Bill,

You say you're behind on the thread ... so forgive me if this is
inappropriate ...

"go thinking" doesn't at all fit the semantics I'm ascribing to this
special  "go X-ing" construction. As I noted in my post, this seems to
be a largely lexicalized pattern which can be extended to verbs that fit
the semantics of an activity consisting of path-directed motion, which
may involve sub-events such as stopping to watch a particular bird or
look at a candidate house to buy.

Remember that I analyze this as a fixed construction, not one assembled
like other non-lexicalized phrases.

"Go" is such a semantically general verb, it is available for many
grammaticalized uses, and not only in English. "Don't go thinking"
clearly uses "go" in some such sense, and it is clearly a negative
polarity item (as is "any" in "I don't have any change" or "an inch" in
"I pushed and pushed, but it didn't move an inch!"). Lots of basic verbs
of posture and motion are used to create complex sorts of verb
constructions (there's a whole lit. on serial verb constructions in the
world's languages).

***************************************************
Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, Cal Poly State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. 805-756-2184 ~ Dept. phone 805-756-2596
Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 ~  E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
***************************************************

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