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| Alan Munn... |
 Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:22 am |
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Guest
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In article <ng7bs6xmgf.ln2 at (no spam) news.ducksburg.com>,
Adam Funk <a24061 at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
[quote]On 2009-10-29, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Oct 29, 10:15Â am, Adam Funk <a24... at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-28, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Or that dropping a final stop isn't just a French bizarrerie? It's
normal in AAVE.
Are these omissions over time considered to be derived from issues
like that in child language acquisition?
Well, "over time" _every_ change has something to do with language
acquisition: it's simply the constant battle between ease of
articulation and difficulty of comprehension.
I can see that for many types of language change, but not all of them.
Ease of *articulation* doesn't explain the issue that started this
thread ("me and Bob did it" vs "Bob and I did it")
[/quote]
True, articulation has nothing to do with this.
[quote]--- I guess you
could say that something like "ease of syntactic generation" is
driving that?
[/quote]
Or some sort of simplicity of the case marking rule. Here's one (for
English):
(i) NP subjects of tensed clauses get marked with Nominative case.
(ii) NP 'subjects'[1] of noun phrases get marked with Genitive case.
(iii) all other NPs get marked with Accusative case.
In the situation of "Me and John left" or "John and me left" "me and
John"/"John and me" is the subject, NOT just "me", so rule (iii) applies.
Evidence for this supposedly heretical claim: "John and I met" ≠John
met and I met.
The rule also predicts Acc for "me and John's book" (cf. ?my and John's
book/?John's and my book). Although in this case the ordering matters:
"*John and me's book".
It also predicts that the default case form in English is Acc, as in:
Me, I don't like that. (*I, I don't like that)
Who is it? It's me. (*It's I)
John is bigger than me (*John is bigger than I)
The prescriptive rule here is more complex, since it requires Nominative
case on NP subjects of tensed clauses and NPs contained in coordinated
NP subjects of tensed clauses. This of course gets overgeneralized by
many speakers to "Nom on all coordinated NPs", yielding the "between you
and I", and "John and I's" (google "John and I's wedding" for plenty of
real examples of this.) Nominative case is also hypercorrected in the
"It's I" and "bigger than I" cases as well.
Note:
[1] I'm using subject here purely syntactically: in "The army destroyed
the city", "the army" is the subject and in "The city was destroyed by
the army", "the city" is the subject. By analogy, in "the army's
destruction of the city", "the army" is the 'subject' of the noun
phrase, and in "the city's destruction by the army", "the city" is the
subject. Feel free to replace this term with one more to your liking,
such as "Possessor", as I'm not interested in debating this point.
Alan |
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| Alan Munn... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:40 pm |
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Guest
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In article
<16e5c591-e126-45d3-99fb-35123a8115ad at (no spam) m35g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote:
[quote]On Nov 5, 11:22 am, Alan Munn <am... at (no spam) msu.edu> wrote:
[1] I'm using subject here purely syntactically: in "The army destroyed
the city", "the army" is the subject and in "The city was destroyed by
the army", "the city" is the subject. By analogy, in "the army's
destruction of the city", "the army" is the 'subject' of the noun
phrase, and in "the city's destruction by the army", "the city" is the
subject. Feel free to replace this term with one more to your liking,
such as "Possessor", as I'm not interested in debating this point.
Noun phrases don't have subjects. If they did, they'd be verb phrases.
[/quote]
What part of "I'm not interested in debating this point" did you not
understand? |
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| Alan Munn... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:09 pm |
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Guest
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In article
<3ab14b55-1ebd-4465-8a48-a681cca6f683 at (no spam) p33g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote:
[quote]On Nov 5, 12:40 pm, Alan Munn <am... at (no spam) msu.edu> wrote:
In article
16e5c591-e126-45d3-99fb-35123a811... at (no spam) m35g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote:
On Nov 5, 11:22 am, Alan Munn <am... at (no spam) msu.edu> wrote:
[1] I'm using subject here purely syntactically: in "The army destroyed
the city", "the army" is the subject and in "The city was destroyed by
the army", "the city" is the subject. By analogy, in "the army's
destruction of the city", "the army" is the 'subject' of the noun
phrase, and in "the city's destruction by the army", "the city" is the
subject. Feel free to replace this term with one more to your liking,
such as "Possessor", as I'm not interested in debating this point.
