Janet,
Your position about calling the relationship between the more or less equivalent structures a transformation is certainly not without precedent! The actual syntactic analysis of such structures may in the modern schools of model theory generalize the transformation so that it no longer relates to what you are doing, but that seems to me to be irrelevant. Notice the following relationships:
1) John put the books on the shelf.
2) John shelved the books.
3) The books are on the shelf.
4) The shelf has the books on it.
The same relationship shows up with the names for other containers, appendages, and coverings. Depending on the linguist, these sentences may or may not be related syntactically. Some say that some of these relationships are in the lexicon. The fact remains that there is a distinct semantic relationship between them and that it is reflected in the syntax. I think transformations are a useful way of seeing that relationship more clearly. The thing that I think needs to be controlled or at least kept in mind when sentence combining is the fact that there are various nuances of meaning that should be evident and the originals are often altered in more or less systematic ways.
Bruce
>>> "Castilleja, Janet" <[log in to unmask]> 11/20/07 10:32 AM >>>
I am not really a big fan of generative grammar, but I do think some
useful ideas came out of it.
One reason that I asked how other people analyze that sort of structure
is that I find that in my grammar for teachers class, students often
have trouble differentiating between finite and non-finite forms. I
find it useful to show students how the transformation (I think there
really is a transformation) takes place, from independent clause to
dependent clause(usually relative) to reduced clauses. It seems to help
them see that what we are left with after the transformations is the
participle, not a similar looking finite form. Of course, we also have
other ways of deciding whether a verb is finite or not. So my analysis
of 'developed last summer' is that it is a reduced clause with an
adverbial modifier.
While I know a number of people on the list are skeptical about this, I
have found research that indicates that sentence combining can have a
positive effect on student writing convincing. We use sentence
combining in the developmental English classes at my school, but there
is really no sentence combining without transformations.
Janet
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Instruction versus learning
Janet,
The word group "developed last summer" is headed by the past
participle of the verb and includes a noun phrase ("last summer") that
modifies "developed" adverbially. I think traditional grammar would call
it a participial phrase, acting as adjectival modifier (restrictive) of
"the plan." The idea would be that a structure (like relative clause)
can act adjectivally and not BE an adjective phrase.
I think it can be very useful to students to point out various
options that a writer might have available, relative clause being one,
without having to postulate that one was transformed from the other. You
can then open up conversations about the nuances of meaning (often
emphasis) that result. Insight into the closeness of these options is
valuable.
Craig
Castilleja, Janet wrote:
> Hi
>
> What about a sentence like 'the plan developed last summer should
> alleviate the problem'? Would you also analyze 'developed last
> summer'as an adjective phrase?
>
> Janet
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 8:39 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Instruction versus learning
>
> I think the Reduced Relative Clause analysis is a relic of early
> Transformational Grammar, when linguists were enamored of the power of
> transformations and hadn't het become sufficiently suspicious of such
> formal power. Transformations can, in fact, do anything you want them
> do to, regardless of whether or not that thing is well supported by
how
> language works. The delightfully named transformation Wh-is deletion
> made it easy to posit a relative clause underlying any adjectival noun
> modifier. Combine that with adjective-shift to move a single word
> adjective from post-nominal to pre-nominal position, and you had
> tremendous power tied up in two simple transformations. Of course,
> transformations couldn't account for restrictions on order of
> pre-nominal adjectives. Nor could they account for the fact that
there
> were restrictions on the order of post-nominal modifiers as well, as
in
> "a student of linguistics from Chicago" vs. "a student from Chicago of
> linguistics", while you could say either "a car parked by the side of
> the road with red tires" or "a car with red tires parked by the side
of
> the road." And then, of course, there were adjectives like "late"
that
> couldn't occur in the predicate of a relative clause, as in "the late
> President Reagan" vs. "*President Reagan who was late." The second
> sentence works only with a temporal meaning, not the meaning that he's
> dead.
>
> What Chomsky's work starting around 1968, followed by his own and
other
> work by his students, demonstrated was that for transformations to
make
> linguistically useful generalizations they had to be very tightly
> constrained, and you couldn't create a transformation just because a
> derivation made sense, like reducing all single-word and phrasal noun
> modifiers from relative clauses. Relative clause reduction was one of
> these things that was justified only by simplicity, that it provided a
> common source for nominal modifiers and so simplified the Phrase
> Structure Rules. That was a purely formal justification, something
the
> model could do and therefore did. It was not motivated by actual
> linguistic data. The relative clause reduction analysis fell under
its
> own weight, since it could be motivated only formally and ran into
> intractable problems with conflicting data.
>
> Herb
>
>
> Now, Janet and Kathleen, what are we to make of this? Each of you
> asserts your view quite confidently. I'm wondering if there is some
> test, some definition, that can lead one to recognize a "reduced
> relative clause" when one sees one. Alternatively, what is to
> prevent us from simply declaring all post position adjectives as
> reduced relative clauses? What do we gain by calling such
> constructions reduced relative clauses" What do we lose if we, as I
> am inclined to do, simply call them adjectives?
>
> Peter Adams
>
> On Nov 18, 2007, at 5:31 PM, Castilleja, Janet wrote:
>
>
>> Hi
>>
>> It is a reduced relative clause. The pre-reduction sentence is
>> 'A healthy meal which is available at many fast-food restaurants is
>> a salad with low-fat dressing.' Reduced clauses of various types
>> are quite common.
>>
>> Janet Castilleja
>> Heritage University
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of
>> Peter Adams
>> Sent: Sat 11/17/2007 7:00 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Instruction versus learning
>>
>>
>> I agree with Kathleen, but some of my colleagues are arguing that
>> it is a reduced relative clause. Does anyone agree with them?
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> On Nov 17, 2007, at 12:03 AM, Kathleen M. Ward wrote:
>>
>>
>> I think that it's just an adjective phrase, modified with a
>> prepositional phrase. Adjective phrases that are postmodified
>> follow the noun rather than preceding it. There are lots of
examples.
>>
>> Kathleen Ward
>> UC Davis
>>
>> On Nov 16, 2007, at 8:52 PM, Peter Adams wrote:
>>
>>
>> Could someone help me analyze this sentence:
>>
>>
>>
>> A healthy meal available at many fast-food restaurants is a
>> salad with low-fat dressing.
>>
>>
>> What is the underlined phrase?
>>
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>> Peter Adams
>>
>>
>>
>>
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