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ShoHiro
Joined: 22 Oct 2005
Posts: 65
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:54 am Post subject: Sounds natural? Ungrammatical? |
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Hello,
I found the following expressions:
(1) Jason wiped the table tired and May did so wide awake.
This sentence means that when Jason wiped the table, he was tired and when May did so, she was wide awake. In this sense, does the sentence (1) sound natural? If so, how about the following sentences?
(2) Tom phoned Mary sick.
(3) Tom kicked the bear tired.
Does the sentence (2) mean that when Tom phoned Mary, he was sick? Or when Tom phoned Mary, she was sick?
Similarly, does the sentence (3) mean that when Tom kicked the bear, he(Tom) was tired? Or when Tom kikced the bear, it was tired?
Best wishes,
ShoHiro |
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Harmony
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:58 pm Post subject: |
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Hello ShoHiro,
As you have clearly explained in this post (and in several others) there is no way to know what these misplaced words modify.
Where did you find these sentences? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to know where they came from.
~ ~ ~ Harmony  |
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ShoHiro
Joined: 22 Oct 2005
Posts: 65
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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Hello, Harmony,
I found this sentence in the linguistic book, Levin & Rappaport, Unaccusativity, p.49. In linguistic book, I found some sentences, which seems strange. I mean, I wonder if the native English speakers do use such expressions. Linguists makes some sentence to justify their argument and the sentence seems unnatural. So, I would like to know the sentence (1) sounds natural.
If so, it follows the sentences (2) and (3), which a linguists made, are natural. However, I have never seen such sentences in novels and newspapers in English. I asked the similar questions, but what I would like to know is different every time. In the previous question, I would like to know not which tired and sick modify but whether or not the sentence (1)-(3) sound natural for the native English speakers.
Sincerely,
ShoHiro |
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mat
Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 29
Location: England
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:53 am Post subject: |
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They don't sound very natural...  You are more likely to see something like your explanation, "when Jason wiped the table, he was tired and when May did so, she was wide awake."
_________________
-Mat |
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Harmony
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:29 am Post subject: |
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| ShoHiro wrote: |
Hello, Harmony,
I found this sentence in the linguistic book, Levin & Rappaport, Unaccusativity, p.49. In linguistic book, I found some sentences, which seems strange. I mean, I wonder if the native English speakers do use such expressions. Linguists makes some sentence to justify their argument and the sentence seems unnatural. So, I would like to know the sentence (1) sounds natural.
If so, it follows the sentences (2) and (3), which a linguists made, are natural. However, I have never seen such sentences in novels and newspapers in English. I asked the similar questions, but what I would like to know is different every time. In the previous question, I would like to know not which tired and sick modify but whether or not the sentence (1)-(3) sound natural for the native English speakers. Sincerely, ShoHiro |
Hi ShoHiro,
Knowing that your questions have been asked from a linguistic rather than a grammatical point of view makes a great deal of difference. In this forum we rarely, if ever, receive questions regarding the study of linguistics. As you have seen, the basis for your questions has often been misunderstood. We like to help students, but we need to know what sort of help is required! 
My reply addressed your request for an interpretation of the meaning of two of the sentences:
| ShoHiro wrote: |
| Does the sentence (2) mean that when Tom phoned Mary, he was sick? Or when Tom phoned Mary, she was sick? Similarly, does the sentence (3) mean that when Tom kicked the bear, he(Tom) was tired? Or when Tom kikced the bear, it was tired? |
Is your primary interest the collection of empirical data for a research project or are your questions related to assignments you've received?
As you are interested in the subject of unaccusativity I would like to recommend an excellent paper: Unaccusativity and the Resultative Constructions in English and Japanese (Ken-ichi Takami, 1998)
http://coe-sun.kuis.ac.jp/coe/public/paper/outside/takami1.pdf
The material presented in this paper deals primarily with English and is consistent with what I, as a native speaker, believe to be the appropriate and natural use of the language. I hope you will find it helpful and interesting.
| Quote: |
| . . . for the English resultative construction to be acceptable, an action described in the sentence . . . must be a direct cause of producing the resulting event expressed in the sentence . . . it is (also) necessary to consider whether the given causal relationship is logically or pragmatically reasonable or not. That is, whether an action is a direct cause of the resulting state is just one condition, which would be subsumed under the consideration of whether the given causal relationship is logically or pragmatically inferrable. |
I was interested to see examples of �fake reflexive objects� (Simpson 1983) as this was something that had occurred to me when I first read your post:
| Quote: |
#8. a. Dora shouted/yelled herself hoarse.
b. Those teenagers laughed themselves sick.
c. My mistress grumbled herself calm.
d. Joggers often run themselves sick.
e. The teacher talked himself/herself blue in the face.
f. John danced/walked himself tired.
Note here that the resultative predicates given in #8 are interpreted as being predicated of the fake reflexive objects, which are themselves coreferential with the subjects. |
Another paper you may find interesting is The Semantic Determinants of Argument Expression: A View from the English Resultative Construction (Levin and Hovav, 2002)
http://www.stanford.edu/~bclevin/paris02.pdf
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| English intransitive verbs enter into the resultative construction in two different syntactic frames, and the distinct syntax of the frames has been attributed to whether the verb in the frame is unaccusative or unergative. The question we address is what semantic property distinguishes between the two patterns and how this feature can be tied to the difference in syntax. We show that an account in which the distribution of verbs in the different resultative patterns is determined by aspectual notions such as incremental theme, measure, or telicity does not make the appropriate distinctions, while one which appeals to event complexity as we define it does. The event complexity account was introduced in Levin and Rappaport Hovav [L&RH] (1999) and RH&L (2001); here we briefly review it and then focus on its ramifications for the nature of the semantic determinants of argument expression. |
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| What determines whether or not the two events denoted in a resultative construction are temporally dependent? Temporal dependence appears to be based on our knowledge of the world, on the nature of the events denoted by the verbs and represented by the result XPs, and on the interdependence between them. . . The question that emerges is whether it is possible to determine which facets of argument expression follow from which kinds of semantic information. That is, why are case alternations sensitive to telicity, while grammatical functions are sensitive to event complexity? We leave this as a puzzle that might lead to profitable future explorations of argument expression. |
Are you familiar with the International Corpus of English (ICE) project? I find this to be particularly fascinating!
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/ice/index.htm
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/ice/icesin.htm (Singapore)
This post has far exceeded what is commonly discussed in this forum so I�ll stop here. I�ll send you a private message with some suggestions for increasing your success in obtaining answers to your linguistic questions.
~ ~ ~ Harmony |
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ShoHiro
Joined: 22 Oct 2005
Posts: 65
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:29 am Post subject: |
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Hello, mat
Thank you very much for answering my question. I'm sorry for replying late. I don't know why, but I cannot access because of "Critical Error".
Sincerely,
ShoHiro |
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ShoHiro
Joined: 22 