Bob,
   I don't want to get into the middle of a very rich and interesting
theoretical talk by thoughtful linguists, but I do want to say that
comparing Molly Ivins wonderful coinage to the kind of things kids do
when they haven't evolved an adult grammar is not productive.  Somehow,
we need a view of grammar that helps us all become better at using the
language, a way of differentiating between accident and orchestration,
between awkwardness and genius. She may have lucked upon the construct,
but she liked it and kept it and used it, and whether or not it works
has everything in the world to do with its real world (rhetorical)
context. I would like to be able, in a classroom, to talk to students
about it as an extension of the usual transitivity of the verb and ASK
THEM what they think it means and whether they find it effective within
its context.  I would also like them to understand that writers stretch
the language in order to carry out important purposes, and I would like
them to admire writing that accomplishes that in creative and
interesting ways. Whether we use SFG for that or not is a secondary
question.
     Molly Ivins makes me laugh and makes me think.  Much can be gained
by looking at how she does that and how the grammar of her text helps
carry out those wonderful purposes. In order to do that, I need to work
with a grammar that acknowledges that those questions MATTER, not a
grammar that tells me they are unimportant and irrelevant.
    I would love to see generative grammar extended into those realms.
 What I am usually told, instead, is that generative grammar was never
intended to be a pedagogical grammar,  that it tells us what native
speakers know unconsciously but not how to put a conscious understanding
of that into useful practice. It has, in fact, not advocated that the
grammar be brought into a conscious understanding.
     What are we left with if the only ACCURATE linguistic grammar is
fundamentally disinterested?  Are we left with a choice between a
dysfunctional traditional grammar and nothing at all?
     Are you at all surprised that some of us would find answers to
these questions in SFG, even value SFG because it seems to address our
interests and concerns?
    I hope this doesn't come across as argumentative.  I don't think
these problems will be solved by the triumph of one camp over the other.
 We need, in fact, to open up to each other and learn from each other.

Craig



kaboyates wrote:

> I  find Bill's last post interesting about SFG (systemic functional
> grammar).  Remember that this discussion is about the following
> observation:
>
>> My point, I guess, is that we run into trouble if we think of=20
>> complements as dictated by the nature of the verb (like indirect
>> object=20
>> or beneficiary, which only certain verbs will support) and as
>> occurring=20
>> in the predicate, precisely because that doesn't allow us to
>> acknowledge=20
>> the flexibility available to us as we construct meaningful discourse.
>
>
>
> Bill's example from Molly Ivins can be accounted for in other ways.
>
>> We need at least $10 billion in new taxes to fix this without harming
>> the schools. The alternative is a $2 billion fix patch on the old system
>> that will further decay the schools.
>>
>> Now, 'decay' isn't really supposed to be a transitive verb, but she's
>> using it as one, and it flows rather naturally (creating a rather nice
>> parallel structure).
>>
> Notice the specially pleading here:  "it flows rather naturally."
> There is a large body of research on
> causatives (in other words, indicating that X caused Y).  In fact little
> kids, have difficulty in figuring it out.
> For example, such statements are not at all unusual in first language
> learners of English.
>
>            1)  Mommy, I felled the milk.  (I caused the milk to fall.)
>
>
> The example from Ivins  is along this line.  If little kids want to
> create causative constructions, then we should not
> be surprised that adults do the same.  However, this example does not
> show that discourse "dictated" this particular
> construction.
>
> I have no idea what this means without example.
>
>> If the argument structure of a clause is determined by
>> its verb, it's hard to account for anomalous argument structures
>> (shouldn't it cause a problem? A kind of thetastrophe?).
>>
>
>
> One has to be very careful about overgeneralizing from very particular
> examples.
>
>> Halliday has been very careful to link his
>> distinctions among process types to specific characteristics of
>> structure. For example, what in traditional grammar are called direct
>> objects of a number of cognition and locution verbs behave differently
>> than the direct objects of physical action verbs:
>>
>> 1.a        I ate a sandwich.
>>   b       ?A sandwich, I ate.
>>
>> 2.a        I said, "Hello."
>>   b       "Hello," I said.
>>
>> While 1b is certainly possible, it's far more marked than is 2b, which
>> is actually a rather common pattern in narrative dialog. This is one of
>> the features upon which Halliday bases his distinction between "material
>> processes" and "mental processes" - the latter are realized by V X
>> constructions in which X is a frontable complement which is usually
>> clausal; the former  are realized by V X constructions in which X is a
>> non-frontable complement which usually isn't clausal.
>>
> I am bothered by phrases such as the following "rather common pattern."
> There are some very interesting constraints
> on when (1b) is possible. (See the discussion of Birner, Ward, and
> Huddelston in The Cambridge Grammar of English).
>
> Halliday's distinction as reported by Bill is not quite accurate.  The
> complement of the "mental process" verbs is restricted to the
> actual speech or thought.  The preposing the reported speech or thought
> is as decidedly odd  as 1b.
>
>     3a   Throckmorton said that he is coming tomorrow.
>       b)  ?That he is coming tomorrow, Throckmorton said.
>
> This is the claim supporters of SFG make.
>
>> The system is, however, useful to many analysts, and it's
>> internally consistent.
>>
> Several years ago Jim Kenkel and I looked at this claim and found that
> SFG is not internally consistent.  Send me a note off-line and I can
> send an
> electronic version of it.
>
> Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University
>
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