Summary Details
| Query: |
Use of 'Substitute'
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| Author: | David Denison | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Historical Linguistics
Semantics |
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| Summary: |
I asked what exactly was meant by
(3) Non-specialists only can be substituted out of the lineup once per quarter, meaning two-way players can expect to be on the field upward of 45 to 50 minutes of a 60-minute game. (ANC, NYTimes) The following respondents provided interpretations: Paula Radetzky + anonymous friend, Steven Keiser, Nicholas Fleisher, Peter T. Daniels, Nancy Frishberg, Daniel Loehr, Bruce Despain. Other points were taken up by Rod McConchie, Serhiy Potapenko, Earl Herrick. Thanks to all. Steve, Nick and Dan were particularly clear on the direction of substitution, while Steve and Paula figured out that the passage probably comes from the rules of Arena Football, a recent indoor variant of American football. Example (3) evidently discusses replacement of certain players currently ?in the lineup? (i.e., playing). (Three very positive, male respondents outvote someone who professes herself ?not a sports nut?.) It therefore belongs to the type where ?to substitute player X? means that X is not the substitute but the one replaced. In other words, the direct object of _substitute_ is 'old' (already in the context), as in British sporting usage and unlike (other kinds of) standard English. However, American usage does seem to differ from British in that (a) the verb _substitute_ is used less often in the context of sport - or rather, ?sports?, since we?re talking American here; (b) the clipping _sub_ is common as a verb; (c) _in_ or _out_ are commonly added to signal whether the direct object is the replacement or the replacee, respectively, as in (3), and without them the direction would not be obvious to some Americans. In Britain the direct object is universally the player who is replaced, and _in/out_ are not used with sporting _substitute_. I have argued that standard usage of _substitute_ is unsupported by analogy with other exchange verbs, and that the recent reversal from ?substitute new for old? to ?substitute old for new? in young speakers of British English, which is not (nearly so) characteristic of American English, follows the introduction of tactical substitution in soccer, a consequent frequent appearance of _substitute_ in a new register, and its alignment with analogous verbs and with iconic principles. I have amended the draft slightly to take account of the responses noted above. (And yes, my paper also covers the long-attested and long-criticised ?substitute old with/by new?. In addition to all this, there were discussions in October on the American Dialect Society List, ADS-L, kindly forwarded to me by Arnold Zwicky.) Peter Daniels argued that (3) does not contain the verb _substitute_ but a denominal verb. I had doubted this, since the noun _substitute_ refers unambiguously to the replacement player, and keen sports fans have told me that (3) refers to those who might get taken out of play and replaced. But I may have misunderstood his point. A couple of respondents argued that substitution by its nature must refer to both the player(s) coming off and the new one(s) going on. That?s true, of course, but the use of _substitute_ , whether in sport or elsewhere, doesn?t need explicit mention of all three possible arguments: the agent, the substitute, and the replacee (for which I can find no convenient noun); I wanted to know which of the latter two arguments was explicit in (3). Steve Keiser had the ?impression [?] that ''substitute'' is undergoing the same change in American English as it is in British, at least in speech (e.g., sports announcers). Though I'm wondering if we won't end up with both subcategorizations possible.? That?s how it already seems to be for young Britons. |
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| LL Issue: | 15.3568 | |
| Date Posted: | 22-Dec-2004 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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