an adjective in "nurse-midwife"? Or "child" in the unlikely but possible
>> interpretation of "child psychiatrist"? This is why I think the
>> grammatical criteria for adjectival vs. nominal status are more reliable
>> than meaning-based ones. And I'm a semanticist.
>>
>> Incidentally, I think that's why it's natural to take "Jew lawyer" to be
>> racist and/or offensive; it plays off the function of nouns as
>> categorizers/pigeon-holers and thus ideally suited for slurs and epithets,
>> as we've discussed in past threads:
>>
>> I'm not a Jew, I'm Jewish.
>> He's not a deserter, he deserted.
>> She lost, but that doesn't make her a loser.
>> Don't call them diabetics, they're persons with diabetes.
>> etc. etc. (discussed by Bolinger in _Language--The Loaded Weapon_ and
>> others since, including in our archives)
>>
>> LH
>>
>>> - or an adj. +
>>> noun -- "a Jewish butcher"? (Compare "Jew-drowning" under C2, which
>>> I do see as a compound -- it can't be "Jewish drowning".) Similarly
>>> for "Jew pedlar", and probably others. The OED seems either to
>>> concede or be uncertain -- "C1. General attrib. *or as adj.* That is
>>> a Jew; *Jewish*." (Emphasis added.)
>>>
>>> Is there a case for separation of the C1.a compounds, for all of
>>> which it seems that "Jew" acts like an adjective and could be
>>> replaced by "Jewish", from the C1.b. compounds, where that is not the
>>> case? E.g., a "Jew bill" (in C1.b) is not "a Jewish bill", but
>>> rather "a bill 'Of or relating to Jews.' "
>>>
>>> But if Larry is right, how then would one make the OED more
>>> user-friendly? If sophisticated dictionary users like myself and
>>> George don't think to look for adjectival uses of nouns under (the
>>> late-appearing) "Compounds", -- and especially when a "Quick search"
>>> doesn't turn up any entries with "adj." characterizing them, just
>>> "n." and "v." -- what about the ordinary yahoo?
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
>>> At 5/14/2013 11:52 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>> I would defend the label. These are indeed, I would argue, nominal
>>>> compounds rather than adjective + noun phrases. "Jew" in such cases
>>>> doesn't pass the diagnostics for adjective-hood:
>>>>
>>>> That lawyer seems {Jewish/*Jew}.
>>>> Despite Brendan's proselytizing, Moises remained {Jewish/*Jew}.
>>>> It's very kosher/Jewish/*Jew
>>>>
>>>> etc.
>>>>
>>>> LH
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 14, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> George, look way down under "Jew, n." for "Compounds" -- C1 is
>>>>> "General attrib. or as adj." I've missed this disguised and low (on
>>>>> the page) artifice of the OED before, for this and other nouns. I
>>>>> think the heading in such cases should be "n. and adj.".
>>>>>
>>>>> Joel
>>>>>
>>>>> At 5/14/2013 10:37 AM, George Thompson wrote:
>>>>>> Seems strange, but such is the case, if the on-line OED doesn't
>>>> mislead me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> JEW BEEF. -- The subscribers offer their services to
>> merchants
>>>>>> who are in the habit of trading to the West Indies, that in order to
>>>>>> complete a well assorted cargo for those markets, it will prove to
>> be an
>>>>>> acquisition to apply to them for the above article; they are in 5 or
>> 10
>>>>>> gallon kegs. *** Levy & Lyons, 26, White-hall street. N. B.
>> Regular
>>>>>> certificates will be given.
>>>>>> Mercantile Advertiser, November 1, 1804, p. 2, col. 2
>>>>>>
>>>>>> HDAS and Jonathon Green's dictionary have "jew" as a disparaging
>>>> adjective,
>>>>>> which isn't the case here. Their examples are generally in the form
>> of "a
>>>>>> Jew xyz" which translates into "a Jew who is an xyz" -- a Jew lawyer,
>>>>>> perhaps. Here, it meant "kosher", and the ad was placed by a Jewish
>> firm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> GAT
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> George A. Thompson
>>>>>> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
>> Northwestern
>>>>>> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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