I appreciate and agree with Johanna's cautious approach to the complex issues we've been discussing.
As to the rules for tag questions, once you've figured them out, then got Terry Langendoen's game "The Walrus and the Alligator", which I have appended. It's long, but it's fun and revealing, and it shows just how complex syntactic questions can be, but I can't attach it on the list server.
Herb
The Walrus and the Alligator:*
An Exercise in Grammatical Analysis
The task in this exercise is straight-forward. Simply add question tags to the sentences below as shown in the first five examples.
1. I like pistachio ice cream.
Tagged form: I like ice cream, don't I?
2. You don't seem to understand me.
Tagged form: You don't seem to understand me, do you?
3. Your father can do a hundred pushups.
Tagged form: Your father can do a hundred pushups, can't he?
4. Louise is intelligent.
Tagged form: Louise is intelligent, isn't she?
5. We won't tolerate such nonsense.
Tagged form: We won't tolerate such nonsense, will we?
Now try describing what you have to do to add a grammatical tag to a statement and then go on. In each of the sets, supply the tags and then answer the question after it.
6. The sky looks threatening.
7. I have to go home now.
8. I've been waiting a long time.
9. I have five cents in my pocket.
10. I've got five cents in my pocket.
11. I haven't got five cents to my name.
12. I have not five cents to my name.
How do you know when to use a negative in a tag?
13. There's a book on the table.
14. There isn't any chalk on the rack.
15. There is no chalk on the rack.
16. There happen to be six books on the table.
Based on the tag, what’s the subject in these sentences?
17. I must go home now.
18. I may not see you tomorrow.
19. I may see you tomorrow.
20. You ought not smoke.
21. You ought to exercise.
22. I'm not going to the store now.
23. I'm going to the store now.
What problems do helping verbs present for tag questions?
24. The boy never watched his sister.
25. The boy watched his sister at no time.
26. The boy rarely watched his sister.
27. The boy watched his sister infrequently.
28. The boy often watched his sister.
29. The boy watched no one.
30. No one watched my sister.
Back to negatives. How do you tell whether a clause is negative or not? Is negation a function of a verb or of a sentence?
32. Everyone likes her.
33. Everyone likes one another here.
34. All the students like one another here.
35. Everyone likes himself here.
36. Everyone likes everyone here.
37. Not everyone likes himself here.
38. Not everyone likes everyone else here.
What number agreement do you find yourself using with indefinite pronouns?
39. Few people like her.
40. A few people like her.
41. Seldom did anyone say anything.
More on negatives. What’s the difference between “few” and “a few”?
42. I believe that O.J. is innocent
43. "O.J., I believe, is innocent."
44. "O.J. is innocent, I believe."
45. I don't think that O.J. is innocent.
46. "O.J., I don't think, is innocent."
Can you have a tag on a subordinate clause? If so, when?
47. One of my friends is coming.
48. The child is crying.
49. The baby is crying.
50. The boat is sinking.
51. The Queen Mary has made her last voyage.
52. The Queen Mary has been scrapped.
53. My cousin is handsome.
54. My cousin is pretty.
55. My cousin speaks fluent Mandarin.
56. My cousin married a son of a millionaire.
57. My uncle's spouse won't eat caviar.
58. My father's only child is brilliant.
How do you choose the gender of the tag?
59. Either the guys or the girls will stay.
60. Either John or Tom will stay.
61. Either John or Sue will stay.
62. Either Sue or John will stay.
63. Either Leslie or Shelby will stay.
64. Either Sue or the boys will stay.
65. Either the girls or John will stay.
66. Neither John nor Tom stayed.
67. Neither John nor Sue stayed.
68. Either all the boys or none of them will stay.
69. Either none of the boys or all of them will stay.
70. Either Sue or Mary will stay.
Disjunctive subjects cause a particular problem for tags. How do you choose which subject--or both--to tag?
71. All of us will stay.
72. None of us will stay.
73. Each of you will stay.
74. Each of the guys will stay.
75. Each of us is staying.
And quantifiers again. How do you decide what’s singular and what’s plural?
