Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Ice tea and Robin Hood

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 24, 2004, 19:04
Paul Bennett scripsit:

> I'd say it's verging on compoundhood, but it has the stress pattern of a > full NP, and not a compound.
Indeed. These things can change, of course: "ice cream" has completely displaced earlier "iced cream".
> See also the compund-like usage /'r\Abn=,hUd/ > instead of UK /'r\QbIn 'hUd/ for the name of the folk-hero "Robin Hood", > which has bugged me from a very early age (before I even knew what a > stress pattern was).
I think that's because "Robin" is not felt to be a name here; it's only the 375th commonest male name in the U.S. (about 0.032% of the population in 1990), so "Robin Hood" is naively interpreted as a nominal compound "robin" + "hood". (Source: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names ) -- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com http://www.reutershealth.com "Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U." --K.X.U.

Replies

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>