Right on, Craig. I didn't notice the parallel you mention, probably due to the fact that the sentence is not punctuated as a direct quotation. No doubt, it could be interpreted that way quite easily. Lack of accurate punctuation can be a source of vagueness in expression. Perhaps you mean to imply that punctuation, being part of conventional orthography and not part of the syntax being discussed, is more easily overlooked and can be compromised or at least made to fit the composition at hand.
I cannot think of the phrase being moved at all, since the meaning has been so radically altered in such a process. I think the idea of "movement" in the pedagogy of composition cannot be very close to the idea in transformational grammar. In fact, that may well be the origin of so much misapplication of that grammar to teaching, or at least the approach being associated with certain constructs in that particular theoretical framework.
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 10:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: question on the role of a clause
Bruce,
Nice point. Some of those are fairly stock expressions, like "as you
know", "as a matter-of-fact", and "by the way."
What complicates it a bit is the dialogue writers' tendency to move the
"he said," "Paul said", and so on around, probably to avoid putting
those structures into too central attention. "That's one small step for
a man," said Armstrong, "one giant leap for mankind." (Norman Mailer,
"A Walk on the Moon"). I would have a hard time thinking of it as
routinely adverbial just because it has been moved out of sentence
opening position. But there's no question that message emphasis is
involved.
Craig
>
I believe that the adverbial placement of "Poe claimed" is called a
> parenthetical expression in traditional grammar. Many other parenthetical
> expressions also relate to the sentence as sentence adverbs.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
> Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 9:18 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: question on the role of a clause
>
>>
> Scott,
>
> This one is more straightforward than the other question, though also
> very interesting. If "Poe" is subject and "claimed" is the main verb,
> then the direct object would be the whole clause "Inspiration or chance
> played no part in the poem's composition." This kind of direct object is
> sometimes called a "projected clause", very common for verbal process
> verbs.
> Your other choice is to think of "Poe claimed" as a kind of sentence
> modifier, parallel to "Inspiration or chance, according to Poe, played
> no part in the poem's composition."
> By putting "Inspiration or chance" first, the writer is certainly
> giving it more prominence. Functional grammar would call it thematic
> emphasis. That would explain why "Poe claimed", coming between commas
> like an unessential modifier, seems more like an afterthought, even
> though it can make claim to be subject.
> In other words, the message structure of the sentence adds a meaning a
> bit at odds with the constituent structure. It gives "Poe claimed" a
> sort of in-between feel.
> This is easier to understand if you recognize different systems at
> play.
>
> Craig
>
>
> List,
>>
>> In the following sentence, would you say that <Poe> is the subject and
>> <Inspiration or chance played no part in the poem's composition> is the
>> noun clause object of the claim? Is <Poe claimed> adverbial in nature?
>>
>> <Inspiration or chance, Poe claimed, played no part in the poem's
>> compositon.>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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