Bruce, Craig, and others in this discussion,
	The point that Craig makes about language being organic and dynamic  
deserves more discussion.  As I ruminate upon certain constructions,  
insights occur (though they may be fantasies masquerading as  
insights).  "I have to do this" could have evolved from "I have this  
to do."  I believe most of you are far more informed about the  
history of our common language than I.  Can anyone say anything about  
this?  I am convinced that semantics precedes syntax if only because  
the brain seeks meaning first and uses structure as a strategy in  
seeking meaning.  And, yes, these evolve  into conventions within a  
social framework, which is also a high priority of the mind.
		Best to you all,
		Gregg

On Dec 3, 2008, at 9:27 AM, Bruce Despain wrote:

> I couldn’t agree with you more.  I believe that the CG linguists  
> would also agree.  They think to have a framework that allows the  
> distinction to be made and the continuum you point out to be  
> splayed out into various colors.
> Bruce
>
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar  
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 9:52 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Correct?
>
> Bruce,
>    If I want a problem to go away or want my refrigerator to fill  
> up, then I don't expect the problem or the refrigerator to do  
> anything. But that only becomes a problem when we want to define  
> the construction in a narrow way. If the construction builds from  
> the ground up, then we need to expect these anomalies in the same  
> way we expect word meanings to grow and change.
>    Is wanting X to Y the same as expecting X to Y? How about  
> encouraging? discouraging? Helping? Ordering? Making? The more  
> abstract the classification pattern, the further it drifts from the  
> real world of meaning.
>   Each of these verbs uses these constructions in unique ways. The  
> patterns build from use, not independently of it.
>
> Craig
>
> Bruce Despain wrote:
> Your pattern,  “If I say that ‘X V-ed Y to Z’ am I saying that it’s  
> Y who will be doing the Z-ing?” looks like what might be described  
> in a constructional grammar (CG).   These folks are averse to  
> describing the relationships of constructions as built up of other  
> constructions.  They like to contrast the usage construction  
> meaning vs. the grammatical construction meaning.
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar  
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
> Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:36 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Correct?
>
> Dear All:
>
> I suspect that one of the reasons that many modern grammars use  
> what seem to be simplistic structural pattern definitions (e.g. [S  
> V DO INF] for both “We wanted him to be hired” and “We wanted him  
> to go home”) is that the differences among those sentences are  
> differences in what the various participants are doing – the  
> relationships among them – and we don’t really have a theoretically  
> agnostic way of talking about that. The minute a term like  
> “underlying subject” is used, the description is locked into a  
> particular model.
>
> This is true of all descriptions, of course (simply by using a  
> label like “infinitive,” I’ve committed to a kind of model), but  
> cases like these bring up major points of contention among current  
> models. Almost everyone who works on English is happy with the term  
> “infinitive,” but there is nowhere near the same level of  
> consensus  about the idea that infinitives are really, truly, made  
> out of full sentences, etc. I have a knee-jerk reaction the minute  
> I see a phrase like “underlying subject,” and I’m sure I use  
> phrases that others on the list would have an immediate negative  
> reaction to as well.  One way authors of grammar books can try to  
> dodge the entire issue is simply to omit any references to this  
> type of material at all, and thus we end up with [S V DO INF].
>
> Older grammars, like the ones Herb mentions, did something that I  
> think we can still do: we can all agree that there are different  
> patterns of relationships among the participants, even if we don’t  
> agree on why those differences exist. To some extent, the  
> differences among the patterns can be “anchored” by relating them  
> to native-speaker reactions to questions about implications of the  
> structure (e.g. “If I say that ‘X V-ed Y to Z’ am I saying that  
> it’s Y who will be doing the Z-ing?”).  In other words, we can  
> adopt ways to probe for differences that there will be wide  
> consensus on, even if there is no such consensus on what the  
> differences mean for a theory of linguistic structure (this is what  
> I’m trying to get at with the term “theoretically agnostic”).
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
>
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