Janet, Craig, et al.
There are a number of traditional grammars that would call the 'me' in
'Joe baked a cake for me' an indirect object. In Latin, the pronoun
would be in the dative case, and "indirect object" started out as a
label that meant, basically, "dative object, as opposed to accusative
object."
There's a major stress point in the traditional system, though -- the
noun that normally goes with a preposition is usually called "the object
of the preposition," and it can't be *both* an indirect object and the
object of the preposition (keep in mind that the traditional approach
always asks, 'what word does this go with,' so you have to say either
'the verb' or 'the preposition' with one of these). Some earlier
grammars dodged this by considering the prepositions themselves to be
case-markers, but then ran into the fact that English has a LOT more
prepositions than Latin has cases. One group of later grammars ruled out
the version with the preposition as an indirect object. Another group
treated it as an indirect object, but only in cases where the
preposition-ed version could be paraphrased as the prepositionless
version (so no indirect object in 'Joe finished off the lutfisk for
me'). Some early generative approaches considered the prepositionless
version as being made out of the preposition-ed one, so in a sense there
were no ditransitive verbs (I said "early" here because I'm sure about
those; I'm not sure about what the current way to deal with the
construction is).
Whatever you do with it, it's a bit of a mess. Since specific grammars,
particularly older ones, usually adopt one approach but don't mention
that there are others, I think it's important for teachers and students
to know there *is* a history of disagreement over this. I end up
imagining someone writing a state test and thinking there is, and has
always been, exactly one approach here, and creating a major problem.
The "infinitive with understood subject" (For NP to V") presents even
more of a terminological muddle. From what I've seen, one approach is to
just call the whole thing a specialized kind of infinitive construction,
treating the For....to... sequence as a kind of discontinuous marker, a
bit analogous to either...or; others give one label to the 'for' part
and another to the 'to' part. I cheat, and call the part introduced by
"for" 'subject-ish'.
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 Castilleja, Janet
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Clause or Phrase
Yeah - I meant 'me.' What I was really trying to get at is whether or
not people ever call 'for me' in 'Joe baked a cake for me' an indirect
object, since it seems to be doing the same thing as 'me' in 'Joe baked
me
a cake.' I had learned that prepositional phrases can't be major
sentence elements like subjects and objects, but that seems to be
substantially more complex.
'For me to criticize him would be foolish.' Here 'for me' seems to be
the subject of the infinitive clause. I know that 'for' constructions
introduce some non-finite structures, but can we still call them
prepositions?
I also wondered whether people use the term 'retained object
complement.' I like it, but I think my students feel it goes way beyond
what anyone should be required to know.
My state, Washington has teacher tests. We use Praxis by ETS. Students
are required to take a basic skills test, which we require students to
take before entering our teacher ed program. Then, if they get an
endorsement such as ESOL or bilingual education, they have to take a
test for that. These are the tests that my students are preparing for,
and the test really asks them questions about grammar.
Examples:
My sister and I always loved sledding down the hill
behind our house.
The underlined word in the sentence above is an
example of
(A) a conjunction
(B) a participle
(C) a gerund
(D) an adverb
We went to a restaurant, and dinner was cook very bad.
The underlined words in the sentence are an example of an error in
(A) question formation
(B) relative clause formation
(C) passive formation
(D) command formation
Now I'm careful to use words like 'gerund,' which I didn't used to use,
because I know they see it on the test.
Janet
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Clause or Phrase
Janet,
These are wonderful questions. Much of what I would say Bill covers,
so
I'll add a few sidenotes. I have struggled through the same questions
and feel a little more settled in my thinking.
I think it's so much more important to describe the structure than it
is to put it in the "right" category. So looking closely at these
non-finite structures and saying they usually are missing a subject
(not always) and aren't grounded with finite verbs is probably the most
important thing. My students seem OK with saying we'll call them
clauses, but traditional grammar calls them phrases. I end up doing
somewhat the same thing with "gerund" as a term. I don't like it, but
it's out there, and it helps to at least point out what the word refers
to for the people who use it.
