Date:    Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:50:48 -0500
<br>From:    Larry Horn  laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: starting to unravel...
<br>
<br>Not for the most part particularly ADSy, but...
<br>
<br>At 10:18 AM -0500 3/12/98, Mark Mandel wrote:
<br> Larry Horn  laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU  writes:
<br> 
<br>    
<br> The redundant use of negative pre- and suffix in words like
<br> 
<br> unboundless     unguiltless     unmatchless     unshameless
<br>                         undauntless     unhelpless      unmerciless
<br>         unshapeless
<br> 
<br> --each amounting to 'Xless' or 'unXful'--was apparently quite common in the
<br> 16th and 17th centuries, as of course is the redundant affixation of
<br> unthaw, unloose(n), debone, dissever, etc.
<br> 
<br>    
<br> 
<br> I seem to recall reading that Whorf analyzed some of this latter set
<br> differently, with a prefixal meaning of something like separation or
<br> release rather than negation, specifically with "un-" in "unloose",
<br> "unravel", and perhaps that "unthaw". (Can anyone give a citation for
<br> this?) "Dis-", of course, carries a meaning of separation or scattering in
<br> many words ("disseminate", "disperse"), and separation is certainly part of
<br> the meaning of "dissever". And "debone" can be analyzed with a nominal root
<br> rather than a verbal one, using "de-"  'cause [obj.] to be free of', as in
<br> "debug", "delouse".
<br> 
<br>Whorf introduces his brief discussion of un-verbs (in "A Linguistic
<br>Consideration of Thinking in Primitive Communities", pp. 70-71 of the
<br>standard Carroll collection of his work, _Language, Thought, and Reality_)
<br>as an instance of what he calls the "cryptotype", a "covert linguistic
<br>class...a submerged, subtle, and elusive meaning, corresponding to no
<br>actual word, yet shown by linguistic analysis to be funcitonally imporatnat
<br>in the grammar."  Other English examples he cites are the categories of
<br>transitive verbs blocking completive UP.  In this case, un- itself is (like
<br>"up") a phenotype; the cryptotypes are the "transitive verbs of a covering,
<br>enclosing, and surface-attaching meaning" to which un- may be attached for
<br>the reversal thereof.  I actually discovered this passage after working up
<br>my own line on predicting which actions do and which don't allow un-verb
<br>reversals; my account developed the notion of "entropy", the idea being
<br>that the un-verb will always be interpreted as "helping entropy along".
<br>Hence, (un)thawing chicken returns it to the "thawed" (unfrozen) state in
<br>which it started out, while unfreezing will do the same (and thus reverse
<br>the non-entropic act of freezing it). Not that different, as it turns out,
<br>from what Whorf had in mind.  And while "debone" and other "de-" verbs are
<br>plausibly analyzed as denominals (see most recently R. A. Buck's paper
<br>"Words that are their opposites:  Noun to verb conversion in English", Word
<br>48 (1997): 1-14), the various "un-" prefixation processes, I maintain,
<br>preserve the category (adjective, verb, or noun) of their base.  If this is
<br>right, then "unpeel" (an orange) is a true redundant reversative, alongside
<br>"unthaw", "unloose(n)", and "unravel", and the attested (if now archaic,
<br>rare, or dialectal) "unbare", "undecipher", "unempt(y)", "unsolve",
<br>"unrid", "unrip", "unstrip".
<br>
<br> I prefer this transparent analysis to one that adds a
<br> redundant negating "de-" to the denominal verb "bone", in part because the
<br> zero verbalization of "bone" makes the latter analysis rather opaque.
<br>
<br>In fact, I argue that redundant un-verbs (or the corresponding de-verbs)
<br>are motivated precisely because the resultant form is always transparent
<br>("helping entropy along", or source-oriented), even when the bare verb
<br>(denominal or not) may be opaque (goal- OR source-oriented)--"Does 'string
<br>the beans' mean putting the string on or taking it off? Better be on the
<br>safe side and 'unstring' them".
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>
<br>Obdialect:
<br>Our supermarket, avoiding the perils of "depitted prunes", sells something
<br>it labels "Prunes No Pits."  And then there's Amelia Bedelia*, literalist
<br>extraordinaire of fictional housekeepers, she who dresses the chicken in
<br>overalls, trims the fat with lace and bits of ribbon, and ices the fish
<br>with chocolate frosting.  Reading an instruction to dust the furniture, she
<br>exclaims, 'Did you ever hear tell of such a silly thing?  At my house we
<br>UNdust the furniture.  But each to his own way'--as she happily proceeds
<br>with her dusting, with the help of some fragrant talc she discovers in the
<br>bathroom.
<br>
<br>*Parish, Peggy (1963)  Amelia Bedelia.  New York:  Harper & Row.
<br>