Hi Bill,

I like this! And "experimental heuristic" sounds more sophisticated than "strategy" or "trick."  

If all human thoughts are incomplete, then I can feel even *more* confident that my own thoughts are as complete as anyone's. :)  Has anyone ever sourced the original "complete thought" definition? 

Beth (who is happy to let Bjorn have all the lutefisk)

>>> "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]> 09/22/09 4:02 PM >>>
 

Craig,
 
The "complete thought" formulation has been around for centuries,
despite the fact that there's no real way to evaluate whether any given
thought is complete or not. It's possible every human being has only
incomplete thoughts, with their very incompleteness being a symptom of
the human condition (and no, I don't spend time worrying about that -
but hey, it's possible). 
 
The real problem with both the "complete thought" definition and
punctuation-based ones is that they only work for students who already
have a grasp of what you think a sentence is. That is, for someone who
is already able to recognize fragments, etc., the definitions make
perfect sense. They just don't provide any usable information for people
who are having trouble with run-ons and unintentional fragments. It's a
bit like saying that acceptable products are distinguishable on the
basis of their acceptability.
 
Here's an experimental heuristic for detecting whether a declarative is
"complete" or not: determine whether it's easily contradictable:
 
Bjorn ate all the lutefisk. //  No he didn't!
 
When Bjorn ate all the lutefisk. // *No he didn't!
 
Every bit of the lutefisk. // *No it didn't!
 
[Problem Case]:
 
Because Bjorn ate all the lutefisk. // ?No he didn't!
 
There's a class of subordinate clauses that appear to be subject to
contradiction (if you stretch a bit), but the trick works otherwise. The
problem cases seem to be causatives and concessives.
 
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University

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