The Innovative Usage Thread

[linguoboy]

From today's Language Log: What is the past tense of sleepwalk?

I think I would actually say "sleptwalk", with inflection only on the first element, but that could be the natural outcome of a cluster simplification rule in my dialect. On t'other hand, cf. "I heard tell".

[Shrdlu]

I sleepwalked.

[----]

I've never written it but my instinct is 'sleptwalked' /slɛpwalkt/.

[Travis B.]

I myself am used to sleepwalked, and cannot recall ever having heard "sleptwalked".

[ol bofosh]

Sleepwalked for me.

[TaylorS]

Sleepwalked, duh!

[Boşkoventi]

"was sleepwalking" / "used to sleepwalk" / "went sleepwalking"?

[Lyhoko Leaci]

"sleptwalked" [slɛpwakt] sounds the best to me. Or something like "was sleepwalking"

[Melteor]

"was sleepwalking" / "used to sleepwalk" / "went sleepwalking"?

This, last one especially.

[Gulliver]

I've never written it but my instinct is 'sleptwalked' /slɛpwalkt/.

Slepwalked or sleepwalked. Probably slepwalked (which is how I'd spell it, without the t).

[Whimemsz]

I think I would actually say "sleptwalk", with inflection only on the first element, but that could be the natural outcome of a cluster simplification rule in my dialect.

That sounds decidedly wrong to me. On the other hand, "sleepwalked", though not ungrammatical, also sounds pretty awkward and non-ideal. I suspect in practice I'd go with a periphrasis like "was sleepwalking" or the like (modifying the exact phrasing to fit the context, of course).

[Kereb]

I saw, on the side of a tour bus from this company, the sentence "Wine taste at five wineries!"

Backforming from an incorporated object? wine-tasting -> wine-taste

I guess it's a compound of sorts, but since this is English we don't HAVE to write compounds as a single word or with a hyphen. So the result is that both Taste wine at five wineries and Wine taste at five wineries are possible

which is kind of cool, but personally I think it sounds awkward as fuck and will resist verbing "wine taste" myself if it ever comes up

[linguoboy]

I saw, on the side of a tour bus from this company, the sentence "Wine taste at five wineries!"

Backforming from an incorporated object? wine-tasting -> wine-taste

I guess it's a compound of sorts, but since this is English we don't HAVE to write compounds as a single word or with a hyphen. So the result is that both Taste wine at five wineries and Wine taste at five wineries are possible

which is kind of cool, but personally I think it sounds awkward as fuck and will resist verbing "wine taste" myself if it ever comes up

Two others I noted recently are "student teach" and "gay marry". Not quite the same, as these are oblique complements (i.e. "teach as a student", "marry as a gay") rather than incorporated direct objects and can't be as easily extracted.

[Wattmann]

Noun incorporation in English?

I KNEW AND PREDICTED IT.

[Grimalkin]

All the cool kids noun incorporate.

[Wattmann]

English noun incorporates things, and I google searched it - it's pretty common in informal writing.

[Yng]

It's not quite full-on noun incorporation, though - they're back-formations from nouns. Nonetheless, pretty cool.

[Ser]

Now we know a way to innovate noun incorporation at least.

1. Start with the language having noun composition. (wine tasting, noun incorporation)
2. Derive a verb from the head noun, while retaining the modifier noun. (to wine taste, to noun incorporate)
3. Expand usage of the new construction to all transitive and copulative verbs. (to lamp turn on, to linguist be, to creative get)

I must say I idea-like ("I idea-liking-saying must"?).

[Wattmann]

Amazing and wonderfully done.

[Vuvuzela]

(i.e. "teach as a student", "marry as a gay")

Presumably, you'd be gay marrying another gay

[linguoboy]

(i.e. "teach as a student", "marry as a gay")

Presumably, you'd be gay marrying another gay

According to that definition, we've had "gay marriage" since the beginning of time.

The problem with parsing it this way is that it can be used transitively: "I'm going to Gay-Marry a Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich in protest." How can you be both marrying another gay and a sandwich in the same sentence.

Moreover, this interpretation doesn't work for "same sex marry", which seems like it should be parallel. If I same sex marry, am I marrying another same sex? (You can say I'm marrying someone of the same sex, but show me another example of noun-incorporate that works that way.)

[Vuvuzela]

(i.e. "teach as a student", "marry as a gay")

Presumably, you'd be gay marrying another gay

According to that definition, we've had "gay marriage" since the beginning of time.

So people haven't been marrying AS gays before they could marry people of the same sex, but that didn't stop them from marrying gays. Unless you have a different definition of "as".

Moreover, this interpretation doesn't work for "same sex marry", which seems like it should be parallel.

I doesn't work for your interpretation either (Marry AS a same sex?)

[Ser]

(i.e. "teach as a student", "marry as a gay")

Presumably, you'd be gay marrying another gay

According to that definition, we've had "gay marriage" since the beginning of time.

The problem with parsing it this way is that it can be used transitively: "I'm going to Gay-Marry a Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich in protest." How can you be both marrying another gay and a sandwich in the same sentence.

Moreover, this interpretation doesn't work for "same sex marry", which seems like it should be parallel. If I same sex marry, am I marrying another same sex? (You can say I'm marrying someone of the same sex, but show me another example of noun-incorporate that works that way.)

I think this future English could have both too: "I'm gay-marrying next year" (intransitive: "I'm marrying somebody, as a gay myself", "I'm marrying a gay"), "I'm gay-marrying him next year" (̈"I'm marrying him", even if it sounds a bit redundant this being a male speaker, though maybeee it could be used as some sort of emphasis on this being a gay marriage, slang?).

What I do wonder about is the stress pattern of a verb like "to lamp turn on". Would be /ˈlæmptɵ ˞nɑn/, /læmp tɵ ˞ˈnɑn/
or /ˈlæmptɵ ˞nˈɑn/? I think I'd prefer the last one.

[Nortaneous]

What I do wonder about is the stress pattern of a verb like "to lamp turn on". Would be /ˈlæmptɵ ˞nɑn/, /læmp tɵ ˞ˈnɑn/
or /ˈlæmptɵ ˞nˈɑn/? I think I'd prefer the last one.

This is why marking secondary stress is important! I can't tell if, by "/ˈlæmptɵ ˞nˈɑn/", you mean /ˈlæmptɵ˞nˌɑn/, which is what I would prefer, or /ˌlæmptɵ˞nˈɑn/, which would be weird... or actual /ˈlæmptɵ˞nˈɑn/, pronounced as two words.

Although even then, I think I'd have tertiary(?) stress on the second vowel -- it wouldn't be as short as like "lampter-nawn", but it definitely wouldn't take secondary stress.

[Ser]

I meant to pronounce them as separate words, yes. The way people pronounce things like "turn it on!" sounds like two words for me, anyway. [ˈtʰɵ ˞nɪɾˈɑn]