Sorry about that blank message. I hit "send" by accident.
I tend to come at some of the questions we discuss here more from a historical perspective (not "an historical", by the way, because I don't drop the /h/, an irrelevant side issue). One area of grammar we discussed some time back, the choice of "that" or a "wh-" word to introduce a relative clause, is another such case. The grammar of "wh-" relatives started out in the 14th c. with Latin-trained writers who extended Latin grammar, in which question words and relative pronouns are virtually indistinguishable, to English, which till that time had introduced relative clauses in a number of ways including using an article, as in German, using the word "tha" (yes, no <t>), which was a bit like modern "that", and using nothing at all to introduce the relative clause, as we still do commonly in English today. As the use of question words as relative pronouns spread in English and got formulated more rigorously in the 18th c. it remained a feature of educated English. Ordinary people didn't use it. They used, increasingly, "that" and nothing at all, although "as" and "at" also got used. However, less educated speakers would hear wh- relatives and would attempt to produce them, frequently hypercorrecting by using a wh-word in places where no educated English user would, as in
We were going to have a picnic Saturday, which it rained.
I've heard and even read that sort of construction fairly often in Modern American English, where wh- relatives remain a feature of educated usage. Families that have a history of education pass such grammatical features on to the next generation pretty easily, and families with less of an educational tradition don't, so that their children tend to have a somewhat more difficult time mastering formal edited English.
Prepositions are also an area in which there is an educated usage that is passed on not just through the schools but, and probably more effectively, through generations in educated families. Now, why would this be so, and why would prepositions be such a problem? Modern English has a huge wealth of prepositions, so many, and with such collocational peculiarities, that they, along with the determiner system and the auxiliary system, are among the worst parts of the language for non-native speakers to master. But the rich array of 40 or so prepositions, not including all of the compound prepositions, is a relatively recent development. With the final near-total loss of case suffixes on nouns in Late Middle English, the 15th c., other ways had to be found to mark the role and relationship of a noun phrase to the rest of the sentence, and prepositions proliferated for this purpose. But this proliferation came at a time when English grammarians were beginning to write grammars in earnest, and they represented only a small subset of the users of these new prepositions. They, however, tended to represent the better educated and more prestigious and influential users, and so rules got formulated and passed down that represented their usage and their sense of what was logical or tasteful. That too has gotten passed down through education and across generations within educated families.
However, all this time, preposition usage was developing, with a great deal of variation, in the speech of less educated people, and modern preposition usage reflects both the educated and the common developments. And there has always been enough variation and uncertainty in preposition usage that prepositions could become social markers in subtle and arbitrary ways. I think that's where we are today, reflecting multiple linguistic traditions, with the prestige and politics of Standard English leading to prescriptive judgments about which preposition is used where, when a lot of such usage is largely arbitrary.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Spruiell, William C
Sent: Wed 12/20/2006 2:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: usage question
A couple of quick responses to different points:
(1) Re. Yates's comment about Halliday -- Given any state of affairs,
speakers have a choice of how to construe it, and thus a choice of how
to "grammar" it (including the kind of grammatical metaphor that leads
to, for example, the use of "grammar" as a transitive verb). The ability
to do so, and the range of options available, is not arbitrary, but the
factors leading a particular individual to react a particular way in a
particular situation are complex enough to render absolute prediction
impossible in most cases. Or to put it another way, it's not arbitrary
that when you roll a six-sided die, you get a number from one to six,
but the exact number is random within those limits. Where the
dice-rolling analogy breaks down is that there can be *customarily
frequent* options, whose high rate of incidence has less to do with only
having one or two options available than with social habits of
construction. For example, "I carded Bjorn" *could* mean I sent Bjorn a
Christmas card, or even that I attempted to inflict injury on poor Bjorn
with the kind of device that was originally used to 'card' wool or
cotton, but the transitive construction with 'card' is customarily tied
to I.D.-checking situations.
(2) On weird preposition usage: I *suspect* that students' odd use of
prepositions in papers is not mirrored in their speech; it's not a
matter of changing preposition usage as much as it is a matter of
awareness of language in print. I get the impression that some students
know there's some little word there or another, and just jot one down to
fill in the space. I do know that I have repeatedly encountered students
who have enormous difficulty paying conscious attention to what words
are there and what words aren't. I find this baffling and inexplicable,
but it happens. The imply/infer thing Johanna mentions, and "fancyisms"
like use of "in which" instead of "which," are another matter entirely.
And for what it's worth, I *don't* think we should give up on the
imply/infer distinction just yet. Those words aren't really common
enough to be caught up in a normal kind of semantic drift; it's just
that students encounter them so frequently that they don't really know
what they mean.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 1:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: usage question
I am confused by a Craig Hancock's recent post. Craig has a theoretical
commitment to Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. In the
preface to the 1994 edition of his Introduction to Functional Grammar,
Halliday writes, " Language has evolved to satisfy human needs . . . --
it is not arbitrary" (p. viii).
In his recent post Craig appears to acknowledge there are arbitrary
aspects of language, especially in this interface between the lexicon
and syntax with respect to the verb graduate.
>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 12/18/06 7:49 AM >>>
If we can "finish high school" I guess we ought to be able to
graduate it.
I think we can confuse logic with what sounds right. And if it sounds
right, then we look for logical explanations.
I like the way the talk has tended. We don't need to legislate as
much
as we itch to. Even though we like to think of ourselves as experts and
sources of good advice (with good cause), we need to be careful
observers from time to time.
The language does have a life of its own.
******
My own own understanding of the nature of language is what Craig posted
and not Halliday's claim that language is not arbitrary. I am glad we
agree on something.
Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
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/
|
