Re: Ungrammaticalization?

Jim Grossmann wrote:
>
> Yo, Josh!
>
> The ghost of Dr. Freud just told me that your ungrammaticalization may be
> your subconscious manifesting its rejection and liberation from your
> grammar-nazi past, but we don't have to believe Sigmund just because he's a
> ghost.
WHEW!  Glad to know that.  And here I thought it was an insidious brain
tumor in my case.  Or at least old age.

> "Ungrammaticalization" may not be the best term here:   it sounds like
> you're taking something grammaticalized and then, say, lexifying it.    Like
> moving from "-s" possessive to having phonologically unrelated words for the
> nominative/possessive forms.
>
> BUT SERIOUSLY,
>
> Is it possible that all this loosening up is a result of your explorations
> in grammar?
>
> Quite a few people who do a lot of phonetic transcription report that their
> spelling has gone downhill as a result.    Could something analogous be
> happening to your spoken grammar?
Well, Jim and Josh, I'm doing the same thing, and it has escalated since
I've been trafficking so heavily in Teonaht.  I'm finding myself putting
objects first in my casual speech to my husband, and coming up with
other bizarre things I attribute to my nervousness and penchant for
spoonerisms.  Unfortunately, I can't recall some of the real boners
I've pulled lately... many of them of the "any much would be all right"
variety.  !!!@%$ :(  And me a teacher!  Fortunately, they mostly happen
at home.  My biggest anxiety is that my memory for words seems to be
diminishing, especially when I'm in a relaxed or distracted mood.  "Have
you run the..." and then "dishwasher" just decides to slip into a
crevice
in my brain.  This REALLY aggravates me.  Age? Distraction?  Anxiety?
Drugs?  Allergies?

Josh wrote:
>
> >"Sang" has dropped out of existence in my speech. My brain insists on
> >"sung" for the simple past tense.
How about "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"?  It's not just you, Josh!!

> >Somewhat similarly,
although antithetically, because it's the reverse of the sang/sung
problem
described above:

"drunk" and "swum" have almost disappeared, being
> >replaced very often by "drank" and "swam." I sometimes do the same with
> >"ran" as a past participle.
Could this be from hearing these, as they are prevalent grammatical
"errors"?
(in quotation marks because these "confusions" have been around since
the
dawn of the English language):  "I couldn't make it to work, since I'd
ran
outta gas on the way."  I hear this all the time.  The "lay/lie"
confusion
is so pervasive that I have to catch myself when I use these terms.
"Where's
the blanket?" "It's laying on the back porch."  <--me the other day.

> >Really weird: the other day when my mother asked my how much of something
> >I wanted for dinner, I caught myself replying, "Any much would be all
> >right."
I wish I could remember some of the peculiar things I've said to my
husband
that sound like they come from another planet.  But truth to tell, I was
doing this constantly when I lived in Switzerland and was struggling to
speak French.  Spoonerisms in French ("merci go pooh" uttered to a
gendarme
in utter nervousness) also made me start producing spoonerisms in
English.
It was a riot.  BTW, Orin Gensler pointed out that "merci go pooh" was
a reversal or "metathesis" not only of velar and labial sounds in
"beaucoup,"
but also of voiced and voiceless letters:  I didn't say Merci co pooh,
or
even Merci pooh co, but "Mercy go pooh!" reversing the voiced/voiceless
pattern in the French word.   Talk about Freud... (fortunately the
policeman didn't understand the English implications) <G>

Sally
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SALLY CAVES
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http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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