*from D. Terence Langendoen, Essentials of English Grammar, New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. 1970. Pp. 10-32.
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Mon 9/4/2006 2:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On innate knowledge of language
My position on innateness is that it is too early for anybody to make
definitive claims. Brain research is beginning to show that language
processing is scattered around the brain, and it may differ across
genders/sexual orientations. It is way too early to determine whether
specific brain parts are devoted to language (claims derived from brain
injury are not as clearcut as they are presented in the literature, as
I learned from a specialized neurolinguistics text). The brain is such
a complex organ, it is likely that there is a mixture of innateness and
modularity and general cognition. Modularity of other functions, such
as vision, make it premature to rule out modularity completely. But
Chomsky and his followers have ruled it in prematurely. I am not
necessarily in agreement with poverty-of-stimulus arguments, but, since
the question overall is far from settled (despite what people on both
sides claim), I don't wish to debate these issues deeply. My interests
lie elsewhere.
As to how much instruction is needed to achieve competence in language
and thinking, we must be very careful what kind of assumptions we make.
Societies that never developed literacy have nevertheless achieved high
levels of logical thought. Even folk tales like the Ananzi stories and
Br'er Rabbit stories show lots of sophisticated logic in what the
tricksters pull off. Anglos (except in the South) have very little
experience of or appreciation for oral cultures; oral performances
typical of these cultures are not valued in our schools, unfortunately.
The current generation is finally getting some exposure to this through
rap and hip-hop, although it's unfortunate that so much of that is
violent and misogynistic. Our cultural situation is very particular,
with a mix of dialect variation, very uneven quality of schooling, lots
of racism still around, and an anti-intellectual culture.
It doesn't make much sense to make claims in a public forum like this,
then qualify them by admitting to bias and an insufficient knowledge
base. There's plenty of research out there. Look for support before you
make a claim.
I'm waiting for takers on my tag-question rules. Prove your unconscious
knowledge to yourself. What rules apply to form the tags (e.g., "can't
she?") on the following:
1. Jane can play the piano, can't she?
2. Patients should trust their doctors, shouldn't they?
3. Susan wouldn't steal my book, would she?
4. Mikey fed the dog, didn't he?
5. Mr. Blake didn't kill his wife, did he?
6. Your train was late, wasn't it?
7. The students weren't in the auditorium, were they?
You'll find that you have to revise your rules a couple of times. There
are seven rules. If I may be so bold, put your money where your mouth
is, see if you "know" these rules consciously or have to figure them
out, and tell me when you remember being taught these rules by anyone,
or seeing them laid out in a grammar book for native speakers (I don't
think they appear even in ESL books). I'd bet money that you can't just
write down these rules without working them out. If we needed conscious
training in grammar rules, you wouldn't be able to form these tags,
because nobody teaches these rules to native speakers. But you forms
tags like this in milliseconds in everyday speech.
People will certainly claim that those of us who advocate methods like
contrastive analysis are biased. Certainly we have opinions. But they
are _informed_, _expert_ opinions derived from many years of reading
replicated research and practicing language study. In general, it is
common nowadays to accuse academics of liberal bias. Well, maybe that
bias comes from the decades of research findings that they have access
to. I wouldn't dream of claiming that I know as much as or more than
someone with a Ph.D. in physics. People are much readier to challenge
experts in linguistics, because language is bound up with cultural
identity (witness the current official-English movement, which is not
at all informed by international findings on language policy) and
political and economic control (e.g., will ballot pamphlets be
published in Vietnamese? Is it fair to deny a native-English speaker a
job because she doesn't speak Spanish? Should someone who uses double
negatives be given a high school diploma?) Also, there is a competing
tradition centered on literature and correctness that has held sway
since the 1600's in Western Europe in general. There are two sets of
"language experts" for people to consult, but most people don't know
about the ones who have taken language study far beyond that competing
tradition.
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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