Date:    Tue, 7 Apr 1998 15:42:18 -0400
<br>From:    Larry Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: more on non-negative "un"
<br>
<br>At 1:38 PM -0500 4/7/98, Mark Mandel wrote:
<br>>I found this in the "Selling It" section of the March, 1995 issue of _Consumer
<br>>Reports_ while clearing out (p. 211 = inside back cover):
<br>>
<br>> ===============
<br>>
<br>> Oh. So you'll refreeze our pipes?
<br>> ---------------------------------
<br>>
<br>>Perhaps Brown's Certified Welding should have thawed out this wording a little
<br>>more.
<br>>
<br>>(Photo of ad evidently clipped from newspaper):
<br>>
<br>>            BROWN'S
<br>>        CERTIFIED WELDING
<br>>
<br>>     PORTABLE WELDING EQUIPMENT
<br>>   PIPE - HEAVY EQUIPMENT - STEEL WORK
<br>> REASONABLE RATES, RUTLAND AREA COVERED!!
<br>>
<br>> PIPE UNTHAWING  <----[largest lettering in the whole ad]
<br>>
<br>> ===================
<br>>
<br>>Presumably this was meant, but not read, as the same non-negative
<br>>"un-" as in "unravel", "unloose", and "unpeel", with the sense of
<br>>'release, un[either sense!]bind'.
<br>>
<br>
<br>Not just presumably; this is a fairly well-attested sense; the OED
<br>citations date back four centuries, and the meaning is always the redundant
<br>one, in which UNTHAW = 'thaw' or 'unfreeze'.  I discussed this in a paper
<br>on un-verbs ten years ago, from which I can provide this excerpt for anyone
<br>curious about why "unthaw" is a synonym of "thaw", while "unfreeze" is an
<br>antonym of "freeze", which I originally presented in the course of a
<br>general analysis in which all un-verbs basically involve "helping entropy
<br>along", returning their theme arguments to their original or unmarked
<br>state.  (Hope no Dutch readers take offense.)
<br>
<br>-----------------
<br>Why is it that while "unthaw", which looks like an antonym of "thaw"  or
<br>"unfreeze", is in fact their synonym, while "unmelt", which looks like it
<br>ought to mean whatever unthaw means, in fact does not occur at all?  In OED
<br>citations dating back four centuries, including those in (16),
<br>
<br>(16)    The ponds were almost unthawed.
<br>        The men [in Holland] are cold to such a degree that neither Love nor
<br>                wine can unthaw them.
<br>
<br>"unthaw"  is invariably equivalent simply to "thaw".  Of course, "unfreeze"
<br>too always equates to "thaw".  This conforms to our hypothesis, assuming
<br>that the natural state of H2O is liquid, that is, water.  Hence, freezing
<br>can be un-done, restoring the state of nature, while thawing--which itself
<br>creates a natural state--cannot.  The systematic character of this
<br>asymmetry is reinforced by the existence of dialectal forms eave and
<br>uneave, both glossed as 'thaw' (Wright 1961)...
<br>
<br>[Discussion of relation of unV to 'V out' as opposed to 'V up' omitted.]
<br>
<br>Predictably, neither "unfill"  nor "unempty"  occurs freely, each being
<br>normally pre-empted by its underived synonym (cf. Clark & Clark 1979).  But
<br>the former does occasionally surface unblocked as the entropic antonym of
<br>"fill", while the latter, typically in the dialectal version "unempt",
<br>occupies that same semantic slot, duplicating its unprefixed entropic
<br>counterpart.  To "unfill"  or "unempt(y)" a bowl or a lake is to empty it.
<br>And of course we fill UP a bowl of water but empty it OUT.  We are now
<br>prepared to recognize that it is no accident that a lake freezes up, but
<br>thaws out.
<br>        So much for thawing and freezing.  Now what of the missing
<br>"unmelt"?  If melting is akin to thawing, the transmutation from a solid
<br>(or frozen) to a liquid (or unfrozen) state, why don't we have redundant
<br>"unmelt"  alongside "unthaw"?  The answer is that  melting is in fact
<br>crucially unlike thawing:  while a thawed object, say a turkey, is a
<br>temporarily frozen theme or patient which returns to its unmarked state,
<br>retaining its physical integrity, the integrity of a melted theme or
<br>patient may be affected or even destroyed by the change of state.  A thawed
<br>turkey is still a turkey (indeed, a turkey par excellence), a thawed lake
<br>still a lake, but a melted ice cube, snowman, or wicked witch is not simply
<br>a different form of the same object, but essentially a puddle of one kind
<br>or another.  Notice too that where things freeze up and thaw out, they melt
<br>away.  If I come to your door complaining that I'm frozen stiff, my
<br>reaction might differ considerably depending on whether you offered me a
<br>brandy to help me thaw out or a potion to help me melt away.
<br>------------------------
<br>(If you want more, the article is "Morphology, Pragmatics, and the
<br>Un-Verb", and it's in ESCOL '88, pp. 210-33.)
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>
<br>P.S.  The last word on these redundant un-verbs from a card-carrying
<br>prescriptivist (to be read while banging dictionary loudly on the lectern):
<br>
<br>The verb "to unloose" should analogically signify "to tie", in like manner as
<br>"to untie" signifies "to loose".  To what purpose is it, then, to retain a
<br>term, without any necessity, in a signification the reverse of that to
<br>which its etymology manifestly suggests?...All considerations of analogy,
<br>propriety, perspicuity, unite in persuading us to repudiate this
<br>preposterous application altogether.
<br>   (George Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, 1776--
<br>        thanks to Dennis Baron for the citation!)
<br>