Herb, Bill,
   You guys are talking about important things, though with a deeply 
shared background in previous discussions in the field. But I 
essentially agree and think we can say it in ways that  might work for 
the list as a whole.
    "I live in a green house" may not seem to imply "the house is green" 
as proposition, but if we imagine the right context for it, like the 
question "Would you consider living in a green house?"  it will change, 
and "green" will become more prominent. Here, "I LIVE in a green house" 
might be the intonation pattern.  Or, in fuller dress. " I would not 
only consider living in a green house.  I live in one."  Green, here, is 
 what is in question.  That we live in a house is  not in question.
    Or "He doesn't live in the red house.  He lives in the green one." 
 and so on.
     All of which is attempting to argue from the ground up.  We can't 
really tell for sure what is being asserted outside the context.     The 
idea of a sentence being a move in a series of moives is not an attempt 
to avoid a closer look through some abstract description.  It's not an 
atempt to avoid syntax in the way "a complete thought" does.  In fact, 
it is a beginning point, a way to examine the ways in which  sentences 
work in harmony with each other. Given/new, for example, is very much 
carried on at the level of the sentence, but there is no way to talk 
about it one sentence at a time.  A very characteristic move in 
discourse is for some element of the first sentence to become given in 
the second. If a sentence is understood as a "move", we can bring this 
interconnection between syntax and pragmatics into clearer focus.  If 
the sentences are complete thoughts, we cannot.
     I know I'm getting convoluted.  I'm just trying to say that these 
issues can be talked about in ways that exclude us, but that the issues 
are right on target for the list.  Either we focus on a sense of 
sentence that FITS THE REAL WORLD or we fall back on a description that 
has no pragmatic benefit and seems (to paraphrase the old condemnation) 
to take valuable time away from real reading and writing.
    And a rhetorically focused view of the sentence doesn't have to be 
soft. "A complete thought" can't be applied without  revealing its 
weaknesses.  It has a very narrow application, and often fails even 
there.  If we look at sentences as sequential , and do so with eyes wide 
open, we can get a hard grammar with real world application.  
    Does this sentence carry the right emphasis?  Can I tell from the 
sentence alone?  Emphasis building features suddenly become important. 
 They were there all along.  We just didn't think of them as "grammar."
    I hope that hasn't muddied the waters.  

Craig

Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:

