Re: to unprepare

From: Greg Lee (greg_at_ling.lll.hawaii.edu)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: 17 Mar 2005 13:40:52 GMT

Ron Hardin <rhhardin@mindspring.com> wrote:
> 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.

Yes, I agree. And to elaborate, or at least make a related point, modern
syntax is a psychological theory (unlike traditional grammar), part of whose
data is (are?) intuitive reactions. Faced with a conflict between theory
and fact, we have to change the theory. The facts are what they are.

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

Now *my* theory about the Hardin-grammar is that it doesn't allow a perfective
passive construction. And since "unprepared by" can't be interpreted as
a perfective passive, it has to be interpreted as either the ordinary passive
of the odd verb "unprepare" or as the adjective "unprepared" with an odd
choice of "by" for the accompanying preposition (which conveys "means by
which"). Neither of those yields a felititous interpretation for the example. 

-- 
Greg Lee <greg@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>