Johanna,

I didn't get back to my email till late this evening.  Meetings all afternoon, the bane of the half-time administrator.  Sorry for the delay in posting this.




-----Original Message-----
From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wed 4/5/2006 11:03 AM
To: Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Subject: Re: function of infinitive phrase
 
Hi, Herb,

I sent this to the list by mistake, instead of the original querier. 
Can you post it for me? I think it is the right analysis.

What a mouthful, Jeanne!

"All of which makes it an extraordinarily stimulating and interesting 
place, but an odd one in which to want to wear a candlelight satin 
Priscilla of Boston wedding dress with Chantilly lace insets, tapered 
sleeves and a detachable modified train."

"[I]n which to want to wear a candlelight satin Priscilla of Boston 
wedding dress with Chantilly lace insets, tapered sleeves and a 
detachable modified train"

is a relative clause modifying "one". The "de-relativized" version 
sounds very strange, so it is hard to see that the infinitive built on 
"to want" is the subject of the preposition "in":

"[T]o want to wear a ...  wedding dress with [etc.]  in an odd one"  = 
"in an odd place (for such a desire)"

To figure out what's going on here, it's better to look at alternative 
ways of saying the same thing. The word "odd" kind of moves around as 
to what it modifies. We have to leave out the early parts to deal with 
the "in which" relative clause. The underlying idea is:

"[T]o want to wear a ... wedding dress with ... in this extraordinarily 
stimulating and interesting place is odd."

Here, "odd" modifies the long infinitive-phrase subject  [to want to 
wear ... ] directly. Then "odd" is moved to modify "place":

"This is an odd place in which to want to wear a ... wedding dress with 
... ."

Then "place" moves into subject position, and "an odd one" is set up as 
subject complement, and you have most of your original sentence.

"This place is an odd one in which to want to wear a ... wedding dress 
with [etc.]."

Quite a convoluted sentence. Why on earth are you torturing yourself 
with it?  : )


Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba



Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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