Uhm, that should be "The horse raced past the barn fell". Using the
strong verb destroys the garden-path effect.

Karl Hagen wrote:
> If you interpret them as embedded content clauses, as was suggested,
> they seem grammatical, but just because they're grammatical doesn't mean
> easy to understand or appropriate in this worksheet. I would call them
> garden-path sentences, simpler versions of the "The horse rode past the
> barn fell" type.
> 
> That is, "see" can take either a noun phrase or a content clause as a
> complement, but without the "that", we initially interpret "a rat" and
> "my cat" as the complete direct object and are forced to reparse when we
> hit the second verb.
> 
> I do agree that this sort of processing burden is unfair to impose on
> kindergartners.
> 
> But that's not the only solution. You could also fix them with
> punctuation, which might be more in keeping with the syntax of very
> young speakers:
> 
> I see: a rat ran.
> See: my cat sat.
> 
> Both of those sound like the sorts of utterances my 3-year-old produces
> every day.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Karl Hagen
> 
> Beth Young wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> My kindergartner brought home a handwriting worksheet yesterday that contained the following example "sentences":
>>
>> See my cat?
>> See my cat and dog?
>> *I see a rat ran.
>> *See my cat sat?
>> A man ran.
>>
>> To me, the * sentences are ungrammatical.  Someone else said that since you could put a "that" in those sentences, they are not truly ungrammatical, e.g., "I see that a rat ran" or "See that my cat sat?"  I'm not convinced.  
>>
>> I am tempted to talk with the teacher, who didn't create the worksheet but who did choose to use it.  However, if I'm overreacting to the sentences, I'll hold my tongue.  I've had other reasons to talk with this teacher and I don't want to pile on.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> Beth
>>
>> PS I can't tell whether the handout is representative because much of the work that comes home involves no writing whatsoever.  e.g., cut out these pictures and arrange them in story sequence.     
>>
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