Hello
In the following sentence: you are going to need to pay close attention,
would you classify 'to pay close attention' as a subjectless infinitive
clause functioning as a direct object?
I was tempted to see 'need to' as a type of semi-auxiliary, but I
checked Quirk et al. They (I think) would analyze it as above. Is that
the consensus? Is there much argument about semi-auxiliaries?
Janet
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 6:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
Bill,
I suspect the latter is one of the routes to the former. There's
considerable variability in -ics vs. -ic forms, and certainly the
phonological identity of the plural suffix and the nominalizing suffix
means that there will also be variability in agreement with many -ics
forms. What convinced my co-authors and me was the way a variety of
different -s suffixes came together in Early Modern English.
I won't go into all the detail here, and since the paper hasn't been
published yet I'll email you a copy offline as an attachment so you can
evaluate the whole argument.
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
[log in to unmask]
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: April 2, 2009 9:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
Herb,
I'm going to ask one of those questions that runs the risk of making a
uselessly persnickety distinction. Is there any way to distinguish
between an account in which -s has become a nominalizer, and an account
in which types of plurals have become more open to transfer
nominalization?
Your account dovetails more with my instincts on words like
"mathematics" -- they certainly don't *feel* plural. "Studying logic"
doesn't bother me at all, but I'm used to "studying semiotics," not
"studying semiotic," and the latter makes my brain itch -- but not
because it feels like it should be plural (some semioticians want the
s-less version, darn them). Still, the other account looks like a
logical possibility.
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 STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 5:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
"Admissions office" would work, according to most grammars, but I don't
think it does. I think the plural -s merged with the -s of "physics"
and the -s of "dependence" about 400 years ago to become a new
nominalizing suffix. There are cases, like this, where the case isn't
entirely clear, but it becomes clearer when we say, "Admissions is where
you have to send your new transcripts." I think the singular agreement
is due to the fact that that -s is no longer a plural marker but is now
a nominalizer. I have a paper coming out on this shortly in Word that I
did with a couple of grad students.
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
[log in to unmask]
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: April 2, 2009 4:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
Mea maxima culpa! This is what happens when I don't check my own
examples. At this point, I'll vow to use it as an extremely effective
humility-enhancer next time I want to scold a student for... doing the
same thing.
Perhaps "admissions office" would work?
--- Bill Spruiell
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Dews-Alexander
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
Yes, I agree. When I first read Bill's message, I understood his intent
and didn't even notice the problem with "accounts receivable." Bill's
statement, as I understood it, works just fine if we replace the phrase
in question with a clearly adjectival noun:
"Teacher, you said only nouns could be plural, but in 'the computers
picture' the adjective seems plural."
I use this example because I said it today. I was reviewing a marketing
piece that contained pictures of various things: computers, office
supplies, people, etc. I quickly grew tired of saying, "The picture of
the computers" and switched to "the computers picture" (I noticed that
by the end of the conversation I simplified even more to "the computer
picture").
Just my intuition -- plural adjectival nouns are probably less common
than singular adjectival nouns. They do occur though!
John Alexander
On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 12:21 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
This is so unusual that I have to respond, but I find myself agreeing
with Brad. "Accounts receivable" is one of those formulaic
constructions we have in English, some borrowed from French, like
"courts martial," "lobster Newburg," "steak tartar," and also
"attorneys-at-law" and "brothers-in-law." Of course, those with phrasal
modifiers, like the last two, have the order they'd normally have in
English.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On
Behalf Of Brad Johnston
Sent: 2009-04-02 10:37
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
one of the things that constantly causes problems for anyone trying to
teach the material ("You said only nouns could be plural, but in
'accounts receivable,' the adjective is").
Bill: this is incorrect. The noun is "account" and more than one are
"accounts". The descriptive adjective is "receivable", often in standard
accounting referred to as "receivables", which is then a noun. The
accounts are "receivable accounts" but in the parlance of the trade,
they are "accounts receivable". I wonder if that makes it clearer or
less so. In any event, in "accounts receivable", "accounts" is the noun.
Just clearing the files and noticed this.
.brad.02apr09.
