Karl,
Iıve been reading this thread from the sidelines, with interest; Iıd like
to register a quibble here, but itıs really a quibble with CGELıs
terminology, not your arguments.
Itıs clear that these clauses donıt act exactly like content clauses, even
when the content clauses are in nominal slots. And as constituents, they
pattern *like* noun phrases. CGEL wants to treat them fully *as* noun
phrases, but it has to add ³fused-headedness² to shoehorn the construction
into an np-like form to do so, claiming that the clause (including one
avatar of the wh-word) is there as a modifier of the other avatar of the
wh-word, although both personae of the wh-word are manifesting in the same
form. Itıs like Monophysitism, but with grammar.
Iıve used Huddleston and Pullumıs ³Studentsı Introduction" several times
in classes with college students, and the argument about fused heads has
always been a hard sell (granted, that may be partly because I canıt
manage to sound convinced by it). We need to acknowledge the facts of
their patterning, and we need to acknowledge that theyıre ³closed² in a
way that content clauses arenıt, but I canıt see why that has to be
accomplished by saying theyıre formally identical to regular noun phrases.
In theories that are committed to everything being endocentric, and that
lock distribution and lexical categories together completely, I can see
that theyıd have to be viewed as such, but thatıs not the only way to
approach these.
Why *not* just give them their own name, as a kind of theory-ecumenical
approach? The ³theyıre noun phrases² claim is striking me as like saying
that fir trees are actually pine trees, because theyıre not spruces.
Students can handle ³one of the kinds of clauses that can act noun-ish is
the kind that arenıt questions but do start with wh-words.² Is there any
kind of ³external² empirical evidence that speakers really do process the
initial wh-word as a head noun thatıs being modified by the other
material? I can find some examples of Wh-ever forms with a ³that² popping
up right after them (something like, ³You can order whatever that you
want²), but I canıt spot any plain wh-forms being used like that in a
quick corpus search.
Bill Spruiell
On 10/6/15, 12:21 AM, "Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on
behalf of Karl Hagen" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Gerald,
>
>I agree with you that we need a terminology, and that "direct object" is
>meaningful, even if we disagree about its boundaries. I take it that the
>import of your example is "what she said" is a clause, ergo clauses _can_
>be direct objects. But the what-construction behaves like an NP, not a
>clause. Notice the following points:
>
>There's an important difference between ordinary relative clauses and the
>what-construction:
>
>(1) I believe the story which she told us.
>(1a) *I believe which she told us.
>(2) I believe what she told us.
>
>In (2), "what she told us" is not equivalent to just the relative clause.
>It's equivalent to both the relative clause _and_ its antecedent.
>"Believe" cannot take an ordinary relative clause as a complement, as
>shown by (1a). The direct object of (1) is clearly an NP headed by
>"story." The relative clause is the complement of the noun.
>
>Ordinary integrated relatives also permit pied piping, whereas the
>what-construction does not:
>
>(3) What she referred to is important.
>(3a) *To what she referred is important.
>(4) The story she referred to is important.
>(4a) The story to which she referred is important.
>(4b) *To the story she referred is important.
>
>This inability to front the preposition is identical to the preposition's
>inability to appear before an NP (cf 4b).
>
>Like NPs and unlike complement clauses, the what-construction is
>sensitive to subject-verb agreement:
>
>(5) What she told us is important.
>(5a) What stories she told us are important.
>(5b) That she told us stories is important.
>
>The what-construction (again unlike complement clauses) can be the object
>of a preposition (and indeed can go _anywhere_ an NP can):
>
>(6) She alluded to what she told us.
>(6a) *She alluded to that she told us the story.
>
>It also readily admits subject-verb inversion:
>
>(7) Is what she told us reliable?
>(7a) *Is that she told us the story reliable?
>
>And the what-construction can only appear as the complement of an
>adjective or noun in those same exceptional cases where the word also
>takes an NP complement:
>
>(8) I'm happy that she told us the story.
>(8a) *I'm happy the story.
>(8b) *I'm happy what she said.
>(9) It is worth what she said.
>(9a) It is worth her money.
>
>In short, the distribution of "what she said" is identical to that of a
>noun phrase, and so it has a good claim to be a direct object, but that
>doesn't tell us anything about content clauses, because this
>what-construction, which the CGEL calls a "fused relative," is an NP that
>contains a clause as a subordinate element, not a bare clause.
>
>
>> On Oct 4, 2015, at 8:18 PM, GERALD W WALTON <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> I believe what she said. I believe that she said it.
>> To me, the fact that "that she said it" can fit in the same slot as
>>"what she said" is strong motivation for declaring it a direct object. I
>>know "that" is a complementizer (and an optional element), but I'm not
>>sure why the boundary for what gets accepted as direct object can't be
>>wide enough to include it.
>> ********
>> Regardless of the approaches we take, we have to have some kind of
>>terminology:
>>
>> "I" serves as a subject, a pronoun, an NP
>>
>> "Believe" is a verb
>>
>> "She said what" and "she said it" are clauses that are complements of
>>the verb "believe" (VP)
>>
>> In the second case "that" serves only as a word that introduces the
>>noun clause
>>
>> Yes, of course Direct Object is a meaningful term.
>> Gerald
>>
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