Johanna,
I agree with pretty much everything, especially the discourse >
connections. The nominalizing processes allow us to make any part of a
statement the focus of another statement. We need to unravel it as a
happening, but also consider it the focus of a proposition. "Paul ran the
red light." "Running the red light created problems." "Creating problems
by running the red light angered Paul's wife." "Paul's wife's anger at the
problems Paul created by running the red light... And so on. It's a fun
game to play with a class.
Making propositions and describing the world are different functions,
though they interweave within a given clause. (It happens at the level
of the grammar as well as at the level of whole text.)
I agree that quite often thinking doesn't make it so, but I'm not
convinced the grammar of the language concurs, at least not in all
instances. A movie is sophisticated ONLY if it is considered so. (It
is, after all, a judgement, not something that exists apart from our
consideration.) I would also make the case that "I consider you my
friend" and "I selected you my friend" are very parallel. We are not
just talking about "objective" truth, but placing of entities in
categories. I think it means that "you" are categorized as a friend
because I have caused it to happen.
I don't think the grammar of perception is causative in the same way,
though it can be in certain instances. (As in "He sees the glass half
full," my earlier example.)
It gets a little fuzzy because mental processes and perceptive
processes are often metaphoric replacements for each other. ("I see"
can mean "I understand". And so on.) But I think language allows us
to make statements about mental truths that have somewhat the same
validity as observations about the material world. I hope that's not
too abstract a way of saying it. When we talk, we don't just talk
about "objective reality." Quite often, we are talking about the
world as mediated through our perceptions and judgements. Often our
internal world is itself the focus of attention. We can talk about the
influences (causes) of change in feeling and thought.
"She made the house a home." It's both causative and "subjective."
"He considered the house his home" is a little trickier because he is the
only stated agent of his thought, but I think it is parallel. In a sense,
it is "home' precisely because he considers it that way. Otherwise, we
are stuck with the notion that emotion and thought are not real.
Craig
I'm forwarding this thoughtful post from Johanna. I'll respond in
> anothger post.
>
> Craig-
>
> --------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
> Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: See spot run]
> From: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, January 25, 2006 3:36 pm
> To: "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Craig,
>
> Once again, feel free to post this.
>
> You're right that "finite verb" is a necessary but not sufficient
> criterion for "independent clause". The other part of the definition is
> that the clause is not playing a constituent role such as subject,
> direct object, or modifier in another clause. This is what people mean
> when they say a "complete sentence" can "stand alone" -- it doesn't
> need whatever it is a complement or modifier of.
>
> As to causative, perception, and so on types of verbs, "consider" is
> not a causative. If you consider a movie sophisticated, it does not
> make the movie sophisticated; the sentence states your subjective
> opinion. "Wishing doesn't make it so."
>
> The problem with gerunds is that people call them a kind of "noun".
> This is a form/function confusion. A gerund is a form of a verb which
> is filling a _nominal_ constituent role. It retains some of its verb
> "privileges" in such roles, hence the appearance of objects and
> modifiers.
>
> People like to define constituent roles like subject and direct object
> by meaning or strictly by grammar (e.g., the subject controls
> inflection of the verb), but we need to take discourse function
> seriously, too. I haven't studied the matter carefully enough to make
> pronouncements, but the discourse function of referring has to be
> considered in defining "nominal" -- nominals direct the listener's
> attention to a particular thing, event, etc., and make it available as
> a head for modifiers, verbs, and such. To use terms very loosely, they
> take an action ("Swimming against the current"), event ("Letting the
> prisoner out [was a big mistake]"), etc. available as a topic to make a
> comment on; they take various concepts and enable them to be arguments
> of predicates, in the logical sense. If you want to make a comment
> about a particular event, you can create a nominal clause, finite or
> nonfinite, and put it in subject position, allowing you to predicate
> something of it:
>
> 1 _That Mary ate the peanuts_ (nominalized event) was a bad idea
> (predicate). She's allergic to peanuts.
> 2_Mary eating peanuts_ was a bad idea.
> 3_Mary's eating peanuts_ was a bad idea.
> 4_For Mary to eat peanuts_ was a bad idea.
>
> Some of these nominalizations are "nounier" than others: "eating" in 3
> is so nouny, it can be modified by a possessive; but in 1 the eating
> concept is expressed as a finite verb.
>
> Topicality also plays a role, as subjects and text topics or subtopics
> often correspond; making a noun phrase an indirect object is also
> sometimes a function of how topical/given the referent is. This can be
> shown by appropriateness judgments on question/answer pairs:
>
> - What did you give John for his birthday?
> - I gave John a book. or I gave him a book.
>
> -Who(m) did you give a book to?
> -I gave John a book. -This is inappropriate IF THE INTONATION IS
> NORMAL, with heavy stress on "book" instead of "John".
>
>
> 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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>
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