Act like you're dancing

The other day, when we were having a fancy dress disco ball with the family, my son interrupted his crazy dance moves to say, "Hey dad, here's another paradox for you: 'act like you're dancing!'". Spot on: you can't pretend to be dancing without, in effect, being engaged in an act of dancing. That would only be possible if you kept perfectly still, but then, that wouldn't count as pretending to be dancing.

Phrasal verbs in the time-away pattern

Remember the verb-particle paradox, which I wrote about last time? To remind you, this paradox concerns combinations such as turn NP [e.g. a paper; a criminal] in, which must be words since they have a special meaning and can (if their meaning is appropriate, of course) occur in patterns where only single words are found (e.g. (1)), but which can't be words, since its parts can appear separated from each-other, as in (2)

(1) 'My gran says that's rubbish,' piped up Neville. (in a Harry Potter novel) (compare '...,' interrupted Neville, which is okay, but *'...,' spoke suddenly Neville, which isn't)

(2) I gave the book back. (compare: *I re- the book turned or *I turned the book re-)

Adele Goldberg, in an article to appear, argues against the word-view of verb-particle combinations on the grounds that we can't find them in the time-away construction:

(3) He vomited the night away.

(4) *He threw up the night away. (Goldberg's judgement) 

I'm not a native speaker of English, but I wonder whether (4) is all that bad. Here are some authentic examples reaped from the world wide web (and checked, as far as possible, for reliability, i.e., the source or user aren't obviously non-native):

(5) Do you sleep in the day away?

(6) soak up the night away in the hot tub

(7) red neck drunks bash up the night away 

(8) Me and my two friends dance off the night away. 

(9) we hung out the night away with greats such as Dave Holland, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Roy Hargrove, Kenny Garrett, and one of our main piano heroes, Herbie Hancock. 

(10) Designed by Alberto Frias, it's basically a giant egg with a hole where you can crawl up in fetal position and chill out the day away. 

(11) It was great just chilling out the whole weekend away 

(12) We decided to just laze around the morning away before departing for the airport 

(13) Motel Cowboys jerking off The Night Away [apologies for the racy nature of this example]

So, an argument Goldberg uses against a possible morphological analysis of particle verbs can perhaps, if the above examples aren't completely suspect, be turned into an argument for it.

the verb-particle paradox

I'm working hard on an introduction to a text dealing with the verb-particle paradox. On the one hand, particle verbs such as call up behave like single words. There are lots of very solid arguments for a morphological analysis, so that saying that call up is a verb of the form [V V P] makes perfect sense. On the other hand, if they are words, how can we explain that we can split them up and have their parts separated from each other, as in call your mother up, something which you can't do with words?



A solution may have to be sought in considering call up a stored lexical unit which remains unspecified for its grammatical status as either a word or an above-word-level structure. In its discontinuous form (call ... up), the particle manages to trigger the whole form.

When do you say that you're certain?

"You only say you are certain when you are not." (Halliday)

It's true. Despite the fact that they contain an explicit marker of certainty, sentences such as That must be John, That's certainly John, That's definitely John and That's John, no doubt all sound less certain, paradoxically enough, than the modally unadorned sentence That's John.

So, beware of people who say they're certain.

More Wodehouse

'Jeeves,' I said that evening -- and I said it coldly -- 'I shall be obliged if you will pop round to the nearest music-shop and procure me a copy of "Sonny Boy". It will now be necessary for me to learn both verse and refrain. Of the trouble and nervous strain which this will involve, I say nothing.' (op. cit., p. 517)

Some cases of praeteritio are inherently (at least, on a strict reading) self-contradictory. This case is different, as the expression is say nothing of X. There would have been real self-contradiction (again, on a strict reading) if Wooster had said this:

'... I'm not even mentioning the trouble and nervous strain which this will involve.'

More contradiction in Wodehouse

"The rain continued to lash down with what you might call indescribable fury ..." (P.G. Wodehouse. 2008. The World of Jeeves. Arrow Books, p. 454)

Well, yes, you might call it indescribable, but that doesn't describe the fury with which the rain lashed down in any specific way! Of course, it's a play on words, indescribable meaning both 'what cannot be described' and 'extreme'.

It takes someone of the indescribable wit of Wodehouse to turn the self-contradictory word indescribable into an almost indiscernible little language joke.

I'm wondering...

... what I'm wondering about.

Paradox in Jeeves and Wooster?

P.G. Wodehouse, whom I mentioned before, probably had a bit of a chuckle when he wrote the following exchange, between Wooster and his 'manservant' Jeeves:

'Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don't know?'

'I could not say, sir.'

(P.G. Wodehouse. 2008. The World of Jeeves. Arrow Books, p. 273)

There's a distinct hint of paradox in Jeeves's reply, especially if it's not taken to mean 'My inferior position prevents me from bragging about my knowledge, sir' but 'I have no idea, sir' or 'I don't know, sir, if there's anything I don't know' -- in which case, of course, there IS something he doesn't know!