Bruce,
It may be hard to use the term "transformation" without bringing in
all the apparatus that has historically come with it. It may be better
to talk about alternative options, perhaps ones that complement each
other and stand at more or less equal status. So a question is not a
transformed statement, but just an alternative choice--offering
information or requesting information as both necessary options in the
system. We can also request or offer goods and services, and we have
ways to carry that out.
Halliday describes three different metafunctions, one being
interpersonal and interactive, another being representational, and the
other being largely textual. So you might say that a passive sentence
has been "transformed" from an active one, but a functional analysis
would emphasize that a different entity has been moved into grammatical
subject role to ground the proposition, while the role of doer of the
action (representation) has been left out or shifted into the predicate.
This may happen for textual reasons, perhaps to keep a topic in extended
focus. If you treat this systematically, then one is not a
transformation of the other, just ways to accommodate different
functions within the structure of the clause. It may be misleading to
think of one as more primary than the other, even if more common.
We can certainly divide verbs into physical (material) and mental
(cognitive), and we do mix those types up in a sort of metaphor all the
time. When the wind "howls", we are granting it a speech act. When I
"fall" for someone, I'm describing emotional change in physical terms.
"The fields never knew such cold as they knew that winter." What kind of
"knowing" is that? Any description of creativity ought to foreground the
metaphoric nature of language.
I mainly worry that people think of rules as "governing" rather than
as conventional. It is not a "rule" that college students dress
informally, but it is certainly a pattern. You haven't broken a rule
when you wear a tie, for whatever reason. I don't think the comparison
holds too far (language is not just fashion), but "rule" and "pattern"
can be very different in people's minds.
Craig
Bruce Despain wrote:
> Craig,
>
> I think it might be a good exercise for you to respond sometime
> without using the word "function" or "functional." Don't these words
> just provide us another way to talk about rules. The rule is there to
> *describe* something that is regular, expected, recognized, and
> conventional. Language needs a certain amount of conventionality to
> convey understanding. Does a new construction arise to carriy out a
> new function or an old function in a new way? Maybe the answer would
> tell us to what extent function is driving language or whether
> language is driving function. Consider the rhetorical question, for
> example. This phenomenon takes a syntactic structure normally used to
> seek new information and applies it to make an assertion. We could
> describe this phenomenon by rule in the form of a (dreaded?)
> "transformation" (a sense different from
> "generative-transformational"). The language user transforms the
> function of a yes-no question to that of a declarative sentence simply
> by placing it in a rhetorical context. To compare the functions of
> "kick" and "admire" as transitive verbs is not as useful as comparing
> them, maybe, at the level of action, one being physical and the
> other mental. To find a syntactic correlate to this contrast may give
> us a clue to where a creative act of functional transform might be
> found. Perhaps something like these metaphors: "John kicked around
> and then admired football." (zeugma) "Mary admired John, but kicked
> him out of her life." We respect the "functional pressures" of syntax
> but utilize their force to make our expressions more powerful. Is
> this something like you have in mind?
>
> Bruce
>
> >>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 10/11/07 7:54 AM >>>
> Herb,
> I enjoyed both posts very much and will respond to both in this one.
> I like the idea that the language is both "complex" and "subtle",
> which implies that it's a functional complexity. We bring new
> constructions into play precisely because they allow us to carry out the
> various functions of language, and any attempt to describe it ought to
> pay deep respect to that. They come into being because we find them
> useful and they become routinized (and intuitive) over time.
> I'm beginning to think that we use the term "rules" far too readily
> and widely. What we are describing may in fact be a useful construction
> or a functional pattern, not a "rule" in the way we usually understand
> rules. Language may be better understood bottom up than top down.
> It does make sense to look for patterns, but when we find these
> similarities, when we classify sentences or constructions, we are not
> necessarily discovering some sort of internal rules that they are
> "following." The patterns are enormously important, and they do tend to
> function below consciousness for very good (functional) reasons. But
> classifying the sentences or ascertaining the "rules" they represent may
> be very misleading. Both "kick" and "admire" take direct objects, not
> because they are transitive, but because we understand kicking as a
> process that involves something to be kicked and admiring as a process
> that requires something to be admired. The differences between being
> kicked and being admired may be more important than the similarities.
