Craig,
The divisive part was simply saying that students and investigators have one of two goals that are at odds. I think both things happen in language. The interpreter attempts to fit the words into a known pattern. If that fails at a reasonable understanding, then the other patterns that the words suggest are tried, with the bending of the other words until something reasonable with the least bending comes out. The idea is that both processes are needed. Sometimes our creations challenge the sensibilities of others by using unrecognized patterns that have been bent. Sometimes they do so because they use words in different ways or different words than we are used to. Our goal ought to be the discovery of the rules of either kind that are being bent.
I believe that there are rules, but that each person finds them to be differently constructed according to their own mental constructs. I believe that successful communication requires that there be a degree of commonality to the rules we use. Each word seems to bring with it a set of patterns it can be found in (constructions). Each situation seems to suggest a set of words that fit parts of what is going on in the world (semantic nets). The structuralists have begun with the simplest of patterns. This can be frustrating. The systemic functionalists have begun with the simplest kinds of communication and interactions. This can also be frustrating. Most linguistic schools have some valuable insights about the whole process. Maybe someday they will be able to meet somewhere in the middle.
Bruce
--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Object complement (richness of language)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:17:23 -0500
Bruce,
This is a conversation I routinely have with my own students. I didn't
mean it to be divisive and polarizing. I welcome the reference to our
current political situation. We have a responsibility as educators to
cultivate the right kind of civility in a country that seems deeply in
need of it. I don't mind being being corrected if I cross a border. I
have probably done that a few times in the past and hope not to do
that again, though I also believe we need to cultivate an atmosphere
where nonmainstream views are welcomed to the list. You and I have
disagreed quite often, but I have almost always benefited from the
chance to see things from your side.
What I found at the LSA conference is that there are not many people
working in applying linguistics to L1 instruction. Most of those are
interested in dialects, not in syntax, probably because there is such
strong resistance to syntax in NCTE. At the same time, there is
confusion and concern about why English teachers teach so little about
language. We are a rare group, believe me. My own talk was enormously
well received, which makes me believe there is so much value in
conversation between these worlds and an interest in doing so. There
is much to be gained by collaboration. ATEG, as dysfunctional as it
may be at times, is at least an attempt at that. I have always
advocated for a big tent ATEG and will continue to do so, even with
the occasional flare up of anger.
I once believed that there were underlying "rules" in the language
(not just prescriptive rules)that governed the production of language.
I once believed that words are simply placed into pre-existing slots.
On the functionalist side, this is sometimes called a "rules and
words" approach. It assumes a separation between syntax and
vocabulary. From that perspective, our primary task is to describe
which of the underlying rule governed patterns a sentence falls into.
I think Martha Kolln (Whom I have great affection and respect for)
takes that approach in Understanding English Grammar. It's the basic
approach of American Structural Grammar. C. C. Fries, for example, who
has been a large influence on Martha, presented the grammar as a
"structural meaning", the lexicon then adding to that. (For the
moment, we can leave the generative approach to the side. I think it
goes even further in that direction.) When I teach grammar from this
perspective, students often feel high levels of frustration when
sentences don't fit neatly into these patterns and words or word
groups don't fit neatly into their slots. If our primary goal is
classifying sentences into these categories, sentences at the
boundaries can seem like a troubling problem.
In my own classes, I find it helps to shift the focus to another
possibility, that these are not so much rules as patterns. From
another perspective, there is no split between syntax and vocabulary.
These can be seen as simply poles in a cline, with the vocabulary
being simply the most delicate form of the grammar. (That's Halliday's
view of it, but also the view in construction grammar and cognitive
grammar.) Some patterns are so highly productive that they come almost
to seem like abstract rules, but it is nevertheless possible to see
them emergent, arising from use and sustained by use. When we deal
with transitivity, some verbs will be far more central to the
category. "Give," for example, is very much a prototypical
di-transitive verb, perhaps the best example of the category. The
direct object is sometimes called a "transferred entity" in this
category, and that usually works for "give" but not nearly as well for
"present" or "offer," especially if the presentation was murky or
ignored or the offer is not welcome. Speech act verbs (like "telling")
seem to form a sub-category. And then we have "sending" and "showing"
and "teaching" and "building" (for a beneficiary), which each have
verbs somewhat like them, and it's clear that some members of the
category sometimes seem like each other, but more peripheral to the
overall class. I have found with my own students that this seems a
less frustrating (and richer) way to explore transitivity.
You are absolutely right; no matter what view you take, you can't
ignore patterns and forms. a functional grammar does not and cannot
dispense with form; it simply deals with it in a different way.
In biology, the view of life as a "complex adaptive system" is pretty
much uncontested. In language, you are right; it can be thought of as
divisive because it differs from more mainstream views in central
ways. It is not intended to be divisive, but intended to be offered as
an alternative way to understand the complex living world of language.