Noun phrases don't have subjects. If they did, they'd be verb phrases.
What part of "I'm not interested in debating this point" did you not
understand?
(a) Your apparent sole purpose in your occasional postings to sci.lang
is to use technical terms in ways that are not known to other
linguists.
(b) I believe that what you did is called a "pseudo-sorites" -- you
state that you are not interested in discussing some statement that
you set forth in considerable detail. Along the lines of Smith saying
"I am not going to claim that my opponent Jones is an alcoholic! I am
not going to state that Jones is seen to come staggering out of
watering holes at closing time nearly every night!"
[/quote]
Nothing in this particular post related to the use of technical terms,
but how case works in English.
I don't like to use the term "Possessor", since it is relatively
inaccurate: many genitive NP are certainly not semantically possessors;
calling it genitive is circular, and referring to some structural
position such as "Specifier of DP" or some such will lose people in
another way. The term subject as it pertains to NPs has been in use in
much the syntactic literature since at least the early 70's (It is used
in Chomsky's 1973 "Conditions on Transformations" in formulating the
Specified Subject Condition. It's hardly a term "not known to other
linguists". It was, however, likely to be relatively unknown to this
audience, hence the explanation of my use.
I put in the note so that people could feel free to use whatever term
they liked, since it wasn't necessary to the argument.
[quote]
(c) Then why did you respond? _Other_ people may be interested in
setting forth criteria for various linguistic categories, even if
you're not interested in defending your unorthodox uses of them.
[/quote]
To which? The original post, I responded to about the idea that rule
simplicity could be a factor in language change. This had nothing to do
with linguistic categories, per se. Furthermore, when there was a
discussion of my methods for positing categories, you were noticeably
silent. To your post? Frankly, I have no idea, since I should have known
better.
Alan |
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| DKleinecke... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:06 pm |
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On Nov 5, 3:59 pm, Trond Engen <trond... at (no spam) engen.priv.no> wrote:
[quote]Alan Munn:
In article <ng7bs6xmgf.... at (no spam) news.ducksburg.com>,
Adam Funk <a24... at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-29, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Oct 29, 10:15Â am, Adam Funk <a24... at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-28, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Or that dropping a final stop isn't just a French bizarrerie?
It's normal in AAVE.
Are these omissions over time considered to be derived from issues
like that in child language acquisition?
Well, "over time" _every_ change has something to do with language
acquisition: it's simply the constant battle between ease of
articulation and difficulty of comprehension.
I can see that for many types of language change, but not all of
them. Ease of *articulation* doesn't explain the issue that started
this thread ("me and Bob did it" vs "Bob and I did it")
True, articulation has nothing to do with this.
--- I guess you could say that something like "ease of syntactic
generation" is driving that?
Or some sort of simplicity of the case marking rule. Here's one (for
English):
(i) NP subjects of tensed clauses get marked with Nominative case.
(ii) NP 'subjects'[1] of noun phrases get marked with Genitive case.
(iii) all other NPs get marked with Accusative case.
In the situation of "Me and John left" or "John and me left" "me and
John"/"John and me" is the subject, NOT just "me", so rule (iii)
applies. Evidence for this supposedly heretical claim: "John and I
met" ≠John met and I met.
The rule also predicts Acc for "me and John's book" (cf. ?my and
John's book/?John's and my book). Although in this case the ordering
matters: "*John and me's book".
It also predicts that the default case form in English is Acc, as in:
Me, I don't like that. (*I, I don't like that)
Who is it? It's me. (*It's I)
John is bigger than me (*John is bigger than I)
The prescriptive rule here is more complex, since it requires
Nominative case on NP subjects of tensed clauses and NPs contained in
coordinated NP subjects of tensed clauses. This of course gets
overgeneralized by many speakers to "Nom on all coordinated NPs",
yielding the "between you and I", and "John and I's" (google "John
and I's wedding" for plenty of real examples of this.) Nominative
case is also hypercorrected in the "It's I" and "bigger than I" cases
as well.
