Bruce,
Your comments are really interesting, though now my tongue is sore from
experimenting with velar and palatal "ng," and I'm not sure I can hear
the difference (at least in my own speech). Do you mean that the gerund
uses /ɲ/ while the participle uses /ŋ/? Or that one pronounces a /g/
and the other doesn't (/ɲg/ or /ŋg/)?
(Hoping those IPA characters come through ok.)
Beth
>>> Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> 01/05/11 12:11 PM >>>
Steve,
This is my understanding:
1) Make me smile.
R&K place "x" for "to" (like a preposition) and "smile" the rest of the
simple infinitive on stilts. The stilts project upward from the object
complement line, so that "me" is still the direct object.
2) Take me fishing.
R&K would analyze this also as an object complement. In this case the
gerund has a stepped line, but being horizontal is likewise placed on
stilts. (I believe the gerund tends to have the palatal "ng" whereas the
imperfect participle prefers the velar "ng.")
The idea of paraphrasing these sentences as clauses has to do with their
semantic force, which is useful for sentence combining, but is
counterproductive to much of traditional grammar.
I have a question about the gerund vs. the noun in -ing, both derived
from a verb. Traditional grammar does not seem to distinguish the two.
1a) His fishing upstream from me was disturbing.
1b) I didn't like his fishing upstream from me.
2a) ?Him fishing upstream from me was disturbing.
2b) I didn't like him fishing upstream from me.
In object position the tendency is to analyze the gerund as object
complement. Maybe this is why traditional grammar frowns on (2a).
However, I wonder if perhaps these two are actually distinct. One might
consider the noun form in (1), the one taking a possessive subject, as
not a gerund for that very reason. However, here we may be deceived.
When we look at the pronunciation of the -ing form in (2b), it comes
clear that it is velar, hence, it is actually the imperfect participle
as object complement.
Bruce
--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
From: "Benton, Steve" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Take me fishing - Make me smile - Reed-Kellogg diagrams
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 05:42:24 -0600
I find it hard to resist sentence diagramming (Reed Kellogg-style) when
I am teaching grammar and wish I were more aware of its flaws. The most
obvious one is that it requires memorization of a number of symbols
(lines, dotted lines, "platforms," diagonal lines, etc.) in addition to
the memorization of the categories they represent. I do not doubt that
when it comes to describing the complexity of the language, RK sentence
diagrams may occasionally prove to be crude instruments (are there any
other kind, though?). With that in mind, I wonder if the following
two cases are representative of the flaws of sentence diagramming:
1) Make me smile.
2) Take me fishing.
It seems to me that in example number one, "me smile" could be a
nominative clause that functions as a direct object. If I were
diagramming it, I would put "me" on a diagonal line in the subject
position (which seems counterintuitive since me is objective case) and
put the entire clause on a platform in the object position. Is that
what RK would do with this sentence? What would Reed Kellogg do with
the Star Trek command: "Make it so"?
Im not sure what RK would do with example number two.
Thoughts?
Steve Benton
Assistant Professor
Department of English and Languages
East Central University
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