John,
Could you give us some examples? With some adjectives the adverb is formed by zero-derivation, as in fast/fast. With others the -ly is optional, as in slow/slow/slowly. In some cases the -ly is not adverbial, as in friendly. For an adverb like hardly, the semantic connection to hard is obscure. And then there are cases like careful/carefully, where omission of -ly reflects a difference in dialect or register or both. Do the examples you're seeing cluster into any of these categories?
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Dews-Alexander [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: May 14, 2009 6:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Suffix-dropping
I've been amazed at the loss of the derivational suffix -ly that routinely marks adverbs.
Bill's talking about inflectional suffixes, I know, but I couldn't help mentioning the loss of -ly.
I'm not one to cling to language bits that are rusting out and disappearing, but it really took me by surprise that -ly is not a productive part of the language for many speakers.
If you focus on it and really listen to current language usage on television (both scripted and unscripted), in radio, and with the people you encounter, you'll notice it too.
John Alexander
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I’ve read a ton of student papers over the past two weeks, and based on this batch and those from the last couple of years, I’m starting to get the impression that a greater percentage of my students every year are dropping inflectional suffixes (plurals, tense-markers) and finding it difficult to notice the omissions when proofreading (I haven’t been formally counting, so I could be mistaking something I’ve just noticed for a trend, though). I’ve always seen some of this in examples where the suffix isn’t audible in normal speech, particularly if the suffix is well on the way to being a kind of fossil in the particular expression(e.g. “ice tea” – you can’t hear the realization of the {-ed} suffix before [t], and “iced” in that expression is probably a unitary adjective rather than a participle for most speakers who do use the –ed in writing). That’s absolutely normal, and over time the suffix-less form can become the norm (“ice cream” used to be “iced cream”).
What I’m seeing, though, are forms like “I was read this book” or “These short story are….”; they’re in papers written by native English-speakers who don’t speak any of the dialects that would normally drop those suffixes, and the same students do use the suffixes in speech (it’s exactly the reverse of the usual situation, in which students don’t know they have to write bits that they don’t say). If I draw attention to a line in which there’s a missing –ing, etc., the students frequently *can’t* see anything unusual about it; their usual reaction is to look at it for a minute, then get rid of a comma (if there is one) or add one (if there isn’t). It’s that inability to notice the “gap” that I’m particularly intrigued by. If I read the section out loud, they immediately notice the omission (and I then tell them that they need to coerce friends into reading papers out loud for them as a coping strategy). It’s not a language issue at all; it’s just an orthographic one.
I know similar effects can be associated with mild forms of dyslexia, but I find it hard to believe that fully 15 - 25% of the student population is even mildly dyslexic. I realize this is starting to sound like a variant of “Geezer Rant #325A; Those Darn Kids Won’t Write Right” but I’m curious about whether anyone else is noticing similar patterns, or whether this has been common all along and I’ve somehow managed not to notice it (which, given the rest of this post, would be rather amusing for everyone but me…).
---- Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
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