<One of my students asked my why "according to . . . " is not a participial phrase, and I could not tell her why.

 

I’d say that one way to answer this is to indicate that ”according to” has lost its verbal properties, if it ever had any.  The term “participle” is a functional term; by definition, a participle has to be a verb form that functions as an adjective.  In this sense, it is sort of half verb and half adjective.  Participles (and gerunds and infinitives) can expand into phrases by taking their own modifiers and complements with the whole phrasal unit attached to the substantive being modified (several verbals in this sentence for illustration). 

 

If you can get your 7^th graders to see that “According to the police, the thief entered the building” differs significantly from “Breaking the window, the thief entered the building.”  In the second example, the thief is performing the action of breaking the window, and “window” functions as the direct object of the participle.  You might also play around with dangling participles, which are always fun for students, to show the importance of the connection between the participle and the substantive it modifies.

 

Best,

Clint

 

Clinton Atchley, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of English

Box 7652

1100 Henderson Street

Henderson State University

Arkadelphia, AR  71999

Phone: 870.230.5276

Email: [log in to unmask]

Web:  http://www.hsu.edu/atchlec

 

 

Scott,

You've got a pedagogical problem that I wouldn't presume to advise you on. You know 7th graders a lot better than I do. But I do think the notion "productivity" is useful here. A derivation is productive if the meaning of the derived form is clearly the sum of the meanings of the stem and the affix and if there are no unpredictable changes in pronunciation. The present participles used in compound prepositions no longer mean the same thing they mean when used as participles. In

"Considering Jack's qualifications, I would not appoint him as a judge."

"considering" means something like "on the basis of", another compound preposition. In

"We are currently considering Jack's qualifications for the bench."

"considering" means "thinking carefully about."

This difference is the product of regular historical processes that bleach the meaning of a content word as it begins to behave more like a function word, a process known as "grammaticalization." "Will" and "would" as auxiliary verbs are more advanced cases of grammaticalization.

But, as I noted, I don't know how appropriate content like that would be to a 7th grade class.

Herb




Herb,

The problem with these words is that they have the same form, so any attempt to include them in a lesson on how words can change form and also shift meaning would highlight the fact that these words do not change form. From the point of view of a twelve-year-old, they are the same word since they have the same form, the same pronunciation, and can take the same slots in clauses and phrases. They know that words have multiple meanings, so showing them how a word used prepositionally in one sentence has a different sense than its twin used participially in another is unlikely to be helpful.

My main problem is that I myself do not see the difference between them. Why would we call any of these -ing ending words prepositions at the head of a prepositional phrase when we could call them participles at the head of a participial phrase? How could I tell when one is being used participially or prepositionally?

Scott Woods

"STAHLKE, HERBERT F" wrote:
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Scott,

The key part of your question is making the facts clear to 7th graders. The problem arises because we have two words spelled the same and apparently having the same morphological analysis. The roots of these words have meanings as verbs that are different from the meanings they have in compound prepositions. Would it be possible to present them as part of a lesson on morphological derivation and productivity? We can add -ness to lots of adjectives and get nouns that are semantically transparent, that is, the word becomes a noun that names the quality described by the adjective. But adding -ant or -ent to a verb produces adjectives that frequently are not semantically transparent, that is, that don't simply treat as a quality or characteristic the meaning of the verb. Consider abound/abundant, compete/competent, confide/confident, ignore/ignorant, etc. In these cases, whether because the stem vowel changes or because the meaning of the derived adjective is not
predictable from the combination of stem plus suffix, the derivational morphology is not productive. Obviously this presentation is a little dense for 7th graders, but I suspect it could be simplified, and in the process they'd learn something of word derivation and the concept of productivity.

Herb

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 6:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: preposition versus present participle


Listmates,



In a number of texts (Greenbaum's, Kolln & Funk's, Warriner's, among others), several -ing ending words which seem to be participles of verbs are listed among the prepositions. These include according to, concerning, considering, following, failing, and including. What is the distinction between prepositional phrases beginning with such words and participial phrases beginning with similar -ing participles? Can the same word function as either a preposition or a participle, depending on how it is used? Are there any suggestions for how this might be explained to bright 7th graders?



Thanks,

Scott Woods



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