Re: to unprepare

From: Ron Hardin (rhhardin_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:54:44 GMT

Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
> I can't help feeling you're going out of your way to read an absurd meaning
> into a sentence that isn't necessarily absurd. If your intuitive reaction is
> to reject the sentence, then fine, but I'd disagree with the notion that a
> reasonable interpretation can be rendered impossible by the possibility of
> an implausible alternative one.

The idea is to account for the intuitive reaction; the intuitive reaction is
what makes language work.

It may be that the intuitive reaction doesn't need an accounting, but then
linguistics isn't needed either, and you might be interested in accounting
anyway.

In this case my analysis is that the semantics produces a conflict that is
is felt as a grammar mistake. 

-- 
Ron Hardin
rhhardin@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.