> Transitivity arises because it is congruent with our understanding of
> the world. When the patterns don't fit our purposes, we bend and shape
> them, we blur the edges.
> This may be why studying formal grammar doesn't seem to carry over,
> at least not quickly or easily. We need to respect the functional
> pressures, the context it arises from.
> When we write, we are not constructing forms; we are constructing
> meanings. Meaning is not simply poured into neutral forms. The
> constructions themselves are meaningful, arising out of that
> meaning-making history over time.
> I know that probably puts me at odds with many people on the list.
> But that's where my current thinking is headed.
>
> Craig
>
>
> STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
> > Craig,
> >
> > What you describe as the verb pulling the preposition into its orbit is
> > precisely the sort of historical change that's been going on since Early
> > Modern English and has given us the very complex and subtle system of
> > multi-word verbs we have in English today. So we have constructions in
> > which about behaves in some ways as a preposition and in other ways as a
> > part of the verb. And we just have to live with that fact. Language
> > continually defies our attempts to codify it, which is what makes it so
> > endlessly fascinating to study.
> >
> > Herb
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 9:01 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: Those old transitivity blues was Help for a puzzled teacher
> >
> > Herb, Peter, Bill, Ron,
> >
> > With apologies if they seems too theoretical for most people's tastes. I
> >
> > have been thinking about these things for several months now and have
> > mostly held back while the thoughts come into focus.
> >
> > The problem I currently have with tying to find a classification for
> > "think about" is that I am starting to believe we make these categories
> > more important (more governing) than they actually are. We tend to feel
> > as if words have to act certain ways because of the grammar, rather than
> >
> > believing that the grammar itself arises out of our use of words. (Or
> > that it is a dynamic relationship, a lexico-grammar, word-grammar,
> > cline.) When classification becomes an end in itself, the living,
> > dynamic language gets left behind.
> >
> > Another way to think about it is that the process of thinking is often
> > conceived of (and articulated) as "about" something, and over time
> > "think" and "about" come together often enough to start feeling like a
> > single phrase rather than a verb plus prepositional phrase with a
> > variable object.
> >
> >
> > I often think about blank.
> >
> > I often think about blank
> >
> > From this way of thinking, the verb will begin to pull the preposition
> > into its orbit, helped by two forces-one is repetition (the words coming
> >
> > together so often)--and the other is congruency with our experience of
> > the world, our conception of what thinking is like. In other words, we
> > continue to use it because it is practical to use it, highly
> > "functional." And this becomes patterned.
> >
> > From a rule based approach, we have to say that "all grammars leak",
> > but that may be because they try to treat the language as frozen and not
> >
> > dynamic. If we see the creation of phrasal verbs as a dynamic process,
> > then it is easy to treat in-between examples as part of that process of
> > change-of grammatical structures being lexicalized and lexical terms
> > being pulled into the grammar. From a usage based perspective, leaking
> > is likely. Just like words, the grammar is always coming into being.
> >
> > This gives us an approach to grammar that pulls us into meaning and one
> > that frames meaning itself as contextual and dynamic.
> >
> > Craig
> >
> >
> >
> > STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
> >
> >> Ron,
> >>
> >> Let's start with easiest of your questions, how to use information
> >>
> > like
> >
> >> this in teaching. The fact is that I wouldn't present a seven-fold
> >> classification of anything grammatical in an ESL context. I might be
> >> forced to do something like that if I were teaching Chinese nominal
> >> classifiers, of which there are dozens, or Bantu noun classes, which
> >>
> > can
> >
> >> exceed a couple dozen, but fortunately English doesn't do such things.
> >> What's important in developing both fluency and register control in
> >> non-native speakers is that they learn to shift particles when doing
> >>
> > so
> >
> >> is pragmatically motivated, that they learn to use a passive when that
> >> structure is pragmatically motivated. And this they will learn much
> >> better from usage and practice than from grammar drill.
> >>
> >> I think perhaps you confused Bill and me in the latter part of your
> >> post. Actually, the classification I posted is from Sidney
> >>
> > Greenbaum's
> >
> >> Oxford English Grammar (OUP, 1996), so I can't take credit for it.
