Re: Adpositions gaining new uses

Mark Reed and others have written:
>
>On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> wrote:
> > I would think "I want out" normally occurs during situations where the
> > speaker is in intense disagreement with the methods of his group and
> > declares he's quitting.
That's surely true-- someone in jail... in an untenable situation... in a
poker game gone awry...  as a people/nation, we want out [of a war] etc.
etc.
>
>Maybe in the first person that's true, but it's also the usual way
>(IME and IML) to describe what the dog wants when he's scratching at
>the door.  "The dog wants out!"  (Or "...in", for that matter.)
>
>I'm quite surprised to see so many native Anglophones find "I want on
>your shoulders" objectionable... maybe I've just become programmed to
>accept Toddlerese...
That is probably true. Moi, je ne sais rien de toddlerais :-))  I found it a
little objectionable on first reading, but then I heard scratching at the
door and realized the cat "wanted in". And I gave a couple other exs. that
an adult might say.

The verbs that can occur in the construction (at least in Engl.) seem
limited to those of "wanting" in its various tenses, and may some
(near)synonyms, like "love"(?).  Is that true of other langs. that have
similar phrases?   We can't say "I have to out, I must out, I need to/used
to on your shoulders, I should at the computer" etc. etc. "I think out" only
as a response to "Where's the cat/John?" and that's a little different, and
it probably ought to be written "I think, out", no?

Hmm, "help" works in a few cases.

Reply