<One of my students asked my why "according to . . . " is not a
participial phrase, and I could not tell her why.
I'd say that one way to answer this is to indicate that "according to"
has lost its verbal properties, if it ever had any. The term
"participle" is a functional term; by definition, a participle has to be
a verb form that functions as an adjective. In this sense, it is sort
of half verb and half adjective. Participles (and gerunds and
infinitives) can expand into phrases by taking their own modifiers and
complements with the whole phrasal unit attached to the substantive
being modified (several verbals in this sentence for illustration).
If you can get your 7th graders to see that "According to the police,
the thief entered the building" differs significantly from "Breaking the
window, the thief entered the building." In the second example, the
thief is performing the action of breaking the window, and "window"
functions as the direct object of the participle. You might also play
around with dangling participles, which are always fun for students, to
show the importance of the connection between the participle and the
substantive it modifies.
Best,
Clint
Clinton Atchley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Box 7652
1100 Henderson Street
Henderson State University
Arkadelphia, AR 71999
Phone: 870.230.5276
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.hsu.edu/atchlec
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 2:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: preposition versus present participle
Herb,
Thank you for your feedback and for the book you mentioned in your other
source.
I am having my students mark each word or phrase functioning
adjectivally or adverbially and then draw an arrow to the word being
modified by it. I am using ( ) for prepositional phrases and < > for
participial phrases. How do these phrases behave differently in
sentences? Do they do different things? Fill different slots? Would my
students go astray somehow or miss any important distinction or function
if they treated a prepositional phrase beginning with "according to" or
"considering" or another -ing preposition as though it were a present
participial phrase?
One of my students asked my why "according to . . . " is not a
participial phrase, and I could not tell her why.
Scott Woods
"STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Scott,
You've got a pedagogical problem that I wouldn't presume to
advise you on. You know 7th graders a lot better than I do. But I do
think the notion "productivity" is useful here. A derivation is
productive if the meaning of the derived form is clearly the sum of the
meanings of the stem and the affix and if there are no unpredictable
changes in pronunciation. The present participles used in compound
prepositions no longer mean the same thing they mean when used as
participles. In
"Considering Jack's qualifications, I would not appoint him as a
judge."
"considering" means something like "on the basis of", another
compound preposition. In
"We are currently considering Jack's qualifications for the
bench."
"considering" means "thinking carefully about."
This difference is the product of regular historical processes
that bleach the meaning of a content word as it begins to behave more
like a function word, a process known as "grammaticalization." "Will"
and "would" as auxiliary verbs are more advanced cases of
grammaticalization.
But, as I noted, I don't know how appropriate content like that
would be to a 7th grade class.
Herb
Herb,
The problem with these words is that they have the same form, so
any attempt to include them in a lesson on how words can change form and
also shift meaning would highlight the fact that these words do not
change form. From the point of view of a twelve-year-old, they are the
same word since they have the same form, the same pronunciation, and can
take the same slots in clauses and phrases. They know that words have
multiple meanings, so showing them how a word used prepositionally in
one sentence has a different sense than its twin used participially in
another is unlikely to be helpful.
My main problem is that I myself do not see the difference
between them. Why would we call any of these -ing ending words
prepositions at the head of a prepositional phrase when we could call
them participles at the head of a participial phrase? How could I tell
when one is being used participially or prepositionally?
Scott Woods
"STAHLKE, HERBERT F" wrote:
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:*
{behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape
{behavior:url(#default#VML);} Scott,
The key part of your question is making the facts clear to 7th
graders. The problem arises because we have two words spelled the same
and apparently having the same morphological analysis. The roots of
these words have meanings as verbs that are different from the meanings
they have in compound prepositions. Would it be possible to present them
as part of a lesson on morphological derivation and productivity? We can
add -ness to lots of adjectives and get nouns that are semantically
transparent, that is, the word becomes a noun that names the quality
described by the adjective. But adding -ant or -ent to a verb produces
adjectives that frequently are not semantically transparent, that is,
that don't simply treat as a quality or characteristic the meaning of
the verb. Consider abound/abundant, compete/competent,
confide/confident, ignore/ignorant, etc. In these cases, whether because
the stem vowel changes or because the meaning of the derived adjective
is not
predictable from the combination of stem plus suffix, the
derivational morphology is not productive. Obviously this presentation
is a little dense for 7th graders, but I suspect it could be simplified,
and in the process they'd learn something of word derivation and the
concept of productivity.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 6:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: preposition versus present participle
Listmates,
In a number of texts (Greenbaum's, Kolln & Funk's, Warriner's,
among others), several -ing ending words which seem to be participles of
verbs are listed among the prepositions. These include according to,
concerning, considering, following, failing, and including. What is the
distinction between prepositional phrases beginning with such words and
participial phrases beginning with similar -ing participles? Can the
same word function as either a preposition or a participle, depending on
how it is used? Are there any suggestions for how this might be
explained to bright 7th graders?
Thanks,
Scott Woods
---------------------------------
Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your
story.
Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. To join or leave this
LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
---------------------------------
Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s
user panel and lay it on us.
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
________________________________
Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket:
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48253/*http:/mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXI
C> mail, news, photos & more. To join or leave this LISTSERV list,
please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
