Re: Cases and Prepositions (amongst others)

Raymond Brown wrote:

> At 2:10 am -0500 15/6/00, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> >Raymond Brown wrote:
> >
> >> >> "From here"?
> >> >
> >> >Of course, "here" in this case is used substantively, not adverbially.
> >>
> >> Sorry, gentleman, but this looks to mean horribly like a "vicious circle"
> >> argument.
> >>
> >> "here" is normally classed as an adverb.
> >> So what are we saying?
> >> (a) prepositions never govern adverbs;
> >> (b) so in the phrase 'from here', 'here' is a substantive.
> >> (c) why is it a substantive here?
> >> (d) because it is governed by a preposition.
> >
> >Except, who's saying "here" was originally an adverb?
>
> Chamber's English Dictionary.
>
> I haven't checked, but I'm 100% certain that I'd find the Oxford English
> Dictionary does the same - and I'd be surprised if Webster's didn't also.
>
> Some 50 or more years ago at school I was taught that "here" is an adverb
> of place.
I mean absolutely no disrespect, but I frankly have little faith in lexicography.
It's not the same thing as linguistics.  You certainly wouldn't expect a physicist
to be an expert in punctuated equilibria in genetic speciation, would you? I do
not mean to suggest that one must belong to a set of predetermined 'experts'
in a field (indeed, just the opposite), but only that my experience is that dictionary
-writing is often simplistic, and not sufficient for more rigorous scientific analysis.

> "here" corresponds almost exactly, as far as I can see, with words
> classified as adverbs in other languages, e.g.
> Latin: ibi; Fr. ici; Sp. aquí; Port. aqui; It. qui; Rom. aici; Germ. &
> Dutch: hier; Dan. & Nor: her; Sw. här; Gr. eDó; Pol. tutaj; Czech: zde;
> SerboCroat: ovde;
Correspondence is different from syntactic use.  In order to show that
correspondence means anything more that two words were originally
related somehow, or indeed more than that they just look similar, you
have to show that they *also* have the same or highly similar syntactic
properties *synchronically*.

My point was that we know that 'here', 'there' can be used substantively;
you did not dispute the details of the examples I gave.

> >Why not say 'here' originally
> >referred simply to a substantive relation,
>
> ..because it's governed by a preposition?
No, that's not what I meant, ever.  I'm sorry if my original statement to Christophe
was unclear (it was, in retrospect).  All I meant was that 'here' can be used in two
distinct senses, as a substantive and as an adverb, and that the latter is derived from
the former by means of null-morpheme derivation.  I should perhaps alter this to say
that the underlying part of speech for 'here' is substantive;  I do not contest, nor have
I ever contested, that it is often used superficially as an adverb.

> >and by means of the derivational 'null-morpheme'
> >(such as when we get:  "It's a hit!"  from "to hit"), it *can* be used
> >adverbially?
>
> 'hit' *cannot* be used adverbially - and one cannot say "It's a here" nor,
> indeed, is there a verb "to here".  Therefore IMHO 'hit' is not comparable
> to 'here'
But that wasn't the point of my using that example.  I was trying to show
that null-morpheme derivations are in fact a normal part of English, and
that there is no reason we should suppose 'here' to be any different.

> >I realize that sounds ad hoc;
>
> I agree   :)
I was admitting that because the distinction between 'ad hoc' statements used
merely to justify a particular line of reasoning, and adding complications
necessary to explain the data we see, is not always so clear. Ockham's Razor
was not meant to reject *complex* arguments, but *overly complex* arguments,
and that is what is at issue here.

> >> I've never seem either the Vulgar Latin phrases nor the Spanish one so
> >> described before - rather I've seen them called 'composite adverbs'.  So
> >> why ain't 'from here' a composite adverb also?
> >
> >I'm not saying they're impossible;  only, that I don't think that
> >describes English
> >syntax.
>
> And now, how does one analyze the common South Walian colloquialism: "from
> over by here" ?  Does the preposition 'from' make 'over' into a
> substantive?  If so, we then have 'by' linking one substantive with another
> which must surely make 'by here' and adjectival phrase, qualifying the
> substantive 'over'.
Ray, I do not mean to reject your analysis wholesale; please don't
mistake my intentions.  What you say may well be the case in South
Walian colloquial speech (I don't know, since I have no knowledge
of that except for a brief visit by a family friend once).  But I was
under the impression we were talking about Standard English here,
and it was on that basis I was making my judgments.

> Somehow, I still feel that treating both 'from here' and 'from over by
> here' as composite adverbs somewhat easier.
It seems we both feel this at a rather intuitive level, so perhaps we should
leave it at that.  That okay? :)

======================================
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: trwier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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