Job Discussion Forums

[kimo]

Take a look at the two sentences below. Do they mean the same thing?

1.

[arioch36]

The two sentences are different in meaning.

A provides B versus B provides A

Is the convention to provide tabbed screens?

Or do the screens provide management with a convention to follow

[Ludwig]

'Kimo', nice examples of this sort of alternation, though I am afraid it is not an easy question to answer.

You would have to explain - if you know - what the author to whom you refer means by 'meaning'. An analysis based on T-tables will give a different answer than to an analysis that allows 'emphasis', 'focus', or 'scope' to play a part in 'meaning'.

For my first linguistics degree I did a few modules and projects on text and discourse analysis, information extraction, machine translation and language engineering, etc., and I would agree that from that sort of perspective at least, the latter example could indeed arguably be considered as a 'better' example (the underlying SV(Trans)O structure would certainly be easier for online translation and, from the point of view of non-native processing, is again arguably 'better'.

For a more in-depth treatment regarding the justification for this sort of advice, you will need to look into 'object-to-subject raising structures' (and beyond). You may also wish to look into some basic incremental processing literature; what is invariably referred to as 'parsing'.

The former of the two examples you cite can be described loosely for you (I have no idea what if any background you have in linguistics) as an instance of 'heavy fronting'. Before your parser can close off the subject NP it must progress through some 6 lexical items (count the phonemes and morphemes) and then hold these in short term working memory whilst relating these to the predicate.

The latter example, by contrast, allows what is commonly referred to as 'early closure'.

What are quite coarsely divided underlying syntactic structures can - depending on the lexical semantics and argument structure of the germane verb - produce some quite radical, yet subtle, differences in interpretation. This is where one's theory of meaning comes into play.

Thus, for example, (1) and (2) below may, in some sense, be said to 'mean the same' (after all, they refer to the same event in the world, they have the same truth conditions):

(1) Mary kissed John.
(2) John was kissed by Mary.

Many would argue that although the two have the same meaning, they do not mean the same. That is, one is 'about' Mary and the other is 'about' John. You may want to look up 'aboutness' (!). There is an element of this in your two examples.

Consider (3) and (4):

(3) Bees swarm in the garden.
(4) The garden swarms with bees.

Native speakers usually, when asked, state that the two 'mean the same'.

However, if you ask in which of the two examples do they think the garden is 'fuller' or more likely to be 'full', then they invariably will say (4). In (3) the bees may well indeed cover the whole garden but they could also just be swarming in a corner of the garden. In (4), however, it seems more likely that the whole garden is covered with bees. These are very subtle distinctions and, in normal use, go quite unnoticed by speakers.

Or, consider (5) and (6):

(5) He loaded the wagon with hay.
(6) He loaded hay onto the wagon.

In which of these two is it more likely that the wagon is full? My intuitions here tell me it is more likely to be full in (5).

In short, a full analysis of the examples you give would generate many, many pages of discussion and analysis. I suspect that the author's seemingly prescriptive advice may to save the reader having to plough through much advanced and technical literature.

[ClaudeRains]

Seems to be splitting hairs a bit--but then that's what all good grammarians like...

Do these sentences carry the same meaning? I would say no.

The equivalency in the first sentence is "the standard convention is to provide." Here the infinitive "to provide" is what is interchangeable with the "standard convention," not "a series of tabbed management screens." The latter is the object of the infinitive.

For the two sentences to mean the same thing, the second would need to be phrased: "The provision of tabbed management screens is a standard convention for product management."

The issue would appear to be the act of providing, not what is being provided.

Nonetheless, the reader would understand what is meant in either case.

[Ludwig]

I think 'Arioch36' is trying to make reference to entailment (without the necessary vocabulary), though actually in this case there is very little - if any - sense of this. Think about what gives rise to what in (1) and (2) below and you will know what is meant by this term:

(1) The King of France had a heart attack and a republic was declared.

(2) A republic was declared and the King of France had a heart attack.

I forgot to add that the examples you cite become even more interesting when we consider examples such as:

To provide a series of tabbed management screens is the standard convention for product management.

[Stephen Jones]

It's all a question of theme and focus.

The first sentence is about the standard convention for product management, and the new information is that it is a series of tabbed management screens.

The second sentence is about tabbed management screens, and the new information is that they provide a standard convention for product management.

To say which is best we would need the full context. What is the theme of the passage - tabbed management screens or product management.

Look at the textbook example/
Picasso painted 'Guernica' We are talking about this guy called Picasso and the new information is what he did.

[/i]'Guernica' was painted by Picasso.[/i] We are now talking about the painting called 'Guernica' and the new information is the painter.

You might well see the first sentence in an article about the life of Picasso, and the second in an article on the Prado Museum, where 'Gurenica' is housed.

[arioch36]

Ludwig says

[rj]

[khmerhit]

NEW ORLESAN HOLDS A LOT OF CONVENTIONS YEAR ROUND --ITS AN IDEAL CITY FOR CONVENTIONS

ILL TAKE DOOR NUMBER TWO PLEASE--ACTIVE VOICE--CONCISE MEANING--NO FAFFING ABOUT

[arioch36]

khermit ..

please rewrite in song format? COuldn't understand

[Stephen Jones]

The topic is Graphical user interfaces in product Mangament software.

a tabbed screen is like you get when you right-click on the desktop in Windows and the display dialog box comes up. You then see a set of tabs at the top, and the screen you are looking at changes according to whcih tab you click.