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Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:37 am Post subject: Grammar/Syntax question: re.: the infinitive? |
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This came up in the teachers' class today:
I chose to not go there.
I chose not to go there.
I stumbled & bumbled rather badly  (Monday blues?) trying to explain the difference between the two and which should be considered more correct. Any help would be appreciated. Woland? |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:14 am Post subject: Re: Grammar/Syntax question: re.: the infinitive? |
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| Mosley wrote: |
This came up in the teachers' class today:
I chose to not go there.
I chose not to go there.
I stumbled & bumbled rather badly (Monday blues?) trying to explain the difference between the two and which should be considered more correct. Any help would be appreciated. Woland? |
The negation is really just a kind of adverb, and just like any adverb, can occupy either position. Substitute an adverb like 'knowingly' in both sentences and see.
A functionalist would argue that this difference in position is associated with a difference in meaning. Here's my sense of it. The second sentence you present is the more common one, what we would call 'unmarked'. The first sentence is 'marked', that is, unusual. I would suggest that the marked positioning there is calling extra attention to the negation, and possibly its association with the concept of 'go'.
We'd really need to look at some discourse material to really confirm this.
It does seem to me that using the marked form also draws the prominence (strongest stress in the thought group) to the negation, making it stand out even more. Prominence is usually associated with what we want people to pay attention to in speech.
Hope this helps. |
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faster
Joined: 03 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:25 am Post subject: Re: Grammar/Syntax question: re.: the infinitive? |
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| Woland wrote: |
| It does seem to me that using the marked form also draws the prominence (strongest stress in the thought group) to the negation, making it stand out even more. Prominence is usually associated with what we want people to pay attention to in speech. |
This is precisely how I parse it. |
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Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks guys(esp. Woland). That's kind of how I explained it, minus the terminology. Cheers! |
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Woden
Joined: 08 Mar 2007
Location: Eurasia
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| Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:28 am Post subject: |
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| I agree with what has been written, but I believe that the marked version also draws attention to the actual 'choice' of not choosing, in addition to the 'not going'. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 8:04 am Post subject: |
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| Woden wrote: |
| I agree with what has been written, but I believe that the marked version also draws attention to the actual 'choice' of not choosing, in addition to the 'not going'. |
I would agree with this if the sentence is clearly broken into two thought groups, thus allowing two prominences, one on 'chose' and the second on 'not'. If there is only one prominence, this reading is possible, but is not the only possibility. |
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dogshed
Joined: 28 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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When my adult students ask me things like this I try to explain it
or tell them I'll do some research, but I think it's more important
to give them better alternatives. Here I would tell them that
"I'm not going there" would be more common in everyday
conversation. |
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Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, but the sentences given me by the KTE were verbatim as above, with "choose" in the simple past. |
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