LL-L "Morphology" 2007.10.28 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  28 October 2007 - Volume 02
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: "heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk" <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2007.10.26 (05) [E]

Ingmar  wrote

I wonder if the popular realisation of -ing as -in' in English may be the
key here...
and Ron wrote

I believe that the tendency of making final -ng into -n (and in other
dialects into -nk, as in Low Saxon) is common and quite old in English,
going by spelling "errors." This could have easily led to overcompensation
in the case of assumed present participial *-en, very likely analogously to
the already existing deverbal noun suffix -ing.

I know what follows is unrelated to verbs HOWEVER we have a farm in the
parish that we can trace back to the 13th century. It was given by the
BIshop to the De Bosco family who changed their name to Att Wode / Attwood
and the farm became known as Woodend.

However over the years the references to it give us the following spellings:

Wooden   very frequent from 14-19th centuries

Woodinge   only found ( so far) in the 16th century

Woodin      not very frequently

and then finally it ended up as Woodend.

Do these differences indicate that

a) locals were soundshifting

b) were trying very hard to write down what they thought they were
hearing/saying

c) the locals weren't trying very hard at all to be consistent

d) the locals were following developements that took place elsewhere over
this time.

It applies to Wichenford the village name too. I soon discovered when
searching the national archives that one had to enter every variation of
spelling known. The odder the spelling, the more likely it was to belong to
any early (medieval) document  ( or had been transcribed badly: I found a
Wiohenford - clearly a typo!)

Wytchinford    Wytchingford  Wicheneford  Wichinford Wiceneford
Whichingford

Perhaps we should add here that a large percentage of English speakers (
especially those using Estuary English) are incapable to ending some words
with an -ing. It is always unvoiced to -ink    'anythink'   nuffink'  yet
they would not say 'swimmink' or 'goink'. Is there a reason for this?

>From Heather [Randall] who has managed to read 11 messages and save at least
9 of them so far.... and only has 24 more to go. You lot HAVE been busy this
week.
----------

From: "heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk" <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2007.10.26 (02) [E]

Jonny and Ron were discussing - ing endings

English has (of course) amalgamated all these into a single - ing.

So that the infinitive can be written 'reading aloud'    I like reading
aloud = I like to read aloud.

So can the gerund

Reading aloud is a skill all people should master

So can the noun that has been created from the verb.

The reading of the will took place after the funeral.

I had HUGE problems last year trying to persuade a (30 yr old ) editor that
she was wrong to correct what I had written - namely That the infinitive can
be written as ' to read' or 'reading'

She insisted the latter could only be described as a gerund and accordingly
edited ( and ruined) a series of PPT lessons on verbs.

I pointed out that a difference in spelling could not make a difference in
function; so if I preferred to say " I like reading aloud" I wasn't suddenly
using a verb + gerund : rather it remained a verb + infinitive just as if I
was saying "I like to read aloud".

But she wouldn't agree.

What does the forum think?

Heather
(Rendall)

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Morphology

Heather dearest,

I'm on your side, naturally!

"Reading" in "I like reading aloud" is an infinitive form in my book (as
opposed to a gerund in "They are reading" and "the reading public").

I would go even farther and say it is a noun, as in "I resent his reading
aloud while I am reading silently," where the first is a (infinitive) noun
and the second is a gerund.

Kids ...

As for the names, I think overcompensation in reanalysis may have been at
work there, based on awareness of the usual correspondences between local
and "official" language features (-ing = -ink ~ -in ~ -en, -nd = -n).

Cheerio!
Reinhard/Ron

•

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