Bruce,
Hmm, I'd not thought of that: that the singular "role"
might also contribute to the strangeness of the construction. This
question began as someone else's, and so I do not have those other
callouts. I can get them though.
I thought at first the problem might be that "request"
really needed a NP object, which someone else has suggested to me
off-list. But AHD4 offers "requested to see the evidence
firsthand" as an example of the use of the verb, and
"requested to see" sounds perfectly natural. Why is
"requests to see" idiomatic and "requests to assume"
odd? Is it the collision of the how we use "request" with
how we understand "assume"?
With respect to your analysis of "role," even were we
to expand the telegraphic original, and render "role" plural
instead, isn't the result still unsatisfactory in some fundamental
way? --
The developer requests to assume the
roles.
And why is it that if we change the construction, so that
"request" is no longer the verb, the noise vanishes?
--
The developer sends a request to assume
the role.
Somehow "a request to assume the role" works (okay,
it's not wonderful, but it works), while "requests to assume the
role" does not.
I'm so baffled by this . . .
Odile
At 6:32 AM -0700 9/13/12, Bruce Despain wrote:
Odile,
Can you give some of the others in the series, some that read fine, to
compare with?
Your suggestion that "requests"
is the origin, seems plausible: the primrose path is that the word is
a derived noun in the plural with developer serving as
the subject of the underlying verb. This would then be a NP
title heading: the requests that developers make to assume role(s).
It is not until the final s is found lacking that the
interpreter is obliged to back up and try again, or admit that many
requests may have the same role in common. In either case the
situation described is unfamiliar and the first NP is tried again,
this time with requests as a verb.
Bruce
--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
From: Odile Sullivan-Tarazi <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Unidiomatic construction?
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012
16:27:51 -0700
The following callout is one of a series (all telegraphic style)
that
describe the actions depicted in a complex figure --
Developer requests to assume role
The sentence is perfectly parallel with the others, all of which
read
fine. This one alone seems awkward. In fact, to my ears, it does
not
sound idiomatic.
Why?
Has it something to do with restrictions on the way in which we
use
either "request" or "assume"? Restrictions which
we may not
consciously recognize as native speakers, but which we abide by
nonetheless? I don't think it's a structural thing. Or am I
missing
something on that score?
I can't puzzle it out. I'm hoping someone here can enlighten me.
Thanks!
Odile
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