> >> Transitivity does have degrees. Intransitives take only a subject,
> >> (mono)transitives take a subject and a direct object, and
> >>
> > ditransitives
> >
> >> (SG's "doubly transitives") take a direct object and an indirect
> >>
> > object,
> >
> >> which may or may not require a preposition. Indirect object, bear in
> >> mind, is a function, not a structure, and it can show up as either a
> >> bare NP or as the object of a preposition. I suspect SG uses
> >> "monotransitivity" in a excess of clarity, the result of which isn't
> >> necessarily what the writer hopes for.
> >>
> >> Actually, SG doesn't distinguish between "look at" and "look after".
> >>
> > In
> >
> >> his discussion of prepositional verbs (p. 282), he uses "look at" as
> >>
> > an
> >
> >> example of a monotransitive prepositional verb.
> >>
> >> Back to the question of goals for a moment. SG was writing a
> >>
> > reference
> >
> >> grammar, and so his goal was to provide as complete and thorough a
> >> classification of English structures as he could. Hence his seven
> >> classes of phrasal/prepositional verbs. What the ESL teacher does
> >>
> > with
> >
> >> this classification is subject to different, pedagogical goals, and I
> >> hope that teacher would keep SG's treatment well away from his
> >>
> > students,
> >
> >> while being informed by it as he or she prepares lesson plans.
> >>
> >> Herb
> >>
> >> One of the great advantages of this List (and particularly if one has
> >> the
> >> intellectual courage to state what one knows about grammar with the
> >> attendant possibility of being proven to be wrong and the even worse
> >> possibility of realising that one has been teaching something to
> >> students
> >> which is possibly incorrect) is the potential it has to make one
> >> re-examine
> >> one's own assumptions about some point of grammar.
> >>
> >> Herb's comments on the complexities of phrasal verbs and Bill's list
> >>
> > of
> >
> >> three examples are cases in point. This query, then, is just to
> >>
> > clarify
> >
> >> things in their posts and particularly in the context of ESL.
> >>
> >> Bill's list of three is as follows:
> >>
> >> I looked [up the chimney] prepositional phrase
> >> I [looked up] the word phrasal verb
> >> I looked [up] adverbial particle.
> >>
> >> Just to avoid ambiguity, I would modify the second two as follows:
> >>
> >> I [looked up] the word. As 'up' is an adverbial particle and as
> >>
> > 'the
> >
> >> word' is the direct object of the resultant phrasal verb, 'look up' is
> >>
> > a
> >
> >> transitive phrasal
> >> verb.
> >>
> >> I looked [up]. As 'up' is an adverbial particle and as there is no
> >> direct
> >> object, 'look up' is an intransitive phrasal verb.
> >>
> >> Would Bill agree with this modification?
> >>
> >> Herb's list of seven really puts the cat amonst the pigeons of my
> >> assumptions about transitivity. Here's Bill's list:
> >>
> >> 1. intransitive phrasal verbs, e.g. "give in" (surrender)
> >> 2. transitive phrasal verbs, e.g. "find" something "out" (discover)
> >> 3. monotransitive prepositional verbs, e.g. "look after" (take care
> >>
> > of)
> >
> >> 4. doubly transitive prepositional verbs, e.g. "blame" something "on"
> >> someone
> >> 5. copular prepositional verbs, e.g. "serve as"
> >> 6. monotransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs, e.g. "look up to"
> >> (respect)
> >> 7. doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs, e.g. "put"
> >>
> > something
> >
> >> "down to" (attribute to)
> >>
> >> My problem is with 3 This is the first time that I have encountered
> >>
> > the
> >
> >> term 'monotransitive' so perhaps Bill can explain the significance of
> >> the addition of 'mono-'.
> >>
> >> In the case of 3, why is Bill implicitly differentiating 'look at' and
> >> 'look
> >> after'? I ask this because I am assuming that he is not claiming
> >>
> > that
> >
> >> 'look at' is a monotransitive prepositional verb. In the case of ESL,
> >>
> > I
> >
> >> think it preferable to consider them both intransitive in order not to
> >> muddy the transitive waters too much.
> >>
> >> 6 & 7 are also problematic in ESL terms for the same reason but
> >>
> > perhaps
> >
> >> we can come to those later.
> >>
> >> Ron Sheen
> >>
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