I start out with "the elements of the simple clause", so I cover
postnominal modification with prepositional phrases first and say there
are other word groups in that slot that we'll cover later. That seems
to work for me. I sometimes postpone restrictive and non-restrictive
modification until later as well. Appositional phrases also fit in that
slot, but I don't bring them in right away.
I think you mistakenly ask about "Joe" as indirect object in your
cake
sentence. My guess is you meant "me". I like the multi-functional
analysis of functional gramamr for that one. From that view, the
transitivity system helps us represent the world. The clause gives us
processes and participants and circumstances andestablishes participant
roles. We also have systems in place for construing that event in
different ways. In passives, for example, the direct or indirect object
gets shifted into the grammatical subject slot without changing their
real world roles. ("The cake was baked by Joe. I was baked the cake by
Joe." In both these cases, Joe is obviously still doing the baking.)
This can also give us a way to put different information in the usual
given slot and in the clause ending slot we usually use for new
information. "Who was the cake for?" "The cake was baked for me."
"What did Joe bake you?" "Joe baked me a cake." "Who baked the cake?
"The cake was baked by Joe." Students seem to enjoy putting a clause
through its various permutations and then reflecting on how that
"construes" the process. We can also say something like "Joe baked all
night", or "Joe baked with great care", not because we have stopped
understanding that "baking" means you bake something and are probably
doing that for some sort of beneficiary, but because those elements are
not always in focus. Even categories like "transitive" and
"intransitive" and "di-transitive" and "complex transitive" can be used
to talk about the verb itself as well as about the structure of a
particular clause. Is "Joe baked all night" intransitive? I think
that's easier to understand if you realize the process hasn't changed,
but certain aspects of it are simply not in focus for the statement.
I have found that most state tests for students have no real
knowledge
content to them. Even the phrasing of the standards is something like
"Can puncutate sentences," never anything like "can identify a
participle phrase" or "Can differentiate compound sentences from
compound predicates." Even the SAT simply asks students to pick a
version that seems more effective or more correct. It never asks for
terminology. Language, at least for students, is treated like a
behavior.
Are there teacher tests in your state?
Craig
How would you analyze this: Once upon a time, there was a prince named
> Joe.
>
>
>
> Do you analyze a prince named Joe as a noun phrase with a participle
> phrase modifying the noun head, or as a participle clause? I've
always
> called these non-finite constructions reduced clauses or participle
> clauses, but I have run into a problem. In my grammar class for
> pre-service teachers, I start with noun phrases. When I teach noun
> modification, I want to teach students about post-modification, but
they
> really don't know anything about finite and non-finite verbs yet, nor
do
> they know much about clauses. So this semester, I decided I would
just
> call them participle phrases which modify nouns. But then I was in
> trouble when we got to clauses because I wanted to call then reduced
or
> non-finite clauses. By that time, the students knew enough to say
"Hey
> wait a minute! Didn't you just tell us those were phrases?" At least
I
> know they were listening in October.
>
>
>
> Also, do you call 'Joe' a retained object complement, or is there a
> better way to label this?
>
>
>
> How about this: Joe baked a cake for me. Can I just go ahead and
call
> 'Joe' an indirect object? It means exactly the same this as Joe baked
me
> a cake.
>
>
>
> This is an on-going problem for me, because, even though I try to
teach
> them a pretty straight forward descriptive-structural-functional view
of
> syntax (Quirk et al is my bible), with a little discussion of
> prescriptivism thrown in so they'll know what to expect when they get
> into the schools, I find that frequently there is more than one way to
> analyze a given structure. This disturbs my students. They want to
> know the 'right' way, and it better be the way that it is gong to show
> up on the subject area test they have to take. Do you think there is
> any consensus on the 'best' grammar approach to teach pre-service
> teachers? This is not a trivial issue, since they have high-stakes
> tests (for themselves and their students) principals and parents in
> their futures.
>
>
>
> Comments?
>
>
>
> Janet Castilleja
>
>
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