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October 2005

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Subject:
From:
"Kischner, Michael" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 10 Oct 2005 14:27:15 -0700
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I thought  we'd left the "complete thought" idea behind a long time ago.
Pedagogically it is certainly not helpful.  The more useful part of it
is "complete," not "thought."  Doesn't Chomsky say somewhere that a
sentence is what feels complete to a native speaker?   

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David D Mulroy
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 2:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Each sentence contains a thought

This issue was discussed a couple of years ago.  I thought (and still
think) that Aristotle's idea that a sentence was a combination of a
subject and predicate that could be judged as being either true or false
was essentially correct.  Of course, allowance has to be made for
questions and commands, viewing them as transformations of declarative
sentences, and also for paradoxes like "This sentence is false" or
"Green ideas sleep furiously."  I think that the latter could be said to
have the formal qualities of a true or false statement.  I later found
that Pinker in The Language Instinct also uses true-or-falseness as the
test of  
sentencehood.     


On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Hadley, Tim wrote:

> Ed (Vavra) is right, of course--Considering the possibilities inherent
in compound-complex sentences, it would be better to say, "A sentence
contains _at least_ one complete thought," as in this example:
>  
> >Having explained what a sentence was, the teacher took up the
students' papers and placed them on the desk while the students were
preparing their materials for their next assignment.
>  
> --several "thoughts" (actions) going on at once in such a sentence. 
>  
> It has always seemed to me that the "complete thought" of that old
statement was meant to suggest something more along the lines of a
"grammatically correctly stated and demarcated action(s) or state(s),"
which would, of course, normally include a subject and a predicate. But
calling it a "complete thought" was a weak way of expressing that idea.
>  
> But I may be way off the mark. If so, you guys can correct me.
>  
> Tim
>  
> Tim Hadley
> Research Assistant, The Graduate School Ph.D. candidate, Technical 
> Communication and Rhetoric Texas Tech University
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Edward

> Vavra
> Sent: Mon 10/10/2005 3:10 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Each sentence contains a thought
> 
> 
> Ed,
>     My problem with "Each sentence contains a thought" is that most
sentences contain several thoughts. I can't remember if I gave the
following explanation on this list recently, but .....
>  
> He lives in a house. (1 thought)
> The house is green. (1 thought)
>  
> He lives in a green house. (1 thought?)
>  
> Ed
>  
> 
> 
> >>> [log in to unmask] 10/10/2005 2:54:41 PM >>>
> 
> Dear Folks,
>      I have my own ideas on this, but I wondered what some of you
might say---succinctly, if possible---to someone who made the assertion:
"Each sentence contains a thought."  They are talking about the written
language and about American English.
> 
> Ed To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
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