On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Bob Yates wrote:
> > > 1) She needs to make money, and Monica was interviewed on TV tonight.
> > > 2) Because she needs to make money, Monica was interviewed on TV
> > > tonight.
> >
> Given both of the sentences 1 and 2 without any other context, I note
> that she in (1) will never be interpreted as referring to Monica. In
> (2), without any other context, she can be interpreted as referring to
> Monica.
>
Having 'she' in (1) refer to Monica may well violate English grammar, but
if someone heard (1) uttered, and had no other available referent for
'she', they would probably conclude just from nearness and lack of other
antecedents that 'she' refers to Monica, and that the speaker made some
sort of slip of the tongue. What I am saying, I suppose, is that
pragmatics -- the effort to make sense -- will sometimes override
grammatical competence. So, strictly speaking, it's not true that "she
in (1) will never be interpreted as referring to Monica".
> For those committed to seeing grammar as strictly functional, this may
> be a very uninteresting trivial observation. However, those differences
> in interpreting (1) and (2) are directly related to why most grammatical
> descriptions of English label the two clauses in (1) differently than
> the two clauses in (2).
>
> All catephoric reference is blocked in (3).
>
> 3) She was interviewed on TV because Monica needs to make money.
>
Just because non-functional grammar theorists don't have a functional
explanation for these facts doesn't mean that functional theorists don't
have one. A friend of mine wrote her dissertation on this very question,
using not functional but Cognitive Grammar. The relationships that
determine coreference possibilities are indeed clausal, as I recall; they
are also semantic in the sense that syntactic constructions have
consistent (though vague) semantic content, mostly relational content.
Re more general matters: it seems that contributors to this discussion so
far disagree somewhat about exactly what the domain of study of 'grammar'
is (a disagreement about how to define or how to apply the term
'grammar'). I don't know how important it is to settle on a domain/usage
for the term. It may be important, given that teachers will expect and
want a guidelines document to define the word and be consistent in how it
is used. So, is it part of our job to settle on a usage for the term that
we will recommend to the education community?
In spite of this disagreement, most seem to agree that a guidelines
document (and therefore a curriculum built on the basis of same) must
include the text- or discourse-level function of clauses/sentences as an
area of study. Anyone dissenting? Shall we debate it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184 Fax: (805)-756-6374 ~
E-mail: [log in to unmask] ~
Office hours Winter 1999: Mon/Wed 10:10-11am Thurs 2:10-3pm ~
Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
