From: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: PEOPLE ellipsis in english
Followup-To: soc.motss
Summary: no denial of personhood
Organization: lsa, osu, outil, stanford,...
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 21:01:01 GMT

in  article <1992Jul28.125339.12752@ultb.isc.rit.edu>
kls4344@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes, in response to me:

>...I just want to point out to you
>that in your list of groups, you write "gay people" and "the deaf," an
>inconsistency that bothers me.  You don't write "the gay."  I want people to
>remember that the word "deaf" is adjectival (maybe you, as a linguist, 
>can help
>me clarify), and that deaf people want to be referred to as people, 
>just like
>gay people do.  I hate the term "the deaf" because it's so narrow 
>and focuses
>only on one part of a fascinating group of people.

the informed realize that what is going on here is not a denial of the
label "people" to certain groups.  certainly the rich do.  perhaps the
english, the french, the swiss, and the chinese are also clear on the
point...

well, you see the picture, at least roughly.  english allows ellipsis
of PEOPLE, leaving an adjective as a remnant of a noun phrase, for
plural generic expressions with *certain* adjectives in  them.  i don't
know the full set of facts, and i'm away from my sources on the
subject, but they are full of surprising generalizations and a
certain number of idiosyncrasies.

for *nationality* adjectives, you have to end in certain consonants to
get used this way (for instance, s in SWISS, z in CHINESE, sh in
ENGLISH, ch in FRENCH); "the belgian/somali/greek are opposed to
your ideas" is simply impossible.

but that's only for nationality adjectives.  pronunciation is pretty
much irrelevant otherwise, and usually PEOPLE ellipsis is
equal-opportunity: "the sighted and the blind", "the rich and the
poor", *but not* "the straight and the gay", "the intelligent and the
stupid".  there is no slur based on english grammar in the expression
"the deaf" meaning `deaf people' (and i chose "the deaf" rather than
"deaf people" deliberately to vary the construction: "gay people,
ethnic minorities, and the deaf").  *however*, if deaf people
themselves don't like to be referred to as "the deaf" (despite the
National Theatre for the Deaf and so on), i'll be happy to switch.  on
the other hand, i don't want to see problems invented (on the grounds
of dubious principles) where there aren't any.

caveats: PEOPLE ellipsis ("the rich are a pain in the ass") is not the
same thing as ONE(S) ellipsis ("i've known straight guys and gay guys,
and the gay were far more interesting); the first requires no previous
mention in context, but the second does.  the conditions on PEOPLE
ellipsis are much stricter (and, to me at the moment, more mysterious)
than the ones on ONE(S) ellipsis.  also, neither of these is the same
thing as converting adjectives directly into nouns (which then have
their own plurals), as in "look, honey, a belgian / some belgians",
*but not* "look, honey, a deaf / some deafs".  (many of us, in
particular daniel sternbergh writing for the motss faq file, think
"gay" works just like "deaf" here.)  the conditions on direct
deadjectival nominalization - whew!  swallow *that*, baby! - seem to
have nothing to do with the conditions on the other two constructions;
in particular, long and/or complex adjectives with histories in latin
and greek (like "homosexual" and "lesbian") are usually happy
converting directly to nouns, while short simple adjectives with
histories in anglo-saxon and french (like "deaf" and "gay") mostly
just hate it.  chacun a son gout.

arnold (once again feeling he has said far too much about penguins)