>[Fair warning: More theory-mongering. Potentially amusing for linguists
>but no classroom application]
>
>Bill,
>
>I'll leave the foul weather warning up.  
>
>I used to have arguments with students of Chomsky's about whether the
>sentence is a theoretical prime or a methodological starting point for
>the description of grammatical structure.  They tended to opt for the
>former; I for the latter.  The sentence is a convenient unit of analysis
>because so many structures, functions, and relationships can be defined
>with some precision within the scope of the sentence, all of which, of
>course, begs the question.  We use the sentence as the starting point
>and we either don't tell people what it is (the "move in a set of moves"
>approach) or we define it circularly (the S --> NP VP approach).  
>
>Looked at phenomenologically, the sentence, at least in speech, has a
>strong tendency to correspond to the breath group.  Sentences in speech
>tend to be as long as what you can say in one breath.  There are obvious
>exceptions in certain spoken genre.  In writing we don't have that
>constraint, and so we can make the sentence do a lot of things in
>writing that it doesn't do in speech.  Looking at speech again, the
>structure of a sentence is determined heavily by context, by discourse,
>so that generative notions of grammaticality fall far short of adequacy.
>Consider familiar examples like Haj Ross's (?) "Spiro conjectures
>Exlax", which would be a well-formed response to the question "What did
>Pat give Dick with his nightcap?"  Or the famous "And I you mine" as in 
>
>Boy:  I'd like you to meet my family.
>Girl:  And I you mine.
>
>The amount of syntax used is the amount that the context demands.
>Neither more nor less.  The sentence is the vehicle for the expression
>of discourse functions, but the structures the sentence has available
>are not homologous to the set of discourse functions, and so "I think",
>while it is syntactically the matrix sentence in "I think taxes are too
>low", doesn't behave pragmatically in the same way as other matrix
>sentences.  The adverb-like mobility of such matrix sentences as I
>think, I assume, I acknowledge, I surmise, etc. testifies to their
>functionally modifying rather than asserting character.  Verbs like
>"regret", which are also quotative, don't have the same mobility.  I can
>say, for example, 
>
>Sam, I regret, won't be with us today.
>
>but I can't so easily say
>
>I, I regret, disobeyed the stop sign.
>
>This has more of a sense of "I regret to say" whereas
>
>I regret that I disobeyed the stop sign.
>
>means that I'm sorry I broke that law.
>
>My point is that we have syntactic structure and we have discourse
>pragmatics.  Some of syntactic structure is simply a function of
>sentence-level grammar.  Articles always precede adjectives, which, with
>notable exceptions, precede nouns.  Some of syntactic structure,
>however, is conditioned by discourse pragmatics, like word order
>choices, and it's these aspects of grammar that are particularly useful
>in talking about reading and writing.
>
>Herb
>
>
>
>
>Herb,
>
>I think speakers *do* use syntactic structure to mark assertional
>status; the process just operates in complex way. We can, for example,
>consider the finite operator in declaratives as a necessary but not
>sufficient condition for assertion, and the finite operator is a
>grammatical element. Likewise, choice of a subordinator is both a
>grammatical and a semantic phenomenon, and it affects assertional status
>as well. 
>
>There is, of course, an issue of theoretical stance here; I'm from a
>tradition that does not want to draw strict boundaries between syntax
>and semantics, and my analyses are biased (as are all analyses). But
>considering the "I think S" construction only as a simple matrix clause,
>with the hedging feature operating only at a semantic level, does not, I
>believe, account nicely for the odd postpositional usage of the
>expression or, I *suspect*, for the frequency with which primary
>sentential stress falls in the nominal clause. There is an unexamined
>assumption in much grammatical work that an unambiguous sentence can
>have only one syntactic structure, hence the analyst is expected to
>choose whether "I think that X is Y" is underlyingly "I think S" or "(I
>think) X is Y," with the former winning out on the basis of analogy with
>other matrix constructions. I would question that assumption at this
>point.  
>
>Bill
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
>Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 10:35 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: A logical thought
>
>Bill,
>
>I'd probably quibble with a couple my examples too, but I think the
>point stands.  However, you point to another important observation, that
>the assertional or presuppositional character of a clause isn't
>determined by syntactic structure, although syntax can certainly enhance
>it.  In 
>
>I think that taxes are too low.
>
>"that taxes are too low" is clearly the noun clause DO of "think".  That
>is, it is grammatically an embedded, subordinate clause.  However, the
>pragmatic function of the higher clause "I think S" is not to assert
>what I am doing but to hedge the assertion that taxes are too low.  In
>this sense it is sort of adverbial, although I prefer that term for
>things that modify verbs, sentences, or adjectives.  Rather, it's
>function is at discourse level.  But the sentence is a case in which the
>assertion is in a subordinate clause and the main clause modifies the
>assertion.
>
>Herb
>
>
>Subject: Re: A logical thought
>
>Herb,
>
>I agree, although I would quibble (trivially, in the final analysis)
>with a couple of the sentences -- I think "No it doesn't" might well
>work as a contradiction for the extraposed clause example you give, and
>I can't quite get "wonder that" to work right in my head. Of course,
>that might just be because I'm short on coffee right now.
>
>Not only is there probably a scale, but we might consider particular
>constructions as potentially occupying more than one spot on it.
>Depending on what you choose to contradict, it could be argued that "I
>think" constitutes a matrix clause or that it is acting more like an
>adverbial element:
>
>[I think that] taxes are too low.	No they aren't!
>I think [that taxes are too low].	No you don't!
>
>I decided that taxes are too low.	?No they aren't!
>I decided that taxes are too low	No you didn't! 
>
>The kind of dual contradictablity of "I think" constructions may be tied
>to their status as projecting verbs, using Halliday's term -- these are,
>for example, the ones that allow postposition in direct quotes and, in
>some cases, indirect ones:
>
>Taxes are too low, I think.
>
>Taxes were too low, he thought, and therefore he took action.
>
>There's something interesting in the fact that the postposed ones are
>always that-less, but I can't quite figure out where I want to go with
>that.
>
>It may be that we assign double structures to these constructions, and
>then focus on one or another of them in context. Contradicting the
>putative matrix foregrounds its interpretation *as* a matrix, while
>contradicting the putative complement clause establishes it as the main
>assertion. In speech, of course, intonation could similarly tilt the
>structure one way or another.
>
>Some other constructions, such as "The fact is, X" seem to act even more
>strongly as if what looks like a matrix clause is actually a complex
>adverbial element (in that example, roughly like "Actually..."; the
>evidence includes the ability of speakers to leave off the "the" and to
>double the copula without anyone other than intrusive linguists
>noticing).
>
>Bill Spruiell
>Dept. of English
>Central Michigan University
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
>Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 3:24 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: A logical thought
>
>Bill,
>
>That's an interesting proposal.  How about considering the test to
>reveal a scale rather than a dichotomy.  Extraposed clauses like 
>
>It appears that Bush stole the Florida vote.
>
>Allow "No, he didn't", and "No, it doesn't" would be odd.  In
>
>I think Bush stole the Florida vote.
>
>"No, he didn't" works well and "No, you don't" doesn't deny the
>complement at all.  Of course, the head verb and the conjunction factor
>in too, as in 
>
>I wonder if Bush stole the Florida vote.
>I wonder that Bush stole the Florida vote.
>
>With "if", no presupposition is made.  With "that", the presupposition
>is that he stole it, and "No, he didn't" doesn't work as well.  
>Then with
>
>The fact that Bush stole the Florida vote meant that the 2004 election
>would be at risk too.
>
>"No, he didn't" doesn't work at all.  I suspect that this continuum
>could be extended and fleshed out further, both with more structures and
>perhaps with more tests.
>
>Herb
>
>
>Herb,
>
>It occurs to me that not only do activities like the ones you described
>perform the function of uniting grammar (broadly construed) with wider
>issues of language awareness, they also provide an additional way to get
>at a kind of heuristic students can use: 
>
>"If it's a statement that you've punctuated as a sentence, and you can't
>possibly contradict it, it's a fragment."
>
>I'm fairly sure this won't yield false negatives, but I'm still trying
>to sort out whether it can yield false positives. From informally
>polling native English-speaking students, I've noticed some potential
>variation -- for some reason, fewer people object to contradicting
>material in a because-clause than in a when-clause:
>
>Bjorn was in the kitchen when Brunnhild murdered Bjarki.	*No she
>didn't!
>
>Bjorn was rather put out because Brunnhild murdered Bjarki	?No she
>didn't
>
>That second one doesn't sound very good to me, but a number of my
>students were not bothered by it. However, moving the subordinate clause
>to the beginning caused everyone to reject the contradiction. Something
>is going on with end-rheme, I think, but I haven't dived into the
>research on this at all (yet).
>
>So, I'm not sure the proposed heuristic would enable students to find
>*all* fragments (and it does not give students any way of thinking about
>intended fragments), but it should work for a large number of cases.
>
>Bill Spruiell
>Dept. of English
>Central Michigan University.
>
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