Thanks Jo --
I had had one of those moments in which one realizes that a construction
one has been using since childhood is really, really weird. I have no
problem with viewing the "Go camping" type as different from the "Don't
go thinking" type, and with viewing both as serial verb constructions. I
use an approach that's founded on the same kinds of initial premises as
you do though -- we're both quite comfortable with the notion of serial
verb constructions in English, etc. I'm not sure what other approaches
would do with this type of material. Viewing serial verbs as equivalent
to single lexical items might solve the problem for some theories, but
that has its problems as well. "To go camping" is more than just "to go
camp" with an "-ing" suffix; otherwise, "I'm about to go camp" and "I'm
about to go camping" wouldn't seem as different as they do. A semantic
explanation involving quasi-aspectual differences makes perfect sense --
but undermines the "fused item" explanation.
If students are using a "traditional-esque" grammar framework, though,
serial verbs probably won't be acknowledged much, if at all. Would the
difference between the two types justify calling the "X-ing" element in
them by different names? How I'd go discussing this in a graduate class,
and how I'd go discussing it in an undergraduate class, would be quite
different (and with ninth-graders, I'm not sure what I'd do, other than
to try to get them to play with variations to see how much fun they
could have with it and to see how chewy their own language is).
Bill Spruiell
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jo Rubba
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 1:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Go camping
Bill,
You say you're behind on the thread ... so forgive me if this is
inappropriate ...
"go thinking" doesn't at all fit the semantics I'm ascribing to this
special "go X-ing" construction. As I noted in my post, this seems to
be a largely lexicalized pattern which can be extended to verbs that fit
the semantics of an activity consisting of path-directed motion, which
may involve sub-events such as stopping to watch a particular bird or
look at a candidate house to buy.
Remember that I analyze this as a fixed construction, not one assembled
like other non-lexicalized phrases.
"Go" is such a semantically general verb, it is available for many
grammaticalized uses, and not only in English. "Don't go thinking"
clearly uses "go" in some such sense, and it is clearly a negative
polarity item (as is "any" in "I don't have any change" or "an inch" in
"I pushed and pushed, but it didn't move an inch!"). Lots of basic verbs
of posture and motion are used to create complex sorts of verb
constructions (there's a whole lit. on serial verb constructions in the
world's languages).
***************************************************
Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, Cal Poly State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. 805-756-2184 ~ Dept. phone 805-756-2596
Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 ~ E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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