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nstick13
Joined: 02 Aug 2009
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 Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 10:35 pm Post subject: Friday Grammar Question! |
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My co-teacher brought this up to me:
John painted for two weeksl
John painted in two weeks.
John painted the wall for two weeks.
John painted the wall in two weeks.
Now, the second one is grammatically incorrect, but why?
A quick Google brought up the idea of telicity, which I've never heard of and didn't really explain much. Anyone care to provide a rule with some guidance? TIA! |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:10 am Post subject: |
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Not seen this question before but the problem obviously comes from the use of 'in' here which refers to how long something took to finish. Whereas 'for' just refers to the length of time spent. Thus if you change the wording to it took John....' and John spent ......time' you get
John spent two weeks painting
It took John 2 weeks to paint.
John spent two weeks painting the wall.
It took John two weeks to paint the wall
Again the second sentence is wrong because it doesn't say what was finished. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 8:39 am Post subject: Re: Friday Grammar Question! |
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| nstick13 wrote: |
My co-teacher brought this up to me:
John painted for two weeksl
John painted in two weeks.
John painted the wall for two weeks.
John painted the wall in two weeks.
Now, the second one is grammatically incorrect, but why?
A quick Google brought up the idea of telicity, which I've never heard of and didn't really explain much. Anyone care to provide a rule with some guidance? TIA! |
This has compound reasons for the ungrammaticality...namely the kind of verb being used and the way the preposition is being used.
When using prepositions(phrases) with certain verbs with a telic(bounded) aspect, a direct object is required.
As was mentioned above....the telic nature of the verb/preposition required the direct object to state what was finished.
When using prepositions with that same verb with a durative aspect, the direct object may be ellipted.
I imagine this is clear as mud but hope it covers the ground for you. |
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Whistleblower
Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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The second version suggests (to me) that the job is finished:
John painted (the wall) in two weeks.
Whereas the first one suggests that the job is now complete:
John painted (the wall) for two weeks (and hasn't finished it yet).
It could be a case elision or requiring the context to the script rather than looking for grammatical errors; most native speakers speak ungrammatically (elision, accent, slang, creation of new words, etc). |
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