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, “They allowed the vessels to trawl,” is
similar to an example I offered last week,
“Make me smile.”
In response to my earlier inquiry, some (Bruce Despain and Martha
Kolln) suggested that Reed and Kellogg would put “smile” in the
“object complement” slot.
Bruce wrote: “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.”
Others (Beth Young, citing Cecil Adams’s analysis of “See Spot
run”) suggested that “me smile” is an “objective infinitive” and
the object of the transitive verb “see.”
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 “made” instead of “allowed,” and thus removed
“to,” the “sign of the infinitive” (“They made the vessels trawl”;
“The vessels are made to trawl”)?
It seems to me that “me smile” is a unit just as “vessels to
trawl” is a unit (as opposed to “smile” being a complement of
“me” and “to trawl” being a complement of “vessels”).
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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