Gordon,  

Maybe we ought to have Martha look it up in Quirk, _et.al._

To me the phrase "go fishing" does indeed have the same force as "fish" in the generic sense.   Like "I go fishing on Fridays" for the same meaning as "I fish on Fridays".  "Fishing" is the gerund, as in "I like fishing" or "I am busy fishing."  I think of "go" as a verb that likes to take a gerund as a complement, _i.e._ a gerund in the form of an adverbial noun, if you like.  (The Latins had a special noun form of the verb, a supine, that would express purpose.)  We may say, "I go swimming, jogging, sunning, and searching for shells on the beach in that order on Fridays." or " I swim, jog, sun, and search for shells on the beach in that order on Fridays."

Bruce Despain

>>> [log in to unmask] 08/03/01 09:57AM >>>
This brings up a question we have been pondering = what is the function of
'fishing' in "I go fishing"? It would seem the preferable solution would be
"I fish."  Is the structure using 'go' as an apparent 'helping verb'
idiomatic; somewhat like "I have *got* a cold."? In "I go fishing," can
'fishing' somehow act like an adverb -- I go {where}; I cannot see it as a
Direct Object, but maybe my sight is not what it used to be.
Gordon Carmichael
Central Texas College and Tarleton State University, Killeen, Texas

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Despain" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: <no subject>


This discrepancy between Marylou and Sophie is in the area where semantics
and syntax conflict.  I wonder about the following observations.

In the sentence "I must go" are we tempted to think that "go" is the object
of the verb "must"?  (We can ask, "What must you (do)?")  Historically, we
could probably make a good argument that at some time it was so perceived.
What about in the periphrastic version, "I have to go"?  Does the infinitive
marked by "to" make it clear that maybe we have a complement (object) to the
verb "have"?  Similarly with some other periphrastic versions of the modals
(can - be able to; will - is going to, is about to) , where we have
complements to adjectives.  At one time this may have been the perception.
But as with other formations of the verb, we now have modals as well as
helping verbs for the semantic categories established as tense and aspect.

Do the Australians now have a compound verb that works like modal
pariphrasis in "try to improve"?  Do they want to make "try" a quasi-modal?
Perhaps the contrasting colloquial "try and improve", which seems to be an
attempt to maintain the original syntactic independence, motivates the new
syntactic analysis for "try".

For me the object of "try" is an infinitive phrase serving as a noun phrase
and the object of "improve" is a noun phrase.  With the phrase "try and
improve" the accomplishment is implied.  Here the verb "try" is either
intransitive or has an undersood object of "something", and the verb
"improve" shares the same subject, but has its own object.  The existence
and the contrast of these two collocations, seems to give "try to improve"
the implication that the improvement will in fact occur.

Bruce Despain

>>> [log in to unmask] 08/03/01 05:55AM >>>
`Mary is trying to improve the condition of her house':

There is no question in the above sentence of the verb's being anything more
or less than `is trying to improve', nor of its object's being anything
other than `the condition of the house'.  `Mary', the subject of this
active-voice verb, is not acting upon `to improve the condition of her
house'; she is acting upon `the condition of her house'.

Analysis of this sentence must note that it contains an active-voice verb,
and that the characteristic of an active-voice verb is that its subject acts
upon its object: Its subject names its actor, and its object the acted-upon
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/