Bob, Since I have a stack of essay exams I'm supposed to be grading, I'll quibble with you on this one. While the eager to / easy to alternation is certainly amenable to analysis in terms of deep syntactic structure and subject/object distinctions, one can also characterize the alternation in terms of different semantic roles associated with the elements (so in effect, it's more like an agent/patient distinction, rather than a subject/object one). R&K's failure to show a difference between these two, in that kind of analysis, isn't a failure to indicate structural relations -- and no one's ever said R&K is that good at indicating semantic roles, despite the way it cheats with indirect objects. Bill Spruiell Dept. of English Central Michigan University -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:22 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Please analyse this - from John Curran I have to take issue with the following statement by Martha. >>> Martha Kolln <[log in to unmask]> 11/17/2008 7:08 AM >>> R&K diagrams aren't perfect. But they do a good job of showing the structural relationships of sentence parts, no matter where in the sentence they appear, distinguishing form and function. **** My understanding of RK diagrams is that both 1 and 2 would be diagramed the same. 1) John is easy to please. 2) John is eager to please. The relationship of John to please is different in these two sentences. In (1), John is the object of please; in (2) John is the subject of please. Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri 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/