Bill,
   Any serious look at propositional meaning needs to add attention to 
how we qualify those statements as we engage in discussion in the real 
world.  "I think" or "I believe" can certainly shade into "It seems to 
me "  or "It's possible" as qualifiers.  (Certainly, possibly, perhaps, 
maybe, surely... to list just a few obvious and more explicit 
qualifiers.) In some cases, they may seem redundant; in others, they may 
carry important nuances about relative certainty. We can't look at 
writing as if it were written by a machine for other machines, and, in 
fact, doubt and uncertainty seem more mature and sophisticated than 
black/white assertions when the issues are complex. Among other things, 
they offer the readers a place to enter as themselves.  We give 
reassurance that the world to us is open.  We are listeners and not just 
talkers. From our perspective, it may look one way, but we are not all 
knowing. We can offer a perspective without arguing one. We invite 
someone in.
   Projected clauses also give the journalist a way to present a 
perspective as "fact", at least from her perspective.  "A source close 
to the governor said, off the record...."  You can be sued for libel if 
you say it yourself, but an accusation can be reported as fact.  You're 
off the legal hook, if not the moral one. (Usually).
    Propositions, if worth their salt, rarely get full presentation in a 
single sentence. Even proverbs seem to cry out for explication.  The 
notion of an essay as presenting a hundred linearly laid out 
propositions would be a recipe for disaster.  So how the individual 
proposition of the sentence interacts with the larger proposition of the 
text (assuming that the text organizes that way) gives us another kind 
of lens.  
    Propositional meaning is, of course, not the only kind of meaning in 
a text.  A sentence fragment may show up because it is doing a different 
kind of work, perhaps just restating or emphasizing a perfectly clear 
part of a previous statement.  "I was deeply hurt by my father's sudden 
death.  Deeply hurt."  It's amazing to me how many times effective 
writers are willing to say something again and again.  We simply make 
the point more emphatic. Emphasis matters.  
    The academic world tends to overvalue thesis driven writing. 
 (Anyone writing for the real world needs to master many more purposes 
than  argument.)  It may be that traditional grammar overemphasizes 
propositional meaning in the same way.  We are then left with no way to 
deal with fragments (to give one example) that seem deeply purposeful 
and effective.  Luckily, many writers have no problem breaking 
conventions when their purpose overrides them.  What we find acceptable 
shifts over time.  Some of that is for the best.  Some of it, I'm 
afraid, is just a general lack of understanding and attention now that 
grammar is out of favor.  Minimalist approaches, even when followed 
thoughtfully, leave us picking one problem to deal with and glossing 
over the rest.  We don't know how to distinguish careless error from 
creative solution.
   If I say "I'm hoping you will let me apologize for my terrible, 
inexcusable behavior last night," is that a proposition?  It seems to me 
that tone takes over, that what the writer intends is a mending of 
relations.  (Though we can't be sure of that outside of context.)
   All of these are observations that carry us away from "pure logic." 
As everyone seems to be saying, natural language is much more 
resourceful, in part because it has so much more to accomplish.

Craig
     

Spruiell, William C wrote:

>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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