Martha,
Sorry, I thought you were the one to look it up.
Your three examples are excellent in variety. I don't think the questions get to the core of the matter. Consider the more precise questions:
My uncle made a fortune selling real estate. (By what means?)
The kids came running out of the house. (In what manner?)
[_cf._ The kids came out of the house running.]
Betsy went swimming. (To what end?)
You noted that these are all adverbial extensions. One interpretation of the phrase "to what end?" asks about the goal. The other interpretation is purpose. As I see it, "I went fishing" is closer to the goal of the going, quite in harmony with your question of "where?" rather than "why?"
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 08/03/01 11:48AM >>>
>Dear Bruce:
I don't have to look it up in Quirk. I can look it up in Kolln & Funk
(Understanding English Grammar)--although I suspect I looked it up in Quirk
when I first wrote about this way back when. Here are three examples of
participles as adverbials (p. 122, 6th edition):
My uncle made a fortune selling real estate. (How?)
The kids came running out of the house (How? Where?)
Betsy went swimming. (Where?)
On the question of adverbial vs. adjectival infinitives, a good test is the
"in order to" test. Most adverbial infinitives can be expanded with "in
order": they answer the Why question. Another test is movability:
adverbials can often be moved; adjectivals usually can't. In Kathleen's
leather example--money to purchase leather--clearly the infinitive could
open the sentence: That makes it adverbial.
Martha
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
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