Oops.

On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

> I wasn't quite clear from your message...  Are you saying that
> "asunder" is a pre/postposition or that it isn't?
>
> At least in my subjective semantic analysis, "asunder" can be
> reasonably described either as an adverb or as part of certain verbs
> such as "broke," "tore," and "rent."  Not as a postposition.
>
> "He rent his garment asunder/rent asunder his garment."  "garment" is
> not the object of "asunder," it is the object of "rent."
>
> Just as in, "He tore his clothes up/tore up his clothes" "clothes" is
> not the object of "up," it is the object of "tore."  And "up" may be
> best described as a detatchable part of the verb "tore."
>
> Now in "he drove along the road," you cannot say in English "he drove
> the road along" -- it's clearly a different beast; a genuine
> preposition.
>
> The preposition-like elements of "tore up his clothes" are clearly
> not the same animal as the real prepositions of "he ran up the hill"
> -- here, "up the hill" has a distinct meaning, whereas "up his
> clothes" has no meaning separate from "tore."
>
> Again, I'm not clear on your position on this, Dirk, but that's how I
> see it.
Oops. I thought that Nik was responding to Tom's German
examples, and those were what I was talking about. I agree with
you about the English cases of "asunder" and "apart".

How embarassing.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu                 "All grammars leak."
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~elzinga/               -Edward Sapir