>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> <<[log in to unmask]>
>Poster: Judy Diamondstone <<[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Adverb/adverbial and more
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Judy, I'm not sure what Plato would have said about the expletive it.
I don't know whether anything like that exists in Greek. In English,
"it" simply fills the subject slot. Some linguiests would call it a
sentence trapping. In lots of languages, perhaps Greek is one of
them, it's possible to make existential statements with the predicate
alone, as if we could say in Enlish,
Thursday.
Hot in here.
Of course, we don't do that. Plato might have called "it" the thing
named, which I guess is what onoma means. Here's what
R.H. Robins, in A SHORT HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS, says about Plato,
onoma, and rhema:
right,left. . . in his dialogues we
encounter a fundamental division of the Greek sentence into a nominal
and a verbal component, onoma and
rhema . . . which remained the primary grammaical
distinction underlying syntactic analysis and word classification in
all future linguistic descriptions.
A bit later, Robins explains how onoma
and rhema were reinterpreted by Aristotle and then by
the Stoic philosophers:
right,leftAristotle's onoma
was divided into proper noun, to which the term onoma
was applied, and common noun, prosegoria; and thirdly,
from within this, the class of adverbs was split off and named
mesotes, literally 'those in the middle', perhaps
because they belonged syntactically with the verbs but were mostly
associated morphologically with the noun stems.
Very interesting. The very concept adverb was originally a designation
of nouns by the Stoics.
Max
Max Morenberg, Professor
Department of English
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
Ph: 513-529-2520
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
right,left
>
>WOOPS I goofed. After thanking others for their
>carefulness.
>
>
>>But the subject is not a noun in adverbial guise:
>>
>> I leaned it against the wall
>
> Try this example instead: It is Thursday.
>
>heh...
>
>
>Judy
>
>
>>Does it sound sensible to you, making use of Plato's insight, that
>>there are two 'parts of speech' - participants and processes; the
>>participants may be "onema" OR complements, while the processes are
rhema
>> ?
>>
>>I hope the discussion continues.
>>
>>Judy
>>
>>
>>At 06:54 AM 3/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>>John is here.
>>>John is in the kitchen.
>>>John is in for it.
>>>
>>>When is the exam?
>>>The exam is Thursday.
>>>The exam is next week.
>>>
>>>Complement? Adverb? Adverbial?
>>>
>>>I'm afraid I can't see much of a problem here.
>>>
>>>A.
>>>
>>>First a definition:
>>>
>>>'Complement' is a general term denoting that there is more than just
the
>>>verb (or rather the verbal part) in a sentence. Everything that MUST
be
>>>added to create a sentence is a complement. With 'shine' only one
>>>complement is necessary, namely the subject, with 'put' three
complements
>>>are necessary (subject, object, adverbial of direction).
>>>
>>>There are several types of complements - S,O,A, subject complement,
object
>>>complement. Which of these are necessary depends on the individual
verb.
>>>See discussion on valences some time ago.
>>>
>>>'Be' is a verb that needs two complements, a subject and a subject
>>>complement or an adverbial.
>>>
>>>Subject complements:
>>> SC
>>>His clothes were / wet /.
>>>You are /teachers/.
>>>The point is /that nobody was aware of what was going on/.
>>>This is /what happened.
>>>
>>>Adverbials (see the above sentences).
>>>
>>>There is a great number of adverbial types: apart from the obvious
ones
>>>like place, direction, time, etc. there are many others, most of
which have
>>>no traditional name.
>>>
>>>The adverbial slot in a sentence with 'be' is mostly an adverbial of
place,
>>>but adverbials of time are not rare (see sentences above). Whether
the
>>>meaning of 'be' is a little different with place or time adverbials
is of
>>>no avail, because this is regularly the case when the valence
changes. A
>>>good example is 'take' - as any dictionary will illustrate.
>>>
>>>Apart from place and time adverbials after 'be', there are also
others, e.g.
>>> A
>>>They are/to be married in June/.
>>>He's been /to see his uncle/.
>>>
>>>This is one of the (traditionally) nameless adverbial types.
>>>
>>>B.
>>>
>>>Some problems that have been discussed arise only because 'adverb'
and
>>>'adverbial' are often used as synonyms, which, of course, they
aren't.
>>>
>>>'Adverb' denotes a word class, like 'noun', 'adjective'. 'Adverbial'
refers
>>>to a function in the sentence, like 'subject', 'object'. (In the
same way
>>>'verb' and 'verbal part' must be distinguished, or 'noun' and
'subject'...).
>>>
>>>The function of ADVERBIAL can be performed by all sorts of
structures:
>>>adverbs of course(here),but also adverb groups (quite nicely), noun
>>>(Thursday), noun group (every morning), prepositional phrase (on the
roof),
>>>wh-sentence (where no man has ever been), subclause structure
(because he
>>>wasn't home), to-inf sentence (to make her happy), etc.
>>>
>>>On the other hand, ADVERBS can perform a great number of functions,
not
>>>just adverbial, e.g. they can be attributes in adjective groups
(very
>>>fast), they can be disjuncts (fortunately, the man turned up),
conjuncts
>>>(however, this was quite different), and many more.
>>>
>>>Neither the term 'adverb' nor the term 'adverbial' should be seen as
a
>>>wastepaper basket term, as some will have it, where you put what you
can't
>>>explain. If things can't be explained, it just means that we don't
know
>>>enough yet, either as individuals or as linguists. In the latter
case more
>>>research is needed, that's all.
>>>
>>>By the way, in the scope and sequence discussion it was said that
teachers
>>>cannot be expected to understand linguistic models when they are a
little
>>>more adequate than the usual school grammar. Teachers are not that
dumb,
>>>good heavens, we are all teachers, one way or another. The problem
is that
>>>most teachers have never learned anything else. They were taught
school
>>>grammar in school (instead of learning to look at language itself),
then
>>>the same at college, and then by the textbooks they use as teachers.
By the
>>>time they have taught for a few years, they have internalized the
>>>traditional rules and have learned to negate their brains' protests
against
>>>illogical terminology and rules, and after that it is very difficult
to
>>>open their eyes and make them look 'naively' at language itself and
at the
>>>models they use. And so they teach school grammar again, and the
cycle
>>>starts anew.
>>>
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Burkhard Leuschner - Paedagogische Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend,
Germany
>>>E-mail: [log in to unmask] [h] Fax: +49
7383 2212
>>>HTTP://WWW.PH-GMUEND.DE/PHG/PHONLINE/Englisch/index.htm
>>>
>>
>
>
>Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
>Graduate School of Education
>Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
>10 Seminary Place
>New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
>
>Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm Blake