Bruce makes an important point, one that illustrates a more general fact of word formation, namely, that derived forms, like "unseat", have a way of reifying, of taking on meanings that are not analytic. According to the OED, "unseat", in the sense of "to cause to fall from a horse", first appears in print in Spenser in 1598. This usage continues into the 21st c. The derivative, somewhat generalized meaning, "to disturb or disrupt", appears as early as 1609. The political usage, "to dislodge from some place or position; to deprive of rank or office" arises by 1611. However, the specific meaning "to deprive of, or depose from, a seat in Parliament or other representative body" doesn't appear until 1834. I would argue that both the analytic and the derived meanings are current today. But I would agree that while "unseatable" in its electoral sense is morphologically analytical, it isn't semantically.
By the way, my favorite center-embedded example, that boggles the minds of undergrad grammar students with delightful ease--and leads to very useful discussion--is
The policeman the boy the dog bit called came.
Of course there are also island constraint violations like
Who do you know the man that married?
This one is useful also when discussing relative clauses and question formation.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Bruce Despain
Sent: Fri 2/16/2007 10:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: question on why "unwinnable" is not a word
Johanna's post brings up the interesting question of the same word with two
opposing meanings (zeugma-like). Consider:
1. seat (V) + un => unseat (V); + -able => unseatable (A) == "able to be
unseated"
2. seat (V) + -able => seatable (A); + un- => unseatable (A) == "not able to be
seated"
"Senator Bird is not generally considered to be unseatable, for which reason
any replacement is considered unseatable."
Notice how the sentence negation gives its sense to the adjective making the
meaning of "ununseatable." Is such a word possible, where the first "un-" is
negative and attached to the adjective formed with "-able" from the verb formed
with the reversive "un-"?
3. unseat (V) + -able => unseatable (A); + un- => (?) ununseatable (A) == "not
able to be unseated"
If the grammar rejects this, then it is interesting that the word's formal
history is important in morphological formations. It is clear that semantics
contributes certain restrictions on what can undergo such affixation, but here
it seems that the form contributes an additional restriction on the
applicability of affixation. Even though "unseat" has fosilized (per force of
its reference to political office) making its specific meaning compositionally
unanalyzable, there is a sense in which its form still makes it ineligible to
(2) as attempted in (3).
Bruce
>>> Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]> 02/15/07 9:00 PM >>>
What I find amazing about Bill's post is that "aquatinted" is even in
MS Word's dictionary! But "unwinnable" isn't!
"Unwinnable" is built from "win" as root; add "able" to render
"winnable", which is an adjective; the "un-" is the adjectival
prefix, not the verbal one. So the word does not mean "able to be
unwon", but "not winnable". Essentially, English has two "un-"
prefixes -- one for verbs and one for adjectives. An example from a
linguistics text is the word "unloadable", which is ambiguous. It has
two "paths":
1. load (V) + un = unload (V), + -able = unloadable (A), "able to be
unloaded"
2. load (V) + -able = loadable (A), + un- = unloadable (A) = "not
able to be loaded"
Our word formation "machine" is very flexible in English, and people
often create words on the fly that they have never used before. Such
formations are often accompanied by a comment such as "if that's even
a word", or "is that even a word?" Suppose, for example, you rent a
DVD and try to copy it, but it is locked such that it can't be
copied. Someone might say "it's uncopiable". Such a usage may happen
only once, or it may catch on, as has the word "fakester", which can
mean either an impostor or someone who posts false information in a
bio on MySpace or Friendster (acc. to wordspy.com). (A side chuckle
-- while cruising wordspy to find this example, I came across
"pecuniary gland" -- an organ possesssed by lawyers, corporate CEOs,
etc., for whom greed is a primary motivation.)
MS Word grammar check is wrong fully half the time. I advise my
students never to use it. As for students who allow "aquatinted" to
replace "acquainted", they've got bigger problems than spelling!!
My favorite silly suggestion from a spell-checker was a response to
my typing my dissertation advisor's last name, 'Langacker'. It
suggested "lounge chair." I still get a chuckle out of that.
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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