--- On Tue, 3/24/09, Spruiell, William C
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
From: Spruiell, William C
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Lester's text in the classroom (was: Phrasal Verb Overview)
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 12:52 PM
John,
I've used Lester's book a number of times in a course here for future
English teachers. Overall, I'd say there's one major problem with it,
but otherwise it's extremely good. The problem is that he doesn't make a
clear form/function distinction. I'm not sure why he doesn't - it could
be that he's trying to stick to the K-12 school grammar tradition, which
is understandable, but the lack of that distinction is one of the things
that constantly causes problems for anyone trying to teach the material
("You said only nouns could be plural, but in 'accounts receivable,' the
adjective is").
The book is so good in other respects that I've continued to use it,
using handouts to deal with the form/function distinction. But, of
course, then the students get annoyed because I'm disagreeing with the
textbook, and I get annoyed with them because the last thing future
teachers should do is view a textbook (or their instructor's comments!)
as Holy Writ.
Sincerely,
Bill Spruiell
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On
Behalf Of John Dews-Alexander
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 8:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Phrasal Verb Overview
Greetings, ATEGers!
Someone (I believe it was Herb) recently suggested a book to me: Mark
Lester's (1990) Grammar in the Classroom. I'm not sure why I haven't
discovered this book before, but I quite like it and would suggest it to
anyone reviewing grammar texts. Even if you can't use it in your
classroom, you and/or your students might enjoy knowing about it as a
reference text. I find Lester's writing to be straightforward and
uncluttered. Has anyone actually used this as a classroom text for
teachers-in-training? If so, I'd be interested to hear about your
experiences.
I went to the text specifically to find some more information on phrasal
verbs, information that wasn't overly technical for non-linguistic
students but also not overly simplified so as to ignore descriptive
facts. I thought I'd share here a few of the main points about phrasal
verbs that Lester includes.
* Lester suggests that phrasal verbs are part of Latin and Germanic
languages' process of creating new words by adding prepositions
(functional words) to verb stems. Latin languages tended to add the
preposition to the beginning of the verb stem with Germanic languages
adding them to the end. (example, "devour" from "de-" (down) and "voro"
(swollow) in Latin)
* When English forms a new word by adding a preposition to the
beginning of a verb stem (example, "bypass" "offset"), it is more
quickly and easily recognized as a new word; people forget that it used
to be a phrasal verb/verb +preposition combination because,
orthographically, it is written without a space. However, English tends
to leave the space when the preposition is added to the end of the verb
stem. (example, "give up")
* While a sentence like "I give up" may look like a pronoun, a tensed
verb, and an adverbial preposition, it is in fact a pronoun and a
phrasal verb (note: I always learned to call the preposition that has
become attached to a verb in such a way a "particle," but Lester
continues to call it a preposition, which doesn't bother me at all).
Lester points out a fun test for phrasal verbs -- can you replace the
unit with a single word (almost always of Latin origin) and retain the
meaning? In this case, "I give up" becomes "I surrender." (Lester points
out the irony in the fact that "surrender" was once itself a phrasal
verb in Latin!)
* Phrasal verbs can be transitive; this can mark the difference
between a phrasal verb and a verb+preposition combo even more. For
example,
John turned out the light. (Noun subject+phrasal verb+noun
phrase object)
John turned at the light. (Noun subject+verb+adverbial
prepositional phrase)
Say the sentences out loud and notice the stress. In phrasal
verbs the preposition is stressed while it is not in the PP.
* Phrasal verbs can have more than one preposition/particle: look
down on, talk back to, walk out on, etc.
* Lester points out that phrasal verbs were dumped from traditional
school grammars because the word "preposition" in Latin literally means
"to place before," and it was reasoned that prepositions couldn't be
connected to verbs if they came after them. Sometimes phrasal verbs
were treated as idioms.
* Structural linguists have noted the difference between separable
and inseparable phrasal verbs.Separable phrasal verbs have prepositions
that can be moved to a position after the object noun phrase (example,
"I gave up the game" vs "I gave the game up" or "I gave it up").
Inseparable phrasal verbs have prepositions that cannot be moved
(example, "I depend on the income" vs *"I depend the income on" or *"I
depend it on").
* As you can see from the above examples, when the object of a
separable transitive phrasal verb is a pronoun, the movement of the
preposition is obligatory. You would always say "I gave it up" and never
*"I gave up it." (I think I would cringe if I heard this avoided with
some clunky construction like, "Up it is that I gave it.") In this
sense, it is actually ungrammatical to NOT end a sentence with a
preposition.
Hope all the grammar nerds enjoy this as much as I did!
Regards,
John Alexander
Austin, Texas
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
