Yeah - I meant 'me.' What I was really trying to get at is whether or not people ever call 'for me' in 'Joe baked a cake for me' an indirect object, since it seems to be doing the same thing as 'me' in 'Joe baked me a cake.' I had learned that prepositional phrases can't be major sentence elements like subjects and objects, but that seems to be substantially more complex. 'For me to criticize him would be foolish.' Here 'for me' seems to be the subject of the infinitive clause. I know that 'for' constructions introduce some non-finite structures, but can we still call them prepositions? I also wondered whether people use the term 'retained object complement.' I like it, but I think my students feel it goes way beyond what anyone should be required to know. My state, Washington has teacher tests. We use Praxis by ETS. Students are required to take a basic skills test, which we require students to take before entering our teacher ed program. Then, if they get an endorsement such as ESOL or bilingual education, they have to take a test for that. These are the tests that my students are preparing for, and the test really asks them questions about grammar. Examples: My sister and I always loved sledding down the hill behind our house. The underlined word in the sentence above is an example of (A) a conjunction (B) a participle (C) a gerund (D) an adverb We went to a restaurant, and dinner was cook very bad. The underlined words in the sentence are an example of an error in (A) question formation (B) relative clause formation (C) passive formation (D) command formation Now I'm careful to use words like 'gerund,' which I didn't used to use, because I know they see it on the test. Janet -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:53 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Clause or Phrase Janet, These are wonderful questions. Much of what I would say Bill covers, so I'll add a few sidenotes. I have struggled through the same questions and feel a little more settled in my thinking. I think it's so much more important to describe the structure than it is to put it in the "right" category. So looking closely at these non-finite structures and saying they usually are missing a subject (not always) and aren't grounded with finite verbs is probably the most important thing. My students seem OK with saying we'll call them clauses, but traditional grammar calls them phrases. I end up doing somewhat the same thing with "gerund" as a term. I don't like it, but it's out there, and it helps to at least point out what the word refers to for the people who use it. I start out with "the elements of the simple clause", so I cover postnominal modification with prepositional phrases first and say there are other word groups in that slot that we'll cover later. That seems to work for me. I sometimes postpone restrictive and non-restrictive modification until later as well. Appositional phrases also fit in that slot, but I don't bring them in right away. I think you mistakenly ask about "Joe" as indirect object in your cake sentence. My guess is you meant "me". I like the multi-functional analysis of functional gramamr for that one. From that view, the transitivity system helps us represent the world. The clause gives us processes and participants and circumstances andestablishes participant roles. We also have systems in place for construing that event in different ways. In passives, for example, the direct or indirect object gets shifted into the grammatical subject slot without changing their real world roles. ("The cake was baked by Joe. I was baked the cake by Joe." In both these cases, Joe is obviously still doing the baking.) This can also give us a way to put different information in the usual given slot and in the clause ending slot we usually use for new information. "Who was the cake for?" "The cake was baked for me." "What did Joe bake you?" "Joe baked me a cake." "Who baked the cake? "The cake was baked by Joe." Students seem to enjoy putting a clause through its various permutations and then reflecting on how that "construes" the process. We can also say something like "Joe baked all night", or "Joe baked with great care", not because we have stopped understanding that "baking" means you bake something and are probably doing that for some sort of beneficiary, but because those elements are not always in focus. Even categories like "transitive" and "intransitive" and "di-transitive" and "complex transitive" can be used to talk about the verb itself as well as about the structure of a particular clause. Is "Joe baked all night" intransitive? I think that's easier to understand if you realize the process hasn't changed, but certain aspects of it are simply not in focus for the statement. I have found that most state tests for students have no real knowledge content to them. Even the phrasing of the standards is something like "Can puncutate sentences," never anything like "can identify a participle phrase" or "Can differentiate compound sentences from compound predicates." Even the SAT simply asks students to pick a version that seems more effective or more correct. It never asks for terminology. Language, at least for students, is treated like a behavior. Are there teacher tests in your state? Craig How would you analyze this: Once upon a time, there was a prince named > Joe. > > > > Do you analyze a prince named Joe as a noun phrase with a participle > phrase modifying the noun head, or as a participle clause? I've always > called these non-finite constructions reduced clauses or participle > clauses, but I have run into a problem. In my grammar class for > pre-service teachers, I start with noun phrases. When I teach noun > modification, I want to teach students about post-modification, but they > really don't know anything about finite and non-finite verbs yet, nor do > they know much about clauses. So this semester, I decided I would just > call them participle phrases which modify nouns. But then I was in > trouble when we got to clauses because I wanted to call then reduced or > non-finite clauses. By that time, the students knew enough to say "Hey > wait a minute! Didn't you just tell us those were phrases?" At least I > know they were listening in October. > > > > Also, do you call 'Joe' a retained object complement, or is there a > better way to label this? > > > > How about this: Joe baked a cake for me. Can I just go ahead and call > 'Joe' an indirect object? It means exactly the same this as Joe baked me > a cake. > > > > This is an on-going problem for me, because, even though I try to teach > them a pretty straight forward descriptive-structural-functional view of > syntax (Quirk et al is my bible), with a little discussion of > prescriptivism thrown in so they'll know what to expect when they get > into the schools, I find that frequently there is more than one way to > analyze a given structure. This disturbs my students. They want to > know the 'right' way, and it better be the way that it is gong to show > up on the subject area test they have to take. Do you think there is > any consensus on the 'best' grammar approach to teach pre-service > teachers? This is not a trivial issue, since they have high-stakes > tests (for themselves and their students) principals and parents in > their futures. > > > > Comments? > > > > Janet Castilleja > > > 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/ 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/