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 Sat Apr 05, 2008 5:29 am What is a fossilised form? |
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I didn't say that "Did you eat yet?" was based on English that was in use prior to the arrival or implementation of the present perfect. I said that it might be that the simple past was used for the meaning it conveys prior to the time the present perfect was used for it, or that the simple past and the present perfect might have existed side by side with the same meaning for centuries. Considering that all of the languages that combined to form English had their own present perfect tense, it's highly unlikely that English never had one.
Nice try in attempting to place a derogative moniker on that American use of the simple past, but it doesn't fit the description of a fossilized form, because it's still productive and new sentences are constantly formed using the same tense for the same purpose, just as is done in German, Dutch or Swedish.
A fossilized form is generally one of those errors in individual speech that can't be eradicated. An example would be the case of a guy who has been saying "when I gonna" instead of "if" for so long that it's almost impossible to get him to stop. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4225
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:34 am What is a fossilised form? |
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| Quote: | | Considering that all of the languages that combined to form English had their own present perfect tense, it's highly unlikely that English never had one. |
You're right there.
"It wasn't until the Old English combination habban + second participle acquired to modern word order (I have my work done -> I have done my work) that we can justly speak of a compound verb form in the sense of the modern present perfect." (Hubler 1998)
| Quote: | | Nice try in attempting to place a derogative moniker on that American use of the simple past, but it doesn't fit the description of a fossilized form, |
Calm down, Jamie. I agree that we cannot call it a fossilized form, but ask then why certain "older" forms used in Indian English, for example, have been termed fossilized forms by many. Also, if "Did you eat yet?" cannot be seen as a fossilized forms, are we suggesting that AmE speakers never had the BrE present perfect use as the target language item? Are we saying that AmE speakers did not fossilize "Did you eat yet?" on the way to learning/accepting the use of the BrE present perfect?
I wonder if "fossilized" is polysemous in the world of linguistics. Here is an example different from the one you mention above.
| Quote: | Serbian frozen exclamatives/optatives
(1) Pomoz-i Bog! (Help-IMP God); Bud-i-Bok-s-nama! (Be-IMP-God-with-us)
The English counterparts are also fossilized forms, which involve a non-finite (at least non-agreeing) verb form (see Kiparsky 1968):3
(2) Long Live the King!; God forbid!
http://www.english.wayne.edu/fossilized-imperative-in-compounds.pdf |
There it seems frozen forms and fossilized forms are used synonymously. |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 2878
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| Sat Apr 05, 2008 13:04 pm What is a fossilised form? |
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| Molly wrote: | | Calm down, Jamie. I agree that we cannot call it a fossilized form, but ask then why certain "older" forms used in Indian English, for example, have been termed fossilized forms by many. |
Because they began as foreign speakers' mistakes.
| Molly wrote: | | Also, if "Did you eat yet?" cannot be seen as a fossilized forms, are we suggesting that AmE speakers never had the BrE present perfect use as the target language item? Are we saying that AmE speakers did not fossilize "Did you eat yet?" on the way to learning/accepting the use of the BrE present perfect? |
You've got everything backwards. The English first brought to America WAS some kind of British English. Americans weren't speaking caveman gibberish that was later replaced by language the British gave them.
You're also acting as if that one sentence, "Did you eat yet?", is the only time Americans use the simple past when prescriptive grammarians would call for the present perfect, but in spoken language Americans use the simple past in MANY situations, not just in that phrase. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 4225
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| Sun Apr 06, 2008 18:10 pm What is a fossilised form? |
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Jamie, can you post a few forms that you think are fossilized in Indian English?
In reference to this comment you made last month:
"Their grammar and vocabulary problems are fossilized, and they use odd forms like "was been go" no matter who they're trying to talk to or how formal or international they want to be." |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 2878
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| Sun Apr 06, 2008 18:14 pm What is a fossilised form? |
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| Quote: | | You're also acting as if that one sentence, "Did you eat yet?", is the only time Americans use the simple past when prescriptive grammarians would call for the present perfect, but in spoken language Americans use the simple past in MANY situations, not just in that phrase. |
Indeed you do, but it's the above example and others such as "I didn't do it yet", "I already did it", etc., that I'm interested in at the moment. |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 2878
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| Englishes: Some thoughts on the different types of English | No weaker second-cousin |
