On Wed, 1 Jan 1997 21:20:41 -0800 Johanna Rubba said:
 
>I don't have time to reply fully to Bob's response, but let me just say
>this: if by 'meaning' you mean truth value, then the examples Bob gives
>are indeed synonymous. If, however, you have a more detailed idea of
>meaning, then the examples are not synonymous. Notice, for example, that
>the three Rush sentences would not be intoned in the same way. _One_
>function of punctuation is to signal whatever it is that intonation
>signals in speech. Another thing is clausal relationship, which should
>differ across all three examples (and the movement possibilities suggest
>that this is the case). The relations between clauses that a speaker
>wishes to express are an aspect of meaning, otherwise we would never have
>a reason to prefer a semicolon over a period over a subordinate clause.
 
I want to return to the original claim:  that focus on just form is
less helpful in applied linguisitics than showing how form/meaning
are related.  There might very will be intonation differences in my
example sentences with `but,' `however,' `although.' I wonder, even if we could
get the facts right, whether we would want to explain the difference with
intonation differences or with movement differences.
 
>The 'enjoy' and 'please' sentences can't mean the same thing, if you
>count focus as an aspect of meaning (functionalists do). The argument
>structure is, of course, reversed for the two verbs. Argument structure
>is also a part of meaning, in cognitive linguistics. I would bet that the
>two sentences would be found to occur in different discourse contexts.
>This turns out to be the case for a lot of supposedly synonomous
>constructions. Not noticing this comes from too heavy a focus on the
>sentence level of language.
 
Again, the claim was what explanations are helpful in applied linguistics.
I can't come up with any clear discourse difference between please and enjoy
and I doubt any one else can without doing some kind of corpus analysis.
Two points: 1) The difficulty of defining those discourse contexts
as opposed to the absolute certainty we all have that the "experiencer" of
enjoy is in the subject position and the "experiencer" of please is in the
object position shows that we are dealing with different kind of knowledge
about language.  2) Let us assume that the "bet" is right: there are different
discourse contexts.  What has been shown?  Not a whole lot.  Language use
is creative.  There are any number of sentences in this passage that are new,
at least to me.  I am using constructions that I have never used in any
text before.  Other than the typos that are here what kind of
discourse principles are work that explain why any one structure is used over
another?
 
>A lot of the difference between cognitive/functional and generative
>linguistics is in where the boundaries between components are drawn,
>whether or not full predictability is insisted upon, and whether you are
>satisfied to stop at a 'syntactic' explanation such as 'the syntactic
>properties of the verbs are different' (i.e., their argument structure
>is different; in generative ling. arg. structure is not a part of
>semantics; in cog/fxnl ling it is), or whether you go on to look for
>semantic stuff that underlies the syntactic behavior. Looking 'behind'
>the syntax to meaning and discourse DOES provide explanations.
 
The boundaries are notoriously hard to draw.  I refer you do The Linguistics
Wars by Randy Harris.   From an applied linguistics perspective it is important
to look at some of the discourse contraints on certain forms but distribution
is not explanation.
 
>Bob, can you tell me why we can say 'John resembles his father' but not
>'John is resembling his father'; and why 'Sue knows the answer'can  have
>moment-of-speaking reference, while 'Sue builds a canoe' cannot?
 
I will grant there are meaning contraints in the root verb on morphology.
The progressive morphology changes aspect in other ways, too.
 
      1) The girl hit the bully in the stomach.
      2) The girl was hitting the bully in the stomach.
 
In (1), one blow was made while in (2) several blows were made.  On the other,
Quirk et al observe there is no difference between (3) and (4).
 
      3) The weather changed before midnight.
      4) The weather was changing before midnight.
 
All of these differences, and the one Johanna presents, shows the meaning
constraints in the root word on morphology.  This is not to say that ALL
form is related to meaning differences.
 
I like the competence/performance distinction.  As an applied linguist, I
find it very useful to keep in mind when I am thinking about what kind of
knowledge about language I am teaching.  It seems that many do not find it
a useful distinction and that is unfortunate.
 
Johanna, how was LSA?
 
Bob, Central Missouri State University, [log in to unmask]