Johanna, this was very interesting reading. Thank you. But may I press one point a little more? I have a feeling that Fillmore's case grammar encourages it. In these two sentences: i We are going fishing ii We are going to London there is the sense that we `are going' somewhere. So an adverbial function of `fishing' and `to London' is operative: both the gerund and the proper noun reveal where `we are going'. But, especially of `to London', it is against the grain to say that it is an adverb, probably because of its proper-noun form, which is quintessentially nounal. (For me, there is more comfort in the term `locative noun'.) All the same, we are stuck with instances of nouns modifying verbs and, at least on that count, functioning as adverbs.That is why I should like to invite you to look at the possibility that a structure in which there is a locative noun is markedly different from, say: iii `We are hitting Mary', where the subject-object relationship is clear and `are hitting' is necessarily a verb. The perspective I put to you is that we do not have a verb at all in i and ii: There is no relationship of activity between subject and object as there is in iii. (The subject `we' does not perform an act of `are going' upon either `fishing' or `to London'). Instead, the subject's activity in each instant is denoted by a copular verb of which the noun-complement `fishing' specifies the direction/location/place. I should love to have your opinion. Sophie ----- Original Message ----- From: Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 7:01 AM Subject: Re: go fishing > To explicate my meaning about semantics, syntax, and culture a bit, for > Bob and others (Martha, see below for some Constr. Grammar references): > > The cultural part of 'go fishing', 'einkaufen gehen' or 'faire des > courses' is that certain activities have been categorized together as, > roughly, routine leisure activities or routine maintenance duties (such > as going shopping). This meaning of 'routine leisure activity' has > become conventionally associated with the verb 'go' in English and > German, but 'faire' in French. Either verb is a likely candidate, since > 'faire' is a very general verb for acting, and 'go' is a very general > verb for an initial movement towards another purpose (such as engaging > in a routine activity). While we couldn't predict that French would > choose 'faire' and other languages 'go' for such constructions, we can > see after the fact that the choices make semantic sense. It would be > unlikely, for instance, that 'smile' or 'chase' would appear in such > constructions, since their meanings are both more specific and not > terribly relevant to or compatible with the 'Xing' verb. > > In other words, a cultural category--a type of activity--has become part > of the semantics of a syntactic construction. The cultural category > might be the same in all three languages, hence the same 'feeling' Bob > reports (though not being a native of either French or German culture, > it would be hard to claim that he is necessarily fully in possession of > the 'feelings' of natives of these cultures). > > Language works by conventionalizing the association between a meaning > and a form. Sometimes it's single words that express the conventional > meaning, sometimes it's a more-complex syntactic construction. > > I know that seeing the sense of a construction after the fact is not > terribly appreciated in some formal theories of language, but it is seen > as quite reasonable in functional/cognitive theories. This is one area > of difference between these different schools of linguistic thought. > > In response to Sophie, yes, it has to be the whole construction. The > point of my post was that sometimes we understand a construction better > by NOT trying to make it compositional (a sum of the meaning of its > parts). Sure, we lose comfort, predictability, and order when we > 'condemn' the power of syntactic templates, but the nature of language > is to not permit such comfort, order, and predictability (infinitive > intentionally split). It might be perfectly fine to say that, in 'go > Xing' the word 'go' (which is not a copula in any sense of the word as I > understand it) is followed by a gerund, but then we must go on to note > that not all verbs appear in the X slot, or at least that a certain > meaning is conveyed by the construction AS A WHOLE. > > I attended a presentation at a Cognitive Linguistics conference a week > or so ago which gave me a blast of insight about the history of the > analysis of language. Most analysts of language, including both modern > linguists and traditional grammarians, approached language in the same > way. They experienced language in wholes--utterances, texts. They tried > to reduce the wholes to parts; they arrived at a set of parts that they > then considered the 'atoms' of language, such as parts of speech. They > then tried to explain language by coming up with syntactic rules to put > the parts back together again. But of course, they were trapped by the > set of parts they had come up with in the first place. The whole history > of grammar and linguistics has been attempts to come up with the right > set of atoms and the right set of rules for putting them together. The > insight of this presentation, given by Bill Croft of the U. of > Manchester, is that we should not try to reduce the wholes too far in > the first place, but we should look at a language as a set of > constructions, each of which has certain syntactic properties and > expresses certain conventionalized meanings, such as passive > constructions or reflexive constructions, etc. We then study such > constructions across languages and come up with observations about their > properties (Croft is a typologist; typologists specialize in looking at > what large numbers of languages have or don't have in common). > > Croft has a book called 'Radical Construction Grammar' which sets out > his ideas (Oxford U press, 2000 or 2001). A book on non-radical > Construction Grammar theory is 'A construction grammar approach to > argument structure' by Adele Goldberg, U of Chicago Press, 1997. > Articles on construction grammar would be found with author names such > as Adele Goldberg and Charles Fillmore. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics > English Department, California Polytechnic State University > One Grand Avenue . San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 > Tel. (805)-756-2184 . Fax: (805)-756-6374 . Dept. Phone. 756-2596 > . E-mail: [log in to unmask] . Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > 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/