Johanna:  I think you're quite right about the go + -ing construction; it's
much more a what than a where.  And thanks for your description of
Construction Grammar.  It's a very helpful concept.  Can you give me a
reference for further reading?

Always learning,

Martha





>I'd like to thank Martha for doing the research work in Quirk et al. on
>the constructions in question. It's a good idea to consult what people
>who have made a close study of English syntax have to say before
>speculating on what a construction seems to be. Another source to
>consult would be the Collins Cobuild corpus-based English grammar, which
>I just bought. If I have the energy, I'll look up some of these
>constructions there. There is no reason for us to break our heads trying
>to figure things out when others who spend their entire professional
>lives analzying English grammar (not teaching it or teaching writing)
>have done this work.
>
>A very important point Martha makes is that there are shades of gray in
>grammar. What has struck me about this discussion is the way in which
>everyone insists on being able to cut up each construction and precisely
>label its parts and their functions. This is a natural impulse under
>traditional approaches to grammar,  but close study has shown that
>language is just not that cut and dried.
>
>There is a theory of grammar called Construction Grammar. Its basic
>premise is that language comes in constructions which are wholes, and
>often cannot be neatly analyzed into parts that can then be neatly
>labeled or pigeonholed. Constructions like this arise as a result of
>specialization in meaning and a sort of fossilization or fixing of
>phrase structure. This is similar to the idea of an idiom; but the
>meaning of the construction is more closely related to the meaning of
>its parts than with an idiom. I think the 'go Xing' construction is a
>good example of this. I disagree with Martha's analysis of the
>participle as location adverbial, and with the analysis of 'go Xing' as
>equivalent to 'X'. The following don't work for me:
>
>Where did Susan go?
>Fishing.
>
>It seems more likely that one would ask 'What did Susan do?' 'She went
>fishing.'
>
>He is fishing right now.     does not mean the same  thing as
>He is going fishing right now.
>
>In the second sentence, fishing is not happening yet; someone is about
>to engage in the activity type 'fishing'.
>
>'To go Xing' means, to me, something like 'to engage in an activity
>type', 'to undertake an activity type'. The activity type is a
>culturally conventional activity, often a leisure pursuit, although
>certain chore-type activities occur in the construction ('go
>food-shopping', 'go appliance hunting').  We go shopping, go
>ice-skating, go birdwatching, go jogging, go sailing, go hiking, etc.
>'Go' sounds odder with other activity types. We don't 'go housecleaning'
>or 'go bank-robbing' or 'go murdering' or 'go babysitting' or 'go
>data-entering' or 'go working'. Note how different the implication is in
>these two sentences:
>
>I went driving yesterday.   implies a pleasure ride
>I drove yesterday.      is neutral; it could have been for any purpose.
>
>I went driving to work yesterday.  implies a combination of pleasure
>ride with mundane must-do getting to work.
>
>'Go bank-robbing' improves considerably if we imagine that robbing banks
>is someone's favorite leisure activity.
>
>There may well be work on this construction by a linguist somewhere;
>what I have done here is an off-the-cuff foray into the kind of analysis
>that needs to be backed up by further testing and looking at usage data.
>I won't claim my little analysis here is conclusive; it's an exploration.
>
>I guess the point I want to make is that not every construction can be
>easily analyzed into parts, and that not every construction is a neutral
>template that will work with every verb in the language. It's not enough
>to say 'combine _go_ with a present participle used as an adverbial [or
>whatever]'. Cultural information often is part of the meaning of a
>construction, if not its total raison d'etre. And that cultural
>information determines its accurate use.
>
>Semantics (if culture is part of semantics, and how could it not be) and
>syntax are inseparable.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
>English Department, California Polytechnic State University
>One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
>Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
>• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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