LINGUIST List 6.1482

Sun Oct 22 1995

Sum: Impossibly, Impossibility

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1. hiro-t, Summary: impossibly, impossiblity

Dear Linguists,
 I received a summary from my senior colleague who posted a
query on the acceptability of _impossibly_ and _impossibility that_.

******************************************************************
 At the beginning of September I raised a query about English usage.
I asked you the acceptability of the following sentences:

 (1) _Impossibly_, John will come.
 (2) There is an _impossibility_ that you are right.

 Soon after that, I got 32 e-mails through Prof. Hiroaki Tanaka.
Thank you very much for answering my query. I would express my sincere
thanks to the following people who supplied useful data:

 Sondra Ahlen, Leo Connolly, kimberly Barskaitiki, Lynne Hewitt,
 Geoffrey Millar, Garland D. Bills, Anton Sherwood, gerald B. Mathias,
 Dale Russell, Anthea F. Gupta, Steve Seegmiller, Dara Connolly,
 Terri Lander, Virginia Clark, Stavros Macrakis, Mick Perkins,
 Marie L. Hannan, Allan C. wechsler, Larry losenwald, Dave Wharton,
 Greg Stump, Clodagh Lynam, James Harris, Wayles Browne, Carolyn Kirkpatrck
 James Kirchner.

 The result of this inqury is as follows.

 OK *
 (1) 5 27
 (2) 0 32

 Almost all respondents say that both (1) and (2) are utterly and
totally impossible in an ordinary context. According to the five respondents,
however, who said that (1) is acceptable, (1) can be used in the sense
"contrary to all expectation".
 One respondent hopes that I will include the examples where _impossibly_
and _impossibility_ are used from the corpus in my summary. Examples are:

 (3) Abruptly, _impossibly_, silence fell over that raging mob.
 (4) Part of me insisted on the _impossibility_ that my body would
 let me down this way.

*****************************************************************
If you have any comments on (3) and (4), please don't hesitate to
e-mail me(Hiroaki Tanaka) directly.

Best Wishes,
Hiroaki Tanaka, Tokushima University, Japan.
E-mail: hiro-tias.tokushima-u.ac.jp