Martha,
I've used both RK diagrams and trees in my classes, depending on what I'm covering, and I did the same thing with a diagonal for complements as you describe below. I recall beginning that practice in the '80s, and I'm sure I was influenced by you. Now at least I can properly credit you with that innovation!
On the number and variety of basic sentence patterns, I find different grammars suggesting different numbers and different patterns. IIRC, Quirk et al. used five, using the terms S, V, O, and C. I've used seven in my classes: linking/BE, intransitive, transitive, ditransitive, intransitive locative, transitive locative, and complex transitive. I suspect there's an article somewhere in the question of what to consider a basic sentence pattern and why.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sharon Saylors
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2011 6:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 22nd ATEG Conference Keynote Speakers
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/05/11 4:46 PM >>>
Steve and Beth and Bruce and Herb,
I'm always interested to read posts about R&K diagrams, a teaching tool that I take credit for bringing back from obscurity with my "Understanding English Grammar," first published in 1981 (I'm now working on the 9th ed.). For ten years prior, until I wrote my own text for my grammar class, which was designed for future teachers, I had used Stageberg's "An Introductory English Grammar,"
based on the structuralist sentence patterns, along with the traditional diagrams of House & Harmon's "Descriptive English Grammar." (As a kid, I always liked diagramming.) In UEG the students diagram ten basic sentence patterns, based on verbs (3 for be, 2 linking, 1 intransitive, and 4 transitive). The diagrams provide a visual foundation for helping students understand how clauses, with various functions, along with infinitive, gerund, and participle phrases, are all based on simple underlying patterns, all of which have much in common.
I mention that I take a certain amount of credit for bringing R&K back to our consciousness for a good reason. I did not follow Alonzo and Brainerd's original 1877 version exactly. (As you can see, we're on a first-name basis.) I made several changes--which I have duly noted as changes. Yet subsequent books that include and discuss R&K diagrams--sometimes only briefly, sometimes only to disparage them--use my version. And that's o.k.
The major change I've made is on the main line when there's an object complement, such as "See Spot run" or "I consider diagrams useful." In the original R&K, the object complement comes between the verb and the direct object on the main line, with a line slanting toward the object. In my version, the words on the main line keep the order in the sentence:
I | consider | diagrams \ useful.
In "See Spot run," the "run" would be on a pedestal in that last slot to indicate its form as an infinitive, with a line attached to it for the understood "to." I made this change to keep the original word order--and also so that when such a sentence is made passive, that slanted line, which is the same slant we use for a subject complement, does indeed indicate a subject
complement:
Diagrams | are considered \ useful.
I have found patterns and their diagrams to be very useful for students'
understanding of the passive voice.
I hesitate to add that if you are into somewhat more challenging diagrams, you might be interested in my latest grammatical/artistic enterprise: a 20" x 36"
poster of a diagrammed Bill of Rights, which my artist-daughter and I have produced. We'll have a website soon. (Other posters are in the works.) I only hesitate because our ATEG listServ is not here for commercial purposes.
If you'd like more poster information, you can write to me at my psu.edu address--not to our ATEG list.
And I have to add, Steve, that those various horizontal and vertical and slanted and dotted lines are really not that difficult to understand. As for your #2 ("Take me fishing."), it's a bit tricky. but I wouldn't hestitate to call "fishing" a gerund as object complement that names an activity. Passive?
"I was taken fishing."
Martha
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 01:39 PM, "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
Bruce,
>
>I think the gerund and participle -ing have the same pronunciation. Are you
>perhaps referring to the suggestion that the -in' and -ing forms derive
>historically from the participle in -nd and the gerund in -ing respectively?
>It's a widely accepted view that the two have merged into one ending the varies
>along socio-linguistic parameters and is used for both.
>
>Herb
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Beth Young
>Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 12:27 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Take me fishing - Make me smile - Reed-Kellogg diagrams
>
>Bruce,
>
>Your comments are really interesting, though now my tongue is sore from
>experimenting with velar and palatal "ng," and I'm not sure I can
>hear the difference (at least in my own speech). Do you mean that
>the gerund uses /*/ while the participle uses /©¯/? Or that one pronounces a
>/g/ and the other doesn't (/*g/ or /©¯g/)?
>
>(Hoping those IPA characters come through ok.)
>
>Beth
>
>> Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> 01/05/11 12:11 PM >
>Steve,
>
>This is my understanding:
>1) Make me smile.
>R&K place "x" for "to" (like a preposition)
>and "smile" the rest of the simple infinitive on stilts. The stilts
>project upward from the object complement line, so that "me" is still
>the direct object.
>2) Take me fishing.
>R&K would analyze this also as an object complement. In this case the
>gerund has a stepped line, but being horizontal is likewise placed on stilts.
>(I believe the gerund tends to have the palatal "ng" whereas the
>imperfect participle prefers the velar "ng.")
>
>The idea of paraphrasing these sentences as clauses has to do with their
>semantic force, which is useful for sentence combining, but is
>counterproductive to much of traditional grammar.
>
>I have a question about the gerund vs. the noun in -ing, both derived from a
>verb. Traditional grammar does not seem to distinguish the two.
>
>1a) His fishing upstream from me was disturbing.
>1b) I didn't like his fishing upstream from me.
>2a) ?Him fishing upstream from me was disturbing.
>2b) I didn't like him fishing upstream from me.
>In object position the tendency is to analyze the gerund as object complement.
>Maybe this is why traditional grammar frowns on (2a).
>However, I wonder if perhaps these two are actually distinct. One might
>consider the noun form in (1), the one taking a possessive subject,
>as not a gerund for that very reason. However, here we may be deceived.
>When we look at the pronunciation of the -ing form in (2b), it comes
>clear that it is velar, hence, it is actually the imperfect participle as
>object complement.
>
>Bruce
>
>--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>From: "Benton, Steve" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Take me fishing - Make me smile - Reed-Kellogg diagrams
>Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 05:42:24 -0600
>
>I find it hard to resist sentence diagramming (Reed Kellogg-style)
>when I am teaching grammar and wish I were more aware of its flaws. The most
>obvious one is that it requires memorization of a number of symbols
>(lines, dotted lines, "platforms," diagonal lines, etc.) in
>addition to the memorization of the categories they represent. I do not doubt
>that when it comes to describing the complexity of the language, RK sentence
>diagrams may occasionally prove to be crude instruments (are there any
>other kind, though?). With that in mind, I wonder if the following
>two cases are representative of the flaws of sentence diagramming:
>1) Make me smile.
>2) Take me fishing.
>It seems to me that in example number one, "me smile" could be a
>nominative clause that functions as a direct object. If I were diagramming it,
>I would put "me" on a diagonal line in the subject position
>(which seems counterintuitive since me is objective case) and put
>the entire clause on a platform in the object position. Is that what RK
>would do with this sentence? What would Reed Kellogg do with the Star Trek
>command: "Make it so"?
>
>I m not sure what RK would do with example number two.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Steve Benton
>Assistant Professor
>Department of English and Languages
>East Central University
>
>
>
>
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>
Martha Kolln
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