Bob,

Since I have a stack of essay exams I'm supposed to be grading, I'll
quibble with you on this one. While the eager to / easy to alternation
is certainly amenable to analysis in terms of deep syntactic structure
and subject/object distinctions, one can also characterize the
alternation in terms of different semantic roles associated with the
elements (so in effect, it's more like an agent/patient distinction,
rather than a subject/object one). R&K's failure to show a difference
between these two, in that kind of analysis, isn't a failure to indicate
structural relations -- and no one's ever said R&K is that good at
indicating semantic roles, despite the way it cheats with indirect
objects.

Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University 

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Please analyse this - from John Curran

I have to take issue with the following statement by Martha.

>>> Martha Kolln <[log in to unmask]> 11/17/2008 7:08 AM >>>

R&K diagrams aren't perfect. But they do a good job of showing the 
structural relationships of sentence parts, no matter where in the 
sentence they appear, distinguishing form and function. 

****
My understanding of RK diagrams is that both 1 and 2 would be diagramed
the same.

1) John is easy to please.
2) John is eager to please.

The relationship of John to please is different in these two sentences.
In (1), John is the object of please; in (2) John is the subject of
please.

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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