Sophie Johnson wrote: > > 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. Sophie, you have very different ways of analyzing English than what I am used to. In ii., 'to London' is a prepositional phrase acting as a locative adverbial, i.e. in terms of form it is a prepositional phrase; in terms of function it is a locative adverbial, not a locative noun. 'London' is the noun object of the preposition, and does not have a direct syntactic relationship to the verb 'going'. >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. > Sorry, I resist the notion of 'fishing' as a location. It names an activity, not a location. It doesn't say where we are going, it says (with 'going') what kind of activity we are about to undertake. I find it equivalent in meaning to 'we are going somewhere, and we will fish there'. The activity is not the location. Note that you can add a locative expression, e.g. 'we are going fishing in Lake Shasta' or 'we are going shopping at the Mall of America'. 'We are going fishing' does not specify the location of the activity. I see verbs in all three of these sentences: we have tense-inflected 'are' in all three. It's an auxiliary verb, but nonetheless a verb. Activity verbs may be one subclass of verbs, but something does not cease to be a verb because it expresses something other than an activity. A verb is any word that conventionally inflects like a verb in a given speech community. Semantically speaking, a verb traces the evolution of a state of affairs through time (scanning through time being crucial here, and change or movement is not crucial--the persistence of an unchanged state of affairs over time is also depicted by a verb, a stative verb [such as 'resemble'].) [I should say that the 'inflects like a verb' definition comes from structural linguistics, and the semantic definition comes from Cognitive Grammar as formulated by R. Langacker.] 'Are' is also not a copula in any of these sentences. A copula is, by definition, followed by a subject complement--something which either names or describes the subject. 'Are' is an auxiliary in these sentences, functioning with the present participle to create the present progressive tense/aspect construction. In i., the verb 'going' is part of the 'go Xing' construction; in ii. it is the main verb followed by a locative adverbial expressing the destination of 'going', and in iii. 'hitting' is the main verb followed by a direct object noun phrase comprising 'Mary'. The structures I see are: i. subject NP + present progressive tense/aspect + gerund (forming the 'go Xing' construction) ii. subject NP + present progressive tense/aspect + locative adverbial in the form of a prepositional phrase iii. Subject NP + present progressive tense/aspect + direct object NP I think most listers would agree with _most_ of the syntactic description I give here. Fillmore has moved on from Case Grammar to Construction Grammar. I don't know how case works in Constr. Grammar, but I imagine the Goldberg thesis I cited yesterday must have a lot to say on the subject, since case and argument structure are so closely related (cases being the roles various arguments of a verb take up in a clause [and yes I believe in clauses]). So there's my opinion! Thanks for asking! Johanna ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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/