Job Discussion Forums

[sparks]

This site will make a sentence a tree for you--pretty neat.

http://beta.visl.sdu.dk/visl/en/parsing/automatic/trees.php

I'll take a stab and guess that "open" serves as a complement to the phrase "with your mouth"

Maybe I don't know what I'm doing though.

[artemisia]

Hmm. Could it be a reduced relative clause? Don�t eat with your mouth (when it is) open. Still sounds a bit odd to me...

It doesn't apply to "I'll go to the open kiosk (open) and nor to "Keep your trap shut"". Your 'open mouth' is a description of what's already happened; your 'mouth open' emphasises what you do with your mouth.
'Keep your trap shut'. Continue doing what you're already doing with your trap. Keep it in its current state: 'shut' (?)

http://www.onestopenglish.com/grammar/grammar-reference/adjectives/adjectives-and-noun-modifiers-in-english-article/144843.article
Position: immediately after noun
Some adjectives that describe size or age can occur immediately after a noun that indicates a unit of measurement, e.g.:
She was about five feet tall
Her baby is ten months old.
The walls were six inches thick.
There is a small group of adjectives, sometimes referred to as post nominal adjectives, which can only occur immediately after a noun. Examples are:
the president elect
the devil incarnate

Many other adjectives can be used immediately after a noun when they form part of a (reduced) relative clause, e.g.:
Let�s use the time available.
Is she someone capable of making difficult decisions?
I�d like to speak to all the people involved.

Position and meaning
There are some adjectives which can occur either before or after a noun, but the position they occur in has an effect on their meaning, e.g.:
� the concerned parents (= �the parents who are worried�)
� the parents concerned (= �the parents who are involved/mentioned�)
� the present situation (= �the situation which exists now�)
� the people present (= �the people who are here/there�).
� a responsible person (= �a person who is sensible/reliable�)
� the person responsible (= �the person who is to blame or has responsibility for something�)

[Sashadroogie]

Ura! Some scholarly replies - at last!

To add some more confusion, wouldn't you say that 'five feet tall' , 'six inches thick' are predicative adjectival phrases following the verb to be, as all adjectives can?

Not so sure that 'with your mouth open' is a reduced clause. Seems awkward to me also. Post nominal adjectives look promising though...

[Glenski]

Swan's Practical English Usage only mentions this picky point in brief passing by saying (as artemisia mentioned) that it is treated as a relative clause that way.

Just tell the student it's one of those many little details in language learning that they will have to get used to memorizing. I'm sure their own language is full of them, too. It may be better to focus on larger issues (like metalanguage to know the difference between a noun and a verb).

[dutchman]

This is a question par-excellence, and has confused many EFL teachers since time immemorial.

[Sashadroogie]

Thanks Glenski, but it is not help in teaching students that I asked for. I don't need it. As it happens, this particular student has a very good range of vocabulary, and, despite slips, also has a better handle on metalanguage than plenty of teachers - not that I would care to describe this as a 'larger issue' in the first place.

As for the structure, I am not so convinced that it is a reduced relative clause. Could be wrong. I was initially inclined to think that it may be more like the verb + object + adjective structure (also to be found in Swan). As in, 'drink the house dry'. Now, I'm not so sure about that either.

What do posters think?

[dutchman]

[artemisia]

Before or after? But not, I think, with this example. You can't say: 'Don't eat with your open mouth''.

Not had time to consult the grammar books on this but is Sparks right then - that 'open' serves as a complement to the noun?

http://www.meredith.edu/grammar/modifier.htm
Complements (Bedford 26b/Hodges' 4b)
Adjectives, not adverbs, serve as complements (subject and object). A subject complement tells something about the subject of the sentence. Because a subject is always a noun, only an adjective can be used as a subject complement.
Subject complements usually follow a linking verb: is, seems, appears, smells, tastes, feels.

An object complement completes the meaning of the direct object of the clause. Because a direct object is always a noun or a pronoun, it can be modified only by an adjective.
I declare the games finished. (I declare the games open.)
The direct object is "games."
(Another example) Winston considered the judges careful.

[Glenski]

"Cut the brain open" is a phrasal verb. Could just as easily be written "cut open the brain".

"Eat with your mouth open" is not. Big difference.

[LH123]

I initially thought that "open" here was an adverb, although a quick check reveals that while it is a noun, verb and adjective, an adverb it is not.

So I'm jumping on the reduced clause bandwagon.

"Don't eat with your mouth [which is] open". (Relative clause)
"Don't eat with your mouth [being] open" (Participle clause)
"Don't eat with your mouth open" (The next logical stage?)

[fluffyhamster]

'Mouth open' is part of the adverbial 'with your mouth open', and likely a much less absolute/more temporary state of affairs than 'an open mouth'. Another "answer" for the wailing student in this case however might be to rephrase the imperative (not that the original sentence isn't very natural, and most probably the easiest way of expressing the proposition concerned): Close your mouth while you're eating/chewing. (Two clear verbs in separate clauses, one main, one subordinate). I don't think that would give mothers everywhere quite the same menacing "negative" authority though (but it sure beats 'Don't open your mouth while eating', which could risk getting construed or misheard as 'Don't open your mouth [at all?!] to eat' LOL. Which sort of leads back into why the original sentence has 'Don't eat' + an adverbial, as opposed to 'Don't open' ('Don't have your mouth open' meanwhile would obviously pose exactly the same post-nominal adjective "problem" as before)).

[Dilton]

Who cares? I don't see this as the domain of TEFL. If I stand in front of a class and explain participles and passive adjectives, I doubt I'm helping them to become more functional in English.

I am primarily self-taught in Mandarin and I never pondered over the ins and outs of things like this, not once. I observed how other people said things. Then I said them that way. I didn't worry about how to name those things.

[spiral78]

It's obviously not an issue that many students would be concerned with. However, it's interesting and fun for pedantic language teachers to discuss such matters. We teach the language and by definition, its quirks are normally of professional interest.

[fluffyhamster]

I was about to post asking if postpositive adjectives (such as 'the person responsible' versus 'a responsible person') were really related to what's going on in Sasha's original sentence, but then I had one of those weird brain-bending "grammary fugues" where it struck me that the 'mouth open' in 'with your mouth open' really could be interpreted (given enough brain-bending LOL) literally as a "whole object" on a par with e.g. the 'people responsible' in 'I want to talk to/with the people responsible'. But then I come to again and the 'open' still strikes me as more "adverby" than adjectivey (i.e. we have only one mouth, though we can of course change the way or manner in which it is being used from moment to moment).

Probably the best thing would be for me to go and bash myself over the head with the CGEL a few more times. Or not. (It's hard to know quite what to do...aha, I've got it, I'll just become or remain an EFL teacher (Dilton)! LOL But seriously, a teacher should at least know where to look for lists of e.g. postpositive adjectives - Artemisia's supplied one such link, and I've posted bits and pieces from the CGEL and COBUILD Grammar Guide 2 over on the Teacher Discussion forums in a thread entitled 'person responsible', should be on around page 2 or 3 of the TD Applied Linguistics forum).

[artemisia]

Well, call me pedantic (!), or another word (beginning with 'a') which I won't post, but I wasn't planning on standing in front of my classes holding forth on this point. I'm sure my students would look cross-eyed at me if did.

Hmm, Fluffyhamster, I feel you're onto something there in your fully conscious "come to" mode. There's definitely something 'adverby' about this 'open'. It could be an adjective, too. Does 'open' describe eat or does it describe mouth? I think it describes mouth.