TJ,

I still don't get why you want to make the finite distinction. In what
way do finite verbs in subordinate clauses "sustain" a sentence in a way
that a nonfinite verb does not? Neither a subordinate clause nor an
infinitive whatever-we-want-to-call-it will "sustain" a complete sentence.

I don't think teaching the distinction between finite and nonfinite is
problematic. I just think that tying the "clause" label to finite verbs
alone is neither accurate nor pedagogically helpful.

Karl

On 06/01/11 07:31, T. J. Ray wrote:
> Karl,
> I apologize for my poor choice of words.  Yes, subordinate clauses
> are clauses, even though they can't stand alone.  I was hoping to
> define a clause as a group of related words that contain a finite
> verb.  The nonfinite verb forms (participle, gerund, infinitive) can
> not sustain a sentence and thus should be identified in some
> other way.
> 
> Most of the grammar books I taught speak of prepositional
> phrases and verbal phrases.  The slinky little thing called a
> nominative absolute might well be considered a special
> verbal phrase.
> 
> Your last paragraph poses interesting questions.  Top of the
> head (i.e., no thinking involved): kids fairly easily learn the
> parts of verbs.  And I don't think it's difficult to get them to
> discern the difference between verb forms that take tense
> and those that don't
> The boy eats the pie.
> The boy ate the pie.
> The boy will eat the pie.
> (I agree that the third example and others with "helping verbs"
> before the key verb need clairification for students, but I don't
> think it's difficult to teach them to recognize auxiliary verbs>)
> John eaten pie.
> John to eat pie.
> John eat pie.
> John eating pie.
> Can a discussion of those seven constructions not lead to a
> functional and quite useful definition of finite?
> 
> tj
> 
> Teusday 05/31/2011 at 11:34 pm, Karl Hagen wrote:
>> TJ,
>>
>> I'm confused about your definition of a clause. Are you saying that to
>> be a clause you must be able to hoist out the string of words and have
>> it stand alone as a sentence? How do you treat a subordinate clause like
>> "before he went to the party"? Are you saying that the subordinator
>> "before" is not part of the subordinate clause? And even if you bite the
>> structural bullet there, how do you deal with relative clauses (e.g.,
>> "which he found at the party")? The "core" here clearly cannot stand on
>> its own unless you rewrite it to become a different kind of clause. And
>> if stands-on-its-own is not a sufficient definition, why is finiteness
>> necessary?
>>
>> I'm completely with you in believing that showing students how to make
>> sense of language is a primary goal in our teaching, but I don't see the
>> finite requirement as pedagogically helpful (or theoretically motivated).
>>
>> I've taught clauses to students from pretty much all grade levels from
>> 8th grade through college, and for the middle and high school students,
>> I simply use the basic definition that a clause has a subject and a verb
>> (no requirement for finiteness). The older the students are, the more
>> likely I am to introduce the idea of a covert subject, starting with the
>> implied "you" of the imperative and (for college students at least)
>> moving on to the subjects of infinitives, but I've never found any
>> pedagogical benefit to stipulating that students look for a finite verb
>> to label something a clause.
>>
>> Other than the fact that traditional grammar books often include
>> finiteness as part of their definition, I'd be curious to know what you
>> think the advantages to this view are.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Karl
>>
>> On 05/31/11 19:39, T. J. Ray wrote:
>>> Bill,
>>> Please allow me to intersperse some comments in what you kindly sent me.
>>>    Perhaps I should
>>> be open (if clumsy) about the terms I used in grammar classes. A clause
>>> requires a finite verb.
>>> The non-finite verb forms may take all the attributes of finite verbs
>>> but the group of words they
>>> are the core of cannot stand alone as a sentence. Hence, participles
>>> and infinitives may have
>>> subjects, objects, complements, and adverbial modifiers just as finite
>>> verbs may.
>>>
>>> The primary difference between the two sample sentences you offer in
>>> your third paragraph is that
