Dear Brad,
I should have stressed the distinction I made between an informative
statement and a sentence. Clearly we agree that portions of sentences can
elliptically function as complete statements; what is actually unexpressed
is taken to be understood, as in 'By the fridge' in answer to the question
'Where is this kettle?'. I also insist that if 'By the fridge' is heard out
of context then it is not a statement, only a sentence fragment, and perhaps
not even that -- suppose I was in Pakistan and I heard it -- I could not be
sure that it was not said by someone actually speaking Urdu!
Before discussing the pluperfect tense as I was taught to call it, let me
clear up the 'this kettle' point. 'This' as an adjective is often used to
refer to what an earlier speaker referred to, again, elliptically, for some
such sense as 'What is this kettle you are talking about?' So in the
circumstance I imagined, if the hearer has no idea what 'kettle of fish' is
being referred to, it is perfectly normal English to say 'What is this
kettle?'
Now as regards the Pluperfect or Past Perfect. When I was setting up the
circumstance, I did use the ordinary perfect ('the police were complacent'
and 'gave up their inquiries'), but that was me, outside the circumstance
telling you what it was. A person (not me) inside the circumstance actually
commenting upon the real case many years afterwards, would have said
"Someone had committed the murder; the police had no right to close the
case." That is perfectly good English.
For details on the use of the Past Perfect see Section 5.28, pages 272-73,
in Sidney Greenbaum, 'The Oxford English Grammar' (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996). There is no whisper there of 'had' before a past
participle not being normal English. You are surely not saying that the
Past Perfect does not exist!
In your own letter to the ATEG you yourself use the Past Perfect: you put
in brackets after 'precipitately' the past participle 'given'. Now a
participle cannot function as a verb on its own, so naturally we look back
to find the auxiliary 'had', and there it is in front of 'been'. You have
used 'had . . . given' without a murmur. (Compare 'They had scattered the
fleet and sunk the flagship before they returned to port' where the past
participle 'sunk' requires the earlier 'had' as understood before it) -- the
Past Perfect is required as indicating a time earlier than that of their
returning to port. If the time difference has not been significant, the
speaker could have used the Preterite -- 'They scattered the fleet and sank
the flagship before they returned to port'. The use with the Past Perfect
is more likely in a case where the speaker is correcting a misunderstanding
on the part of the hearer -- as if he or she had thought they had won these
victories after they had visited the port (and there I am using the Past
Perfect myself! -- 'had visited').
Edmond
Here's the full text of what I just sent to ATEG. I didn't want to criticize
your apparent 'had' errors in public, so I just sent the first part, which
is repeated below.
Read on, MacDuff, and damned be he who first cries, "hold enough".
I do hope you can switch to 'color and graphics" as I have taken the liberty
of interlining your interesting musings about kettles, even committed
kettles.
From: Edmond Wright <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Whodunit? - continued
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Saturday, August 9, 2008
Brad,
If I am asked "Where is this kettle?" and I answer "By the fridge", it would
seem according to your lights that "By the fridge" is not a sentence on its
own unless it has such a context around it (as here the question).
That is perfectly true, but it does not at all mean that "By the
fridge" because of that fact can never be a sentence, or, better, an
informative statement.
"By the fridge" is shorthand for "The kettle is by the fridge", which is a
sentence. "By the fridge" means almost nothing by itself, even though it
does convey a bit of information, just as saying "ugh" conveys a bit of
information, but "ugh" is not a sentence.
Just also as I might be strolling the Strand and pass Edmond going the other
way. I might say, "morning". Is "morning" a sentence? Or is "morning"
shorthand for, "I say there, Edmond old chap, how very nice to see you.
Sorry I can't stop to chat but I do hope you have yourself a pleasant day
... and do say 'hello' to Mabel for me"?
It's conventional, proper, shorthand but "morning" is not a sentence.
Similarly with '"Someone had committed the murder", for if one heard (as in
the case of a murder many years before where the police (had been)
were grossly complacent and precipitately (given) gave up their inquiries),
one might justifiably and sarcastically say "Someone (had) committed the
murder; the police had no right to close the case!" So you cannot put "Not
a sentence" by it as if sentencehood was completely ruled out. So one must
agree with Scott's last remark.
I hope you agree that one might not justifiably and sarcastically say,
"Someone had committed the murder" but rather would say,
"Someone committed the murder; the police had no right to close the case!"
Certainly, if one is teaching students how various grammatical units can
contribute to a a complete sentence, 'by the fridge' would be described as
merely a prepositional phrase, adjectival or adverbial as the case may be,
but in the elliptical interchange of everyday speech one can rely on memory
to fill in what one leaves out. But "Someone had committed the murder" has
all that a grammatical sentence requires, except that 'had' does not belong
in front of the past tense verb 'committed' : subject and predicate, and
their respective parts. If you are going to add the requirement that nothing
is a sentence unless its meaning can stand without a context, you will rule
out all sentences. I didn't say that. I don't even know what it means. Even
"Where is this kettle?" is ambiguous on its own -- someone might have just
said "That's an odd kettle of fish!"
I'm having trouble getting hold of "this kettle". One wouldn't say "this
kettle" unless one had the kettle in one's hand and that would make
it nonsensical. "I can't find my glasses anywhere." "They're on your head."
Were you to say, "where is the kettle?", the reply would likely be, "what
kettle?", unless we both knew what kettle you're talking about and then I'd
likely say, "The kettle is by the fridge."
Wow! You really stretched for your kettle kwestion.
Yours, Edmond.
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