LL-L "Morphology" 2008.04.04 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L  - 04 April 2008 - Volume 03
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page.
=========================================================================

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

Dear Lowlanders,

I'd like to invite you to revisit with me adverbial marking and its
historical aspects. I would be interested in your ideas and additional
information.

Among the living Germanic languages, it seems to be only the Anglo-Saxon
branch of West Germanic that regularly marks adjective-derived adverbially
used words. English uses *-ly* (< **-lig*) and Scots in many cases the older
form *-lik* (< **-lig*), being cognates of Old Norse and Icelandic *-lega*,
Scandinavian *-lig*, and Continental West Germanic *-lig*, *-lich* and *-li*.
This suffix does not strictly distinguish adjectives and adverbs in the
non-Anglo-Saxon varieties, though there are lexicalized adjective-derived
adverbs of this kind (e.g. Icelandic *ný* > *nýlega*, German *neu* > *
neulich*, both ("newly" >) "lately", "recently"). In the Anglo-Saxon branch
there is far more regularity. While there is a small handful of
adjective-derived adjectives with this suffix (e.g. "She is poor" versus
"She is poorly (i.e. of bad health)"), adjectives thusly marked are usually
noun-derived (e.g. "love" > "lovely", "saint" > "saintly", "ghost" >
"ghostly", "god" > "godly", n. "kind" > adj. "kindly" (versus adj. "kind" >
adv. "kindly" - "She's a kindly soul" versus "She treated us kindly")).

In mainstream English at least (and I'm not sure about the extent in Scots),
adjective-derived adverbs are marked by *-ly*, as mentioned above (e.g.
quick > quickly, dainty > daintily, hard > hardly, angry > angrily, slow >
slowly, gross > grossly, fine > finely, shy > shyly, free > freely, wild >
wildly). Adverbial derivations are lexicalized (i.e. cannot be freely
derived, thus must be learned, except perhaps in cutting-edge literature,
e.g. "memories glowing dimly, redly" or "and followed succumbingly,
hangdoggedly" -- all made up by me). This is shown by the semantic shifts
involved in some cases (e.g. hard > hardly) as also in the limitations of
participially based adverbs (e.g. seeming > seemingly, supposed >
supposedly, but not seeing > *seeingly, standing > *standingly, despised >
*despisedly, famished > *famishedly, but hungrily, ravenously). Furthermore,
there are clearly lexicalized cases such as adjectival "good" versus its
adverbial equivalent "well".

In the Continental West Germanic languages, related adjectives and adverbs
tend to be homophones, as in Low Saxon (adj.) *Dey olde was trurig* (*De Ole
was trurig*) 'The old man was *sad'*, (adv.) *Trurig moyk hey dat licht uut*(
*Trurig möök he dat Licht ut*) '*Sadly* he turned off the light'. This is
essentially the same as the exceptional English case of "fast" (e.g. "The
car is *fast*" versus "It runs *fast* (not *fastly)").

However, I have noticed that in US American English varieties of a certain
colloquial range there is a tendency toward not marking adverbs.

" How have you been doing?
Standard: Well.
versus: Good.

Standard: He doesn't hear very well. (or "He's hard of hearing")
versus: He don't hear so good.

While this is prominent in the case of "good" and "well", I have heard
similar expressions using other words, e.g.

Standard: "We got there quickly."
versus: "We got there quick."

And then there are generalized expressions such as "You've got to think
smart" and "She writes great".

Might this US American tendency go back to historical developments,
especially to early distancing from British norms and early
non-English-speaking mass immigration?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080404/c9a05db8/attachment.htm>