[extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/

[David Lubkin]

At 12:56 AM 1/10/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:

>Ah yes, the Shakespearean SF author among us can perhaps
>shed light upon this comment:

Damien is far more Shakespearean than I, but I have some bioluminescence of 
my own, as writer and linguist.

>What part of speech is "up"?  Does the preposition become
>a verb?  If so, it represents yet an example of which I
>can immediately think of only two, the other being the
>curious catchphrase "the truth will out."  What is that?
>Does "out" become a verb?  For otherwise that sentence
>has no verb, or as some jokers might say
>
>"That sentence no verb."
>
>We know of many shameful examples of nouns becoming
>verbs in modern vulgar usage, but must we now attack
>and degrade our prepositions too?
>
>I have heard for all my life about people up and doing
>things, such as dying, but never has it been adequately
>explained what up is doing in that sentence.

A language is a phenomenon to be studied, not dictated. Its boundaries are 
set by fuzzy metrics of interpersonal comprehension. The syntactic or 
morphological "rules" or meaning of morphemes, words, phrases are only 
valid to the extent that they accurately describe the corpus of spoken and 
written language. Just as descriptions and theories about astrophysical 
phenomena have no inherent validity.

"prepositions" have been used as "verbs" in English for many centuries, as 
have "nouns."

Damien's "up and leave" is indeed very nearly Shakespearean in ancestry.

http://www.etymonline.com/u1etym.htm
>up - O.E. up, uppe, from PIE *upo "up from below." ... Verb meaning "get 
>up" (as in up and leave) is first attested 1643; the meaning "increase" 
>(as in up the price of oil) is from 1915. The verb "to drive and catch 
>swans" is 1560 ....

For "out," the same source says "[t]he verb was O.E. utian "expel," used in 
many senses over the years."

They are both examples of common patterns in linguistic change -- where an 
utterance becomes shorter over time. Words lose syllables, phrases lose 
words. Linguistic economy.

My favorite deskside dictionary (Random House College), by the way, 
considers "up" to be an adverb, preposition, adjective, noun, and verb 
(both transitive and intransitive). "Out " is cited as all those plus 
interjection.


-- David Lubkin.