-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Hancock [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Go camping

Edith,
    To me, the equivalent to "go on hunting" is "keep hunting".  One is a statement about participation in a process (go hunting, which may require many steps to carry out), the other about continuation.  Processes have beginnings and duration, and we can engage in these willfully.  Both, it seems to me, express willfulness (although we can certainly say "there I go shooting my mouth off again".)  
    I have nothing else to offer an interesting talk, which is really about how to understand a phenomena that doesn't neatly fit our previous categories.  

Craig

Wollin, Edith wrote:

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My understanding of this idiom is that it is a fossilized form of the phrase that we all know from "A' hunting we will go."  This is a contracted form of "we will go on hunting." So it used to be an adverbial prepositional phrase with "hunting" as a gerund object of the preposition. So I have always understood it to be today an adverbial noun/gerund. I admit that like Bruce I tend to look at history to understand the present, and it is certainly possible that that is irrelevant.

 

Edith Wollin, North Seattle Community College

-----Original Message-----
From: Martha Kolln [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 8:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Go camping

Dick,

I certainly agree that idioms are perhaps better left whole, rather than picking them apart, because of course then they lose their meaning.   

The "go camping" model is especially interesting, I think, because it is confined to recreational activities:  Not only do we go camping, we also go fishing, hiking, swimming, boating.  Walking?  Maybe.  However, we don't go working or even playing, nor do we go sleeping.  Some folks do go drinking, I've heard.

Those activities still seem to me like "where" answers--in contrast to the linking "go"--with  the adjectival "bananas" and "crazy" and "native."

Martha

 

Martha,

 

As always, your postings are thoughtful, helpful, and pellucid.

 

I do not see "go camping/bowling/skiing" as parallel to "sit reading/knitting/fidgeting." In the latter the verb and modifier are independent of each other: she sat, and she read while doing so. With "go camping" you can't say she went, and she camped while doing so. "Go camping" is phrasal and idiomatic. It can only be understood as a phrase.

 

To illustrate the difference, one could read "She went walking" in both ways: (1) she went for a walk (parallel to "go camping") and (2) she went somewhere, and her means of transport was on foot (parallel to "sit reading").

 

[GO + Adjective] is frequently used to express a change of state or activity. Sometimes "go" might be seen as a linking verb, equivalent to "become": "go crazy/bald/deaf." But most adjectives can't be used with "go": "become happy/sad/rich" but not *"go happy/sad/rich." Others that can be used with "go" can't be used with "become": "go native/AWOL/bananas" but not *"become native/AWOL/bananas." When Clairol urges you to "go blond," they aren't using "go" as a linking verb but as an intransitive verb implying a volitional act.

 

Examples with prepositional phrases: go off the deep end, go to pieces, go into debt. All of the [GO + modifier] expressions that express a change of state are idiomatic and phrasal in the sense that the meaning of "go" cannot be understood independent of the modifier that follows it.

 

Dick Veit

 

________________________

 

Richard Veit

Department of English, UNCW

Wilmington, NC 28403-5947

910-962-3324

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martha Kolln
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 5:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Go camping

 

Michael,

 

As you see, Ed and I agree on the function of  "camping" as an adverbial.  I'd like to expand a bit on the issue of form and function in relation to the verbals.

 

In traditional grammar, as you know, "verbal" serves as an umbrella term for infinitives, gerunds, and participles--generally speaking, for verbs in their roles other than as the predicating, or main, verb of a clause.

 

The term "infinitive" is straightforward: It refers strictly to form, to the base form of the verb, with or without "to."  In every verb except "be," the infinitive is identical to the present tense: to eat, to sleep, to seem.  The infinitive--the base form--is the form of the verb used in commands (Eat your dinner; Be nice to your sister; Have a good day).  It's also used adverbially (We took the week off to go camping); adjectivally  (Our decision to go camping turned out to be a disaster); and nominally  (We decided to go camping).  In other words, the term "infinitive" itself tells us nothing at all about function.  (And note that my description of the infinitive--including, as it does, commands--goes beyond the traditional definition of "verbal."  I could also have mentioned the infinitive as a form used in the main verb string, when it follows a modal: "You should be nice to your sister.")

 

The term "gerund," on the other hand, includes both form and function; it refers to the -ing or -en  forms of the verb  when it is used nominally--that is, when it fills the function of a noun.  (Camping is fun; We enjoy camping.)  In other words, to call a verb a gerund automatically brands it as a nominal.

 

The term "participle" is a fuzzy one, not at all clear-cut like "gerund."  "Participle" has two meanings:  It traditionally refers not only to the -ing and -en forms themselves, known as the present participle and past participle--in other words, a designation of form--but also to those forms when they are used adjectivally (The sleeping baby looks peaceful; The movie directed by Clint Eastwood won the Oscar)--a designation of function. 

 

However, despite that traditional limitation of function to adjectivals, there are occasions when the -ing form modifies verbs, as in Michael's example.  So it makes sense to expand on the traditional "participle as verbal" definition to include adverbials as well as adjectivals.  In "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language," Quirk et al. do precisely that when they discuss (on p. 506) what they call "obligatory adjuncts" [in other words, obligatory adverbials] with certain verbs (sit, stand, come, go) such as "He stood waiting," She sat reading,"  "She came running."  In other words, these are intransitive verbs that in certain contexts are incomplete without adverbials.

 

I think it's fair to conclude, then, that to limit the verbal/participle to "modifier of nouns"--that is, to say that participles modify only nouns and not verbs--is not accurate when it comes to certain verbs, as described by Quirk et al.--and by Michael.

 

In Ed's explanation of  "We go camping every summer," instead of expanding the definition of "participle" to include adverbials, he has expanded the definition of gerund.   I prefer to leave the definition of gerund as an -ing or -en verb that fills a nominal function.  (While it's true that nouns and noun phrases can indeed modify verbs, they are not functioning nominally when they do so; they are functioning adverbially.)

 

(I should mention also that in his KISS grammar Ed has come up with a solution to that dual use of the term "participle":  He calls the adjectival use of -ing and -en verbs "gerundives." )

 

In my explanations of modern grammar, I try to use traditional terminology that has wide acceptance whenever possible, but sometimes, as in the case of "participle," that terminology may have to be explained in new, more accurate ways; it may have to be redefined.  Another example, just to make the point clear, is the definition of "pronoun":  A pronoun generally substitutes for a nominal (a complete noun phrase, even a verb phrase or clause)--not just a noun, as the traditional definition tells us.

 

My apologies for going so far afield from camping.  

 

Martha Kolln

 

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