Re: observable language change - "off of" makes it to the NY Times

Brian M. Scott skreiv:

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:56:52 +0200, Trond Engen
<trondnet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in <news:J5OdnePFE8NZTD3VRVnzvQA@xxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.lang:

[...] In this case, for this non-native it seems that the difference is in the ambiguity of 'off'. "Troops landed off-warships" get wet. "Troops landed-off of warships" don't.

But it doesn't parse the way your hyphen suggests: both are
'troops landed PREP-warships', and I detect no difference in
anything but style. (To be fair, I should note that my
idiolect doesn't allow 'off of'; however, it's *very*
familiar.)

Hmm. I'll try to explain how I thought in some length -- not because I still believe I was right, but because I hope to trigger a discussion on Germanic compound prepositions in general.

Based upon my native language, I see a three way logical split here:

1. VERB ADV-DIR PREP [reference location]
Å gå ut av huset "Going out from the house"
Å gå inn i huset "Going into(!) the house" And note the doublet "inn i".
2. VERB ADV-LOC PREP [reference location]
Å gå ute av huset "Going outside (of) the house"
Å gå inne i huset "Going inside the house"

The compound preposition may be developed from either, or both, of the the two above:

3. VERB PREP [reference location]
Å gå utav huset < ut av "Going out from the house"
Å gå inni huset < inne i "Going inside the house"

(There are other ways of doing it, but I'll keep it simple for now.)

The compound 'inni' is unnecessary in that it may be replaced by a simple 'i' ("Å gå i huset"), but it's prefered because it adds some emphasis. And the phrase 'gå i' is used in a slightly different context with a specialized meaning "install oneself into": 'Gå i hus' "get indoors (for some time)", 'gå i hi' "go into hibernation", 'gå i dekning' "take cover (for some time)". Similarly, I meant to sense that for a speaker who has the compound 'off of' available the existense of a fixed meaning of 'off X' "to the side of X" would make it necessary to use the more precise compound. I even thought there still might be a certain adverbial feel to the 'off' of the compound, but that wouldn't be needed for the compound to add precision in the ear of the speaker.

It's using a regular system for adding precision to a
prepositional phrase.

I don't think that it does. Certainly for some speakers
it's simply the normal preposition in such contexts; there
may be others who make a distinction of the sort that you
have in mind, but I've not encountered it.

Would it be the case diachronically, too? What mechanism created this compound?

--
Trond Engen
- prepositious
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
.

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