Re: to unprepare
From: Ron Hardin (rhhardin_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 03/16/05
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Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:25:22 GMT
Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> Well, you did seem to imply, just like Ron, Herman and Tom, that there was
> something dreadfully wrong with the sentence quoted from AP, and I assume
> you wouldn't have objected to an analogous sentence such as "The west of the
> city was largely unaffected by the bombing". What I've been trying to say is
> that if there's anything wrong with "are unprepared for their jobs by
> education colleges", it's merely that this particular adjective isn't
> followed by "by" as frequently as "unaffected" and other adjectives are. I
> don't think the sentence presupposes the existence of *"unprepare", just as
> the example from the CALD doesn't presuppose the existence of *"unaffect".
> Any perceived strangeness is probably due to one of those inexplicable
> idiosyncrasies of English usage and has nothing to do with the scope of
> negation, the logical subject of active sentences or the perfective passive.
What's wrong with the original is partly that you can trace out what happened.
The intention :
The principals are unprepared for their jobs.
The principals are not prepared for their jobs by education colleges.
These two were coalesced into :
The principals are unprepared for their jobs by education colleges.
That though is made impossible by the emergent meaning of ``to unprepare,''
whether it exists beforehand or not, of taking something already prepared and making
it unprepared.
That emergent meaning interferes with the plain intention of the sentence, and you
get a conflicting meaning of ``to unprepare,'' to fail to prepare.
It is that verb that fails to exist.
The semantics in turn then falls on the grammar.
-- Ron Hardin rhhardin@mindspring.com On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
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