Re: THEORY ago (was: Most common irregular verbs?)

caeruleancentaur wrote:
[snip]
>
> What is the date of your OED?
The online version - so I assume it's up-to-date   :)

> The one I own (the micrographed
> compact edition) is dated 1971, but with a printing date of 1985.
> It appears that there have been some changes since that printing,
> which is certainly possible.  But this 1971 edition states
> that "ago" is a participial adjective and an adverb: "[pa. pple. of
> the preceding vb., used as adj. qualifying some noun of time....]"
> Listed as the meaning is "gone by; bygone; past. (Now always
> *follows* its noun.)"
Yes - that is the origin of the word, certainly. From a _diachronic_
view this is all correct. But it tells us little or nothing about the
current _synchronic_ use. After all, 'nice' is derived from Latin
_nescius_ and once meant "ignorant", and 'silly' once meant "blessed" -
But that tells us nothing about the current use of those words.

> Interestingly, "ago" used to be a verb!  "Only the pa. pple. *agan,
> agon, agone, ago* is common after 1300, and of this the *verbal* use
> ceased before 1700 leaving it only as *adj.* of time...."
Yes - I know it was once 'a-gone', which was a perfect participle. But
it ain't so now. I think everyone assumed we were discussing 'ago' as it
is used in modern English.

"By their deeds shall ye know them"
==================================

Tim May wrote:
[snip]

 > No-one's saying "ago" must be a postposition because it comes after a
 > noun.

Most certainly not - otherwise we'd have 'martial' and 'superior' as
postposition in "court martial" (plural: courts martial) & "mother
superior"(plural: mothers superior), which is plainly absurd.

 > The argument is that a phrase like "an hour ago" behaves more
 > like a prepositional phrase headed by "ago" than a noun phrase headed
 > by "an hour".

Precisely!!

Interestingly, whether one construes 'ago' as a postposition or as an
adverb, 'ago' heads the phrase.

Presumably everyone agrees that the phrase "an hour ago" _functions_ as
an adverb. If we take 'ago' as a postposition, we then have a
'postpositional phrase' (NP+postposition) similar in use to the familiar
prepositional phrases such as: 'within an hour', 'after an hour' etc.

If it is taken as an adverb, we then have an adverbial phrase where the
head 'ago' is the head and 'an hour' is a "measurement of time",
modifying the head of the phrase. It can be argued that the second
analysis is better in that 'long ago' can be analyzed in the same way.

But, with the best will in the world, I still cannot fathom how 'ago',
in its modern use, can be analyzed as an adjective. So far no one has
explained this analysis.

Meanwhile, it's interesting seeing how this is done Conlangs. How, just
out interest, does Esperanto do it?


--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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