It would be interesting if your analysis could predict or explain a
hierarchy of hypercorrection. In what constructions are hypercorrect
forms most likely to occur and why?
Note:
[1] I'm using subject here purely syntactically: in "The army
destroyed the city", "the army" is the subject and in "The city was
destroyed by the army", "the city" is the subject. By analogy, in
"the army's destruction of the city", "the army" is the 'subject' of
the noun phrase, and in "the city's destruction by the army", "the
city" is the subject. Feel free to replace this term with one more
to your liking, such as "Possessor", as I'm not interested in
debating this point.
You're not? I'll have a go anyway.
I can see it making sense at some level of analysis -- an underlying
sentence behind the noun phrase or something -- but I would think that
in cases where the scope is on the whole sentence rather than the phrase
alone this view may lead to confusion.
What do you make of examples like "the army('s) (me/my) destroying the
city"/"the city('s) (me/my) (being) destroyed by the army"?
But this reminds me of an old thought of mine (and I may well have aired
it before and forgotten what came out of it (and it's probably a
banality to linguists anyway)): The details of the grammar of any
natural language can be analysed in different mutually exclusive ways,
none of which fits perfectly. This lack of perfection gives a
flexibility of expression, interpretation and reinterpretation that is
essential for language to work.
--
Trond Engen
[/quote]
You could easily argue that every speaker of a language makes a
different analysis of what she heard and therefore each speaker
extends the language examples they have heard in different ways. That
is, everybody speaks their own idiolect.
To argue that a language has a unique analysis or even a small number
of alternative analyses might be called the Chomskian fallacy. |
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| Peter T. Daniels... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:51 pm |
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Guest
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On Nov 5, 8:06 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
[quote]You could easily argue that every speaker of a language makes a
different analysis of what she heard and therefore each speaker
extends the language examples they have heard in different ways. That
is, everybody speaks their own idiolect.
[/quote]
I thought you were an implacable enemy of Robert A. Hall, Jr., whose
position that was.
[quote]To argue that a language has a unique analysis or even a small number
of alternative analyses might be called the Chomskian fallacy.-[/quote] |
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| Trond Engen... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:59 pm |
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Alan Munn:
[quote]In article <ng7bs6xmgf.ln2 at (no spam) news.ducksburg.com>,
Adam Funk <a24061 at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-29, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Oct 29, 10:15Â am, Adam Funk <a24... at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-28, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Or that dropping a final stop isn't just a French bizarrerie?
It's normal in AAVE.
Are these omissions over time considered to be derived from issues
like that in child language acquisition?
Well, "over time" _every_ change has something to do with language
acquisition: it's simply the constant battle between ease of
articulation and difficulty of comprehension.
I can see that for many types of language change, but not all of
them. Ease of *articulation* doesn't explain the issue that started
this thread ("me and Bob did it" vs "Bob and I did it")
True, articulation has nothing to do with this.
--- I guess you could say that something like "ease of syntactic
generation" is driving that?
Or some sort of simplicity of the case marking rule. Here's one (for
English):
(i) NP subjects of tensed clauses get marked with Nominative case.
(ii) NP 'subjects'[1] of noun phrases get marked with Genitive case.
(iii) all other NPs get marked with Accusative case.
In the situation of "Me and John left" or "John and me left" "me and
John"/"John and me" is the subject, NOT just "me", so rule (iii)
applies. Evidence for this supposedly heretical claim: "John and I
met" ≠John met and I met.
The rule also predicts Acc for "me and John's book" (cf. ?my and
John's book/?John's and my book). Although in this case the ordering
matters: "*John and me's book".
It also predicts that the default case form in English is Acc, as in:
Me, I don't like that. (*I, I don't like that)
Who is it? It's me. (*It's I)
John is bigger than me (*John is bigger than I)
The prescriptive rule here is more complex, since it requires
Nominative case on NP subjects of tensed clauses and NPs contained in
coordinated NP subjects of tensed clauses. This of course gets
overgeneralized by many speakers to "Nom on all coordinated NPs",
yielding the "between you and I", and "John and I's" (google "John
and I's wedding" for plenty of real examples of this.) Nominative
case is also hypercorrected in the "It's I" and "bigger than I" cases
as well.
