Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

18%
+0 −7
Q&A How did rǣda work syntactically, after shifting from 'advise' to mean 'interpret and understand the meaning of written symbols'?

Old English rǣda semantically shifted from ‘advise, consult, guess’ to mean ‘interpret, interpret letters, read’. But isn't this semantic shift unsyntactical and infelicitous? Advisor's writin...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by PSTH‭

Question syntax
#1: Initial revision by user avatar PSTH‭ · 2022-10-06T03:59:43Z (about 2 years ago)
How did rǣda work syntactically, after shifting from 'advise' to mean 'interpret and understand the meaning of written symbols'? 
[Old English _rǣda_ semantically shifted from ‘advise, consult, guess’ to mean ‘interpret, interpret letters, read’](https://languages.codidact.com/posts/28708). 

But isn't this semantic shift unsyntactical and  infelicitous? 

>Advisor's writing _rǣda_ (in the sense of 'advise') Advisee.

is felicitous. 

>Advisor's writing _rǣda_ (in the sense of '**read**') Advisee.

is infelicitous. The correct syntax is

>Advisee _rǣda_ (_qua_ '**read**') Advisor's writing.

To wit, if an advisor counsels an advisee in writing, then the advisor doesn't need to read. It is the advisee who shall read the advisor's writing!