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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