[/quote]
It would be interesting if your analysis could predict or explain a
hierarchy of hypercorrection. In what constructions are hypercorrect
forms most likely to occur and why?
[quote]Note:
[1] I'm using subject here purely syntactically: in "The army
destroyed the city", "the army" is the subject and in "The city was
destroyed by the army", "the city" is the subject. By analogy, in
"the army's destruction of the city", "the army" is the 'subject' of
the noun phrase, and in "the city's destruction by the army", "the
city" is the subject. Feel free to replace this term with one more
to your liking, such as "Possessor", as I'm not interested in
debating this point.
[/quote]
You're not? I'll have a go anyway.
I can see it making sense at some level of analysis -- an underlying
sentence behind the noun phrase or something -- but I would think that
in cases where the scope is on the whole sentence rather than the phrase
alone this view may lead to confusion.
What do you make of examples like "the army('s) (me/my) destroying the
city"/"the city('s) (me/my) (being) destroyed by the army"?
But this reminds me of an old thought of mine (and I may well have aired
it before and forgotten what came out of it (and it's probably a
banality to linguists anyway)): The details of the grammar of any
natural language can be analysed in different mutually exclusive ways,
none of which fits perfectly. This lack of perfection gives a
flexibility of expression, interpretation and reinterpretation that is
essential for language to work.
--
Trond Engen |
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| Adam Funk... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:37 pm |
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On 2009-11-05, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
[quote]On Nov 5, 10:27Â am, Adam Funk <a24... at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-29, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Oct 29, 10:15Â am, Adam Funk <a24... at (no spam) ducksburg.com> wrote:
On 2009-10-28, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Or that dropping a final stop isn't just a French bizarrerie? It's
normal in AAVE.
Are these omissions over time considered to be derived from issues
like that in child language acquisition?
Well, "over time" _every_ change has something to do with language
acquisition: it's simply the constant battle between ease of
articulation and difficulty of comprehension.
I can see that for many types of language change, but not all of them.
Ease of *articulation* doesn't explain the issue that started this
thread ("me and Bob did it" vs "Bob and I did it") --- I guess you
could say that something like "ease of syntactic generation" is
driving that?
Analogy?
[/quote]
Sure. (I was thinking of something like "easier to
remember/generate", in parallel with "easier to pronounce".)
--
No right of private conversation was enumerated in the Constitution.
I don't suppose it occurred to anyone at the time that it could be
prevented. [Whitfield Diffie] |
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| DKleinecke... |
| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 3:26 pm |
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On Nov 5, 7:51 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote:
[quote]On Nov 5, 8:06 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
You could easily argue that every speaker of a language makes a
different analysis of what she heard and therefore each speaker
extends the language examples they have heard in different ways. That
is, everybody speaks their own idiolect.
I thought you were an implacable enemy of Robert A. Hall, Jr., whose
position that was.
[/quote]
You have me confused with somebody else. I have nothing but good
feelings for Hall. He gave my etymology for "pidgin" a good word -
which it needs. I still think it's right. |
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| Nick... |
| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:26 am |
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DKleinecke <dkleinecke at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
[quote]On Nov 5, 7:51Â pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote:
On Nov 5, 8:06Â pm, DKleinecke <dkleine... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
You could easily argue that every speaker of a language makes a
different analysis of what she heard and therefore each speaker
extends the language examples they have heard in different ways. That
is, everybody speaks their own idiolect.
I thought you were an implacable enemy of Robert A. Hall, Jr., whose
position that was.
You have me confused with somebody else. I have nothing but good
feelings for Hall. He gave my etymology for "pidgin" a good word -
which it needs. I still think it's right.
[/quote]
For them of us what aren't keeping up with the hate list, what is your
etymology? I've never been particularly convinced by "business".
--
Online waterways route planner: http://canalplan.org.uk
development version: http://canalplan.eu |
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| DKleinecke... |
| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:21 pm |
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Guest
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On Nov 7, 2:26 am, Nick <3-nos... at (no spam) temporary-address.org.uk> wrote:
[quote]DKleinecke <dkleine... at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
On Nov 5, 7:51 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote:
On Nov 5, 8:06 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
You could easily argue that every speaker of a language makes a
different analysis of what she heard and therefore each speaker
extends the language examples they have heard in different ways. That
is, everybody speaks their own idiolect.
