Maureen:
The “exists” interpretation of the verb be is
exploited heavily by philosophers, but I’m not sure it’s a common
interpretation in everyday English. To me, “The car is here” is
more like “the car has this position as one of its current
characteristics” than like “the car exists in this position.”
That is, copular be is used to mark the introduction of a description or
statement of identity, rather than to mark the state of existence.
If we take the “exists” interpretation, “George
is in the library” would be, basically, “George exists in the
library” – with the connotation that he doesn’t exist
when he’s outside that structure. And quite a few uses of copular be
aren’t parallel with exist usages:
Harsh
climatic conditions existed in Scandinavia prior to the Viking age.
?Harsh
climatic conditions were in Scandinavia prior to the Viking age.
Using the copular be version creates the impression that
the harsh conditions are, in a sense, an entity that travels about, and
happened to park in Scandinavia for awhile, but it’s one of those
contexts in which we really do think of the conditions as appearing,
existing for awhile, then disappearing, rather than as moving on. Similarly,
exist can be used without any complement at all, unlike copular be:
I’m
not sure the proper conditions existed.
*I’m
not sure the proper conditions were.
“The election was on Tuesday” would, in a sense,
appear to fit the idea that the election did not exist before Tuesday and
ceased existing on Wednesday. But we talk about elections more as if they
“show up” on the right day than as if they come into existence on
that day. After all, the election can’t be “getting closer”
unless it already exists in some mental space, right? Language lets people mean
things, and a lot of those things are metaphorical.
Philosophers are constantly put in the position of needing a
word for a very specific concept and discovering that the language – whatever
language they’re using – doesn’t exactly have one. They then
go ahead and redefine an existing one, since they know their readers will not
have much tolerance for completely new words. In everyday English, “A
or B” usually means “you can have A, or you can have B, but
not both,” although in some cases it can also mean “you can have A,
or B, or both.” English philosophers decided that “or” in
philosophy texts was going to mean the latter only, and that choice has
confused many generations of Philosophy 101 students. “BE = EXIST”
is, I think, in roughly the same category.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Maureen
Kunz
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 2:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Prepositional Phrases as Subject Complements
Re: "To be"
I'm jumping into the middle of this discussion, and I
apologize in advance if I've missed some important preceding
pieces. I'm using the traditional concepts of action and
linking verbs. (Action verbs may or may not take object complements
(transitive or intransitive), and linking verbs always take subject
complements (predicate nominatives or predicate adjectives).
Doesn't Descartes' Cogito ergo sum employ
"sum" as an action verb (a verb that may or may not take an object
complement)? In this context, doesn't "I am" means "I
exist" as an intransitive action verb?
"The car is here," then, means the car exists
here, sits here, and "here" is
an adverb that modifies the action verb "is." In
"Deb was in her car," the adverbial prepositional phrase seems
to modify the action verb "was" rather than working as
a predicate nominative.
"The election was on
Tuesday." If "was" means existed
or occurred, then the prepositional phrase is an
adverbial phrase modifying the action verb "was."
I'm chuckling over "God is
forever." Is "forever" an adverb modifying the action verb
"is" or a predicate adjective,albeit one with an adverbial time
element? I suspect religious wars could be fought on this subject.
-Maureen