Bob, I wouldn't actually claim that *everything* about language is learned simply from exposure to it. Everyone, I think, would acknowledge that we bring something to the learning process; the disagreement is over whether the something(s) are general cognitive abilities that are used for other things as well (like math, or cooking, or building design), or (instead) faculties that are specific to language only. For that mixed construction we started with, I *can* sketch out a possible SFL treatment of it -- just keep in mind that this is off the top of my head, and can't be taken as evidence of what Halliday, etc. would do with it (in other words, if it's dumb, it's my fault, not the theory's). The sentence used a prepositional phrase with 'by' and omitted a formal subject. Here goes: Background points (omitting a discussion of the "triple-layer" approach in SFL, for reasons of space): (1) The "default" English sentence maps Agent, Subject, and Theme onto the same element (the "subject" -- lowercase refers to the traditional category, uppercase refers to the SFL definition). (2) Adjuncts can't be Subjects -- it's part of the definition of Adjunct. (3) Circumstances are regularly mapped onto Adjuncts, and are frequently marked by prepositions The construction in question uses a Circumstance of Purpose, but positions it as Subject while retaining the marking that would be appropriate only to an Adjunct. This *may* occur because the speaker is treating the Purpose as a Theme, and purposes themselves are a bit agent-like; the statistical frequency of the Agent/Theme/Subject combination may be acting to "attract" an element that normally can't be used as a subject into subject position. Note that there is another quite frequent -- and annoying -- construction that almost does the same thing, but avoids the Adjunct-as-Subject glitch by plugging in a pronoun: By opening early, it allows the store to get more profit out of the day. I think the motivation for this is similar -- the Circumstance as Purpose is Thematic. Using a gerund (Opening early allows...) as subject would position the event encoded as the gerund to be Thematic as well, but it wouldn't mark it specifically as a Purpose. The student writer is emphasizing the "Purpose-ness" of the action at the expense of (to us) extra clunky phrasing, whereas formal writing would call for leaving implicit the purpose-marking in the interest of brevity. Sincerely, Bill Spruiell -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 5:57 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Mixed construction (was A short note on...) Bill, Your speculation on why they occur are all plausible. I would just observe that your explanations require appeals to various language principles interacting with each other. Such observations don't seem to match with a claim that our knowledge of language is strictly based on exposure to the language. Of course, you may be right here. "I suspect we *do* encounter a lot of those mixed constructions -- we just don't encounter them in writing. I know I've heard quite a few on news broadcasts and the like. " On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Biber et al. in the Grammar of Spoken and Written English do not index "mixed construction" and all of the references to "by" makes no mention of them. If they are frequent in the spoken language, this absence is strange. This is not the case elsewhere. For example, Biber et al. mention prefaces. (1) This woman, she's ninety. It notes that prefaces occur in conversation and not in academic writing. (p. 964). So, Biber et al. do note structures that occur only in the spoken language. ** Let's clear up something about "my view" of such forms in developing writing. Bill writes: ". . . in your view, they're probably performance errors and quite separate from what might count as evidence for linguistic competence." I'm interested in trying to understand why developing writers do what they do. I take a developmental perspective on such constructions. From the developing writer's perspective, I don't think these are performance errors. Rather, they represent something about such writer's competence. I think teaching needs to begin with where the student is, so a perspective that tries to understand the writer's principles is much more useful pedagogically than a perspective that says this is what the writer should be doing. One of the problems I have with systemic functional linguistics is that it really doesn't provide any insights into why developing writers do what they do. Halliday is quite clear his perspective of language is not about what a language user knows. Likewise, the belief that our knowledge of language is based solely on the language we have been exposed to doesn't offer much of an explanation except to speculate perhaps these structures are in the oral language and just haven't been noticed. 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/