>>> the first infinitive does not have a subject because the subject of the
>>> main verb is taken to also be
>>> the subject of the infinitive. In the second example "kids" is the
>>> subject of the infinitive phrase. The
>>> explanation you offer is quite baffling to me. The phrase "a clause at
>>> some level of representation"
>>> buzzed past me.
>>>
>>> Your fourth paragraph begs a question. If you give a student the first
>>> example you offer and then
>>> asked who is to eat the vegetables, my bet is that without hesitation he
>>> will point at "I." Ask the
>>> same question of the second example, and the answer will be "kids."
>>>
>>> This talk of reduced clauses and small clauses muddies the grammatical
>>> waters. If the core of the
>>> group of words is a finite verb, that cluster is a clause. If it has no
>>> finite verb, it is not a clause. You
>>> may well think me a martinet in trying to apply simplistic terms, but
>>> for more decades than I like to
>>> recall my concern was to given students sufficient tools to figure out
>>> the meaning of a sentence.
>>> That still strikes me as the purposing of teaching grammar to kids as
>>> opposed to graduate students
>>> in linguistics classes.
>>>
>>> Please pardon my ranting.
>>>
>>> tj
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday 05/30/2011 at 11:23 am, "Spruiell, William C" wrote:
>>>> TJ:
>>>>
>>>> You wrote,
>>>>
>>>>> I am also puzzled by responses that refer to them as clauses.
>>>>> Infinitive
>>>>> phrases have functioned in this manner since A-S days. What is the
>>>>> purpose of trying to stretch them into clauses?
>>>>
>>>> The problem is just that they're a lot clausier than the usual phrase,
>>>> and the definition of "clause" varies more than one might expect. The
>>>> U.S. school grammar tradition focused on finiteness as the essential
>>>> ingredient for clausehood, and if you take that as a starting point
>>>> these can't be clauses. That definition of clause, as well as the use
>>>> of "phrase" for all multi-word units that aren't clauses, is by no
>>>> means universal.
>>>>
>>>> Other approaches tend to focus on the fact that infinitives can
>>>> include verbs with what look exactly like objects, etc., and that you
>>>> can usually infer a subject-y element (being deliberately vague here
>>>> b/c the specifics vary per approach). From a teaching standpoint, it's
>>>> a lot easier getting students to recognize that a given NP is the
>>>> direct object of the verb in the infinitive if they're thinking of the
>>>> infinitive as at least being like a predicate.
>>>>
>>>> The "clausy" view starts looking more tempting when you try to deal
>>>> with the difference between "I want to eat some vegetables" and "I
>>>> want the kids to eat some vegetables." If you think both of those
>>>> sentences have a main clause that's just "I want X," then it follows
>>>> that you need to talk about the presence or absence of "the kids" in
>>>> relation to the infinitive. One of the ways to deal with that is to
>>>> say that infinitive really is a clause at some level of representation
>>>> -- that it has a full clause structure, but with zero-elements in some
>>>> spots. The grammar (with "grammar" here in the sense of a kind of
>>>> widget) can then deal with the structure the same basic way it deals
>>>> with a normal clause, with maybe some minor changes around the edges.
>>>> I *think* this is Bruce's approach (but correct me if I'm wrong,
>>>> Bruce!).
>>>>
>>>> An alternate approach is to deal with "X wants to Y" and "X wants Z to
>>>> Y" as different constructions that hearers recognize and process
>>>> according to construction-specific rules. This is what's used by
>>>> construction grammars (unsurprisingly).
>>>>
>>>> Either of these approaches can use the label "reduced clause" for
>>>> infinitives, gerunds, and participials. The term "small clause"
>>>> usually goes with the first approach, and is most common among
>>>> linguists working in a set of theories descended from the 1970s-era
>>>> version of generative grammar. Systemic-Functional grammar use
>>>> "non-finite clause," a term that initially struck me as an oxymoron,
>>>> since I learned U.S. terminology first. Traditional school grammars,
>>>> of course, sometimes use "verbals."
>>>>
>>>> --- Bill Spruiell
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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