Craig
I love to see Craig broaden the analysis, but am mildly troubled by the
> statement:
>
> "If our primary goal is to classify, this is problematic. If our
> primary goal is to respect the richness of language, this is
> reassuring."
>
> I believe the challenge is to do both. Like so much political debate
> this kind of talk can be divisive and polarizing. The classification of
> verbs
> (just like that of nouns, adjectives, etc.) involves both sub-classes
> and cross-classes based on both distribution and denotation. Both
> kinds of classes and both kinds of criteria (syntactic, semantic)
> are regularly taken into account. These are the sources of the
> richness. Through analogy and metaphor the language we use allows us
> to create new meanings with old constructions and new constructions
> for old meanings.
>
> Bruce
> --- [log in to unmask] wrote:
> From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Object complement
> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:56:00 -0500
> TJ,
> Recent grammars expand the notion of "object complement" (though
> they may not use the term) to include adverbials. "We leaned the
> ladder against the shed." Your be verb analysis would work for those:
> "The ladder is against the shed."
> We also have sentences like "He left us dying with laughter." The
> be test works for this one also. "We were dying with laughter."
> The problem with the be test for infinitives is probably its
> difficulty in combining with an infinitive. "The coast guard
> permitted fishing vessels to trawl." "The fishing vessels were to
> trawl" is awkward, whereas "were trawling" would work.
> All of this suggests that the boundary of the category gets fuzzy
> for concepts like allowing and permitting. The prototypes for these
> constructions (most central) are causative. The direct object is
> changed in some way. (He made me captain. He made me happy. He made
> me laugh.) Allowing and permitting allow for some volition on the
> part of the object. (Just because we were allowed to trawl doesn't
> mean we actually did it.)
> When we roughly classify verbs and their complements into a small
> number of types, a few will fit very centrally and some will seem
> marginal.
> Another problem case would be verbs of imagining and finding and
> discovering. (I found myself trawling. I discovered myself trawling.
> I imagined myself trawling)
> If our primary goal is to classify, this is problematic. If our
> primary goal is to respect the richness of language, this is
> reassuring.
> Craig
> On 1/11/2011 11:19 AM, Benton, Steve wrote:
>
> TJ,
>
>
> I believe this example, âThey allowed the vessels to trawl,â is
> similar to an example I offered last week,
>
> âMake me smile.â
>
>
> In response to my earlier inquiry, some (Bruce Despain and Martha
> Kolln) suggested that Reed and Kellogg would put âsmileâ in the
> âobject complementâ slot.
>
> Bruce wrote: â1) âMake me smile.â
>
> R&K place âxâ for "to" (like a preposition) and âsmileâ the rest
> of
> the simple infinitive on stilts. The stilts project upward from the
> object complement line, so that âmeâ is still the direct object.â
>
>
> Others (Beth Young, citing Cecil Adamsâs analysis of âSee Spot
> runâ) suggested that âme smileâ is an âobjective infinitiveâ
> and
> the object of the transitive verb âsee.â
>
> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1275/how-do-you-diagram-th
> e-sentence-see-spot-run
>
>
> Would we analyze the first sentence differently if the transitive
> verb was âmadeâ instead of âallowed,â and thus removed
> âto,â the âsign of the infinitiveâ (âThey made the vessels
> trawlâ;
> âThe vessels are made to trawlâ)?
>
>
> It seems to me that âme smileâ is a unit just as âvessels to
> trawlâ is a unit (as opposed to âsmileâ being a complement of
> âmeâ and âto trawlâ being a complement of âvesselsâ).
>
>
> Steve
>
> East Central University
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of T. J. Ray
> Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 8:21 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Predicate adjective?
>
>
> The suggestion that the infinitive in the fishing boat example in
> this thread is an objective complement.
>
> Evidently a new thread as to the definition of objective complement
> may be needed. I have taught and
>
> thought that an objective complement is found when "to be" may be
> inserted between the direct object
>
> and the adjective or nominal following it.
>
> John found the fish inedible. John found the fish to be
> inedible.
>
> The coach made Billy the starting quarterback. The coach
> made Billy to be the starting quarterback.
>
> When such sentences are made passive, the objective complement
> remains to the right of the verb. The
>
> subject of the original sentence becomes the object of the
> preposition "by."
>
> The fish was found to be inedible by John.
>
> Billy was made the starting quarterback by the coach.
>
> This thread might also suggest the transitive verbs that may be
> followed by objective complements.
>
>
> At any rate, if these notions about objective complement hold true,
> it seems clear that those sentences
>
> with an infinitive phrase in the predicate are not capable of being
> preceded by "to be":
>
> "Fishing vessels are now allowed to trawl within the
> previously restricted zone" likely began its
>
> life as "Wildlife managers (or game wardens or some other authority)
> all fishing vessels to trawl in
>
> the previously restricted zone." That second, underlying
> active-voice original cannot have "to be" inserted
>
> between "vessels" and "to trawl."
>
>
> tj
>
>
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