Changing subjects, am I writing to the correct people about what I believe is an upcoming grammar conference in Indianapolis at the end of March?  I’m interested in both attending it as well as providing some guidance about Indy as I live there.

 

If anyone knows anything about this and can provide some details, I’d appreciate it.

 

Linda Comerford
Cell: 317.696.4444

Office and Fax: 317.786.6404
[log in to unmask]
www.comerfordconsulting.com <http://www.comerfordconsulting.com/> 

 

From: Linda Di Desidero [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2015 8:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Passive Voice vs. Copular + Predicate Adjective

 

Just two more cents toward Herb's suggestion about stativity, as that clearly seems to be the key to this question:

 

We think of something being closed as an adjective that describes the current state or condition of the thing. We do not think of it as something that has happened or been done to the thing. Even when we talk of something as partially closed, we are referring to the state of the object, not to what has been done to the object. For that reason, viewing "X is closed" as passive seems odd. Better to view it as stative/descriptive.

 

On the other  hand, if you add an agent, the passive view emerges:

 

The window is closed by me every Wednesday at 2 pm.

 

In this case, I am not referring to the state of the window so much as the action that is carried out on it.

 

Linda

 




Linda Di Desidero, PhD

Director, Leadership Communication Skills Center

Marine Corps University

Gray Research Center, Room 122

Quantico, Virginia 22134

703-784-4401

 

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 9:38 PM, Hancock, Craig G <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Herb,

    I think we can say that something is "partly" or "partially" closed. (window, door, bridge.) My university sometimes "partially closes" and is therefore "partially closed" as a result. (They cancel classes but keep the offices open.)  "I didn't see who actually fired the shot because the door was partially closed." We can use "very" before open in some contexts ("He had a very open personality"), but it seems awkward to me in others. ("The window was very open" *?) I think we would probably say "wide open."  

    You could explain it also as a question of "construal." Someone closed the port, but for a boat approaching from sea, that may be irrelevant. The child who wants to know if he has a snow day doesn't care who closed the school. And, of course, the TV station will give a list of "school closings," which construes the whole action as a "thing." We also have "the close of the show" as an option. 

    I vote for teaching about prototypes early and often. We do a terrible job with parts of speech in our schools. Students memorize definitions that are close to worthless in application. Certainly, we should teach that the boundaries are not rigid or fixed and that words shift category routinely. Students recognize prototypes for things like furniture or fruit. My experience has been that they enjoy looking at language that way, not least of all because it seems to fit.

    

 

Craig

  _____  

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