Because of a too liberal, often inadequate and/or arbitrary use of the term field, especially in semantics, modern semantic theory needs more than ever before a new field notion and a new field terminology. An attempt will be made to define a field notion based on what others have said about fields in semantics. With regard to terminology, I shall use the term axiological field, which appears in several of my earlier writings as well. “Axiology” is to be defined as a functional and structural approach to meaning which stands to semantics as phonology stands to phonetics. It is about values (“axiology”, a term coined by André Martinet, literally means ‘science of values’) as opposed to meanings, with values being to meanings what phonemes are to uttered sounds.

John B. Smith (1987) recently drew attention to the occasional use of an adverb + infinitive construction in English dialects, and specifically to the non-finite phrase away to go. Joseph Wright included examples of the construction in the English Dialect Dictionary under both away and go, with away to go meaning basically ‘be off, go away, away he went’. Under away (A.5.Phr. away to go):

One of the best known and most controversial features of Canadian English is the vocalic feature labeled by Chambers (1973) as “Canadian Raising”, which affects the /aI/ of right and the /aU/ of lout. This feature represents a situation in which the onset of the diphthong is closer to the target of the glide before fortis consonants than before lenis consonants: for instance, ride may have [aε] and right [3I], and loud may have [ao] but lout [ʌU]. Many of the previous studies of the feature, beginning with its original description by Martin Joos (1942), who raises the question of whether the second syllable of typewriter has the raised or non-raised variant, have involved the syllabification rules that determine when the onset is raised and when it is not. Chambers (1973) demonstrates that writer normally has the raised variant and shows that the relative stress on particular syllables can prevent raising from taking place in some cases where the diphthong occurs before a voiceless consonant. Vance (1987), Paradis (1980), and Chambers (1989) also deal with this latter problem, reformulating it in terms of linear (Vance) or Kahnian (Paradis, Chambers) theories of syllable formation.