Craig,

I'm not dismissing your alternative view out of hand.  I'm trying to
figure out how it applies to REAL problems I confront as a writing
teacher.  I don't understand how this view provides any insights into
what my students do, and more importantly, what I do.

I provided you with a REAL example of a mixed construction from a REAL
student text.  

(1)  By taking time out of your day to get something for someone else
just really shows that you really care about them.

Why don't you want to share with the listserv how your perspective
accounts for such a sentence?

Because you haven't done that yet, I will try to figure out what it
means.  Consider the Langacker quote as a way to account for sentence
(1).

“The thrust of the content requirement is that the linguistic knowledge
we ascribe to speakers should be limited to elements of form and meaning
found in actually occurring expressions, or which derive from such
elements via the basic psychological phenomena listed in 1.31:
association, automatization, schematization, and categorization. By
keeping our feet on the ground, this restriction assures both
naturalness and theoretical austerity.” 

It seems to me that Langacker is saying the writer of (1) must have
encountered such a construction in other contexts.  Is that correct? 
The obvious implication is that we as teachers much find out what those
contexts are and figure out ways for students to ignore such examples. 
Is that correct?

Of course, as teachers, how do WE know there is something inappropriate
with (1) if "the linguistic knowledge we ascribe to speakers [is]
limited to elements of form and meaning found in actually occurring
expressions"?  I know I don't read texts that contain mixed
constructions, except for my own student texts.  So, where did my
knowledge come from that these structures that I have only encountered
in student writing are inappropriate if my knowledge is based on
actually occurring expressions?

Craig, you want teachers on the list to take an alternative theory of
language that is based on actual language we are exposed to.  From a
teaching perspective, I'm trying to do that and I don't like the answer
I come up with for students and the kinds of "innovative" sentences they
write and my own judgments about those sentences.  

I must be wrong because you are an experienced writing teacher and you
find the perspective useful.  Please explain why it is useful for you.

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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