I thought you were an implacable enemy of Robert A. Hall, Jr., whose
position that was.
You have me confused with somebody else. I have nothing but good
feelings for Hall. He gave my etymology for "pidgin" a good word -
which it needs. I still think it's right.
For them of us what aren't keeping up with the hate list, what is your
etymology? I've never been particularly convinced by "business".
--
Online waterways route planner:http://canalplan.org.uk
development version:http://canalplan.eu
[/quote]
I don't know if it is available online. It was published as a Note in
the IJAL.
Briefly there was an indian community at the mouth of the Oyapock
River in Brazil north of the Amazon whom at least one English-speaking
writer in the seventeenth century called the Pidians. This was not a
tribal name and the community was a refugee settlement not a regular
tribal group. The word Pidian is found in Arawack (now often called
Maipuran) languages in central Guyana (not in Arawack proper) in the
sense of "people". There was a tribe called the Mapidians (not-people,
named doubtless by their enemies). In English Pidian and Pijin are
virtually identical. The idea is that the word Pidian lived on in
sailor's jargon for natives who were willing to trade. That is the
sense of the word in the seventeenth century example.
Actually there is a bit of evidence not known to me then for the
continued use in the eighteenth century. |
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| Nick... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:51 am |
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DKleinecke <dkleinecke at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
[quote]Briefly there was an indian community at the mouth of the Oyapock
River in Brazil north of the Amazon whom at least one English-speaking
writer in the seventeenth century called the Pidians. This was not a
tribal name and the community was a refugee settlement not a regular
tribal group. The word Pidian is found in Arawack (now often called
Maipuran) languages in central Guyana (not in Arawack proper) in the
sense of "people". There was a tribe called the Mapidians (not-people,
named doubtless by their enemies). In English Pidian and Pijin are
virtually identical. The idea is that the word Pidian lived on in
sailor's jargon for natives who were willing to trade. That is the
sense of the word in the seventeenth century example.
Actually there is a bit of evidence not known to me then for the
continued use in the eighteenth century.
[/quote]
I like that one. Thanks.
--
Online waterways route planner: http://canalplan.org.uk
development version: http://canalplan.eu |
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| James Hogg... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:56 am |
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Nick wrote:
[quote]DKleinecke <dkleinecke at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
Briefly there was an indian community at the mouth of the Oyapock
River in Brazil north of the Amazon whom at least one
English-speaking writer in the seventeenth century called the
Pidians. This was not a tribal name and the community was a refugee
settlement not a regular tribal group. The word Pidian is found in
Arawack (now often called Maipuran) languages in central Guyana
(not in Arawack proper) in the sense of "people". There was a tribe
called the Mapidians (not-people, named doubtless by their
enemies). In English Pidian and Pijin are virtually identical. The
idea is that the word Pidian lived on in sailor's jargon for
natives who were willing to trade. That is the sense of the word in
the seventeenth century example.
Actually there is a bit of evidence not known to me then for the
continued use in the eighteenth century.
I like that one. Thanks.
[/quote]
On the other hand, it doesn't really explain the use of "pigeon/pidgin"
to mean "business", as in "not my pigeon". That usage is closely
connected with China.
From the OED
1807 R. MORRISON Jrnl. in Jrnl. Asian Pacific Communication (1990) 1 93
Ting-qua led me into a Poo Saat Mew, a temple of Poo Saat. 'This Jos',
pointing to the idol, said he 'take care of fire "pigeon", fire
"business"'.
--
James |
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| Peter Duncanson (BrE)... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:43 am |
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On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:56:19 +0100, James Hogg <Jas.Hogg at (no spam) gOUTmail.com>
wrote:
[quote]Nick wrote:
DKleinecke <dkleinecke at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
Briefly there was an indian community at the mouth of the Oyapock
River in Brazil north of the Amazon whom at least one
English-speaking writer in the seventeenth century called the
Pidians. This was not a tribal name and the community was a refugee
settlement not a regular tribal group. The word Pidian is found in
Arawack (now often called Maipuran) languages in central Guyana
(not in Arawack proper) in the sense of "people". There was a tribe
called the Mapidians (not-people, named doubtless by their
enemies). In English Pidian and Pijin are virtually identical. The
idea is that the word Pidian lived on in sailor's jargon for
natives who were willing to trade. That is the sense of the word in
the seventeenth century example.
Actually there is a bit of evidence not known to me then for the
continued use in the eighteenth century.
I like that one. Thanks.
On the other hand, it doesn't really explain the use of "pigeon/pidgin"
to mean "business", as in "not my pigeon". That usage is closely
connected with China.
From the OED
1807 R. MORRISON Jrnl. in Jrnl. Asian Pacific Communication (1990) 1 93
Ting-qua led me into a Poo Saat Mew, a temple of Poo Saat. 'This Jos',
pointing to the idol, said he 'take care of fire "pigeon", fire
"business"'.
[/quote]
The etymology in the OED :
< Chinese Pidgin English "pidgin" business < English BUSINESS n.
Numerous 19th-cent. sources give this etymology; compare
1845 J. R. PETERS Misc. Remarks upon Chinese vii. 73 Pidgeon, is
the common Chinese pronunciation of business.
1850 J. BERNCASTLE Voy. China II. 65 The Chinese not being able to
pronounce the word ‘business’, called it ‘bigeon’, which has
degenerated into ‘pigeon’, so that this word is in constant use.
1873 Macmillan's Mag. Nov. 45 The strange jargon known as ‘Pigeon
English’..derives its name from a series of changes in the word
Business... The Chinaman contracted it to Busin, and then through
the change of Pishin to Pigeon.
The development in Chinese Pidgin English was perhaps via an
intermediate form /{sm}p{shti}d{zh}{shti}n{shti}s/ (with replacement
of English/z/ before a consonant by /d{zh}{shti}/), the final
syllable of which was taken as a plural inflection and dropped.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english) |
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| DKleinecke... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:49 pm |
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Guest
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On Nov 8, 1:56 am, James Hogg <Jas.H... at (no spam) gOUTmail.com> wrote:
[quote]Nick wrote:
DKleinecke <dkleine... at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
Briefly there was an indian community at the mouth of the Oyapock
River in Brazil north of the Amazon whom at least one
English-speaking writer in the seventeenth century called the
Pidians. This was not a tribal name and the community was a refugee
settlement not a regular tribal group. The word Pidian is found in
Arawack (now often called Maipuran) languages in central Guyana
(not in Arawack proper) in the sense of "people". There was a tribe
called the Mapidians (not-people, named doubtless by their
enemies). In English Pidian and Pijin are virtually identical. The
idea is that the word Pidian lived on in sailor's jargon for
natives who were willing to trade. That is the sense of the word in
the seventeenth century example.
Actually there is a bit of evidence not known to me then for the
continued use in the eighteenth century.
I like that one. Thanks.
On the other hand, it doesn't really explain the use of "pigeon/pidgin"
to mean "business", as in "not my pigeon". That usage is closely
connected with China.
From the OED
1807 R. MORRISON Jrnl. in Jrnl. Asian Pacific Communication (1990) 1 93
Ting-qua led me into a Poo Saat Mew, a temple of Poo Saat. 'This Jos',
pointing to the idol, said he 'take care of fire "pigeon", fire
"business"'.
--
James
[/quote]
I am disinclined to debate this matter any longer. The easiest
explanation would be that the Chinese pronunciation of Business was so
close to the Engliah jargon word Pidgin that the English imagined that
was what they were saying. There is a tiny semantic step from "people
who are willing to do business" to "doing business with those
people". So in a sense both etymologies are valid. |
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| LEE Sau Dan... |
| Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:34 am |
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Guest
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[quote]"DKleinecke" == DKleinecke <dkleinecke at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:
[/quote]
DKleinecke> I am disinclined to debate this matter any longer. The
DKleinecke> easiest explanation would be that the Chinese
DKleinecke> pronunciation of Business was so close to the Engliah
DKleinecke> jargon word Pidgin that the English imagined that was
DKleinecke> what they were saying.
Why would a Chinese pronounce "business" like "pidgin"?
--
Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{ at (no spam) nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee at (no spam) informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee |
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