What a helpful analysis, Dick!  Your students are fortunate to receive such concrete and clear information about this topic.

 

 

Linda Comerford
317.786.6404
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www.comerfordconsulting.com <http://www.comerfordconsulting.com/> 

 

From: Dick Veit [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ATEG Digest - 11 Dec 2014 to 12 Dec 2014 (#2014-68)

 

Here's an example I used in class in support of split infinitives:

 

Attempts to unsplit the infinite (to quietly enter) in the following sentence don't seem to succeed: 

The queen told the page to quietly enter the chamber where the king was sleeping.

Consider the possibilities: 

*	The queen told the page quietly to enter the chamber where the king was sleeping.
Misleading at best. The likely interpetation will be that the queen was speaking quietly. 
 
*	The queen told the page to enter quietly the chamber where the king was sleeping.
Pretty awkward. Adverbs do not usually go between verbs and their objects. Who ever says, "I entered quietly the chamber"?
 
*	The queen told the page to enter the chamber quietly where the king was sleeping.
Solved a phony problem and created a real one. Now we've split a relative adverb ("where") from the noun it modifies ("the chamber"). 
 
*	The queen told the page to enter the chamber where the king was sleeping quietly.
Not even ambiguous. This will be interpreted to mean the king wasn't snoring for a change.

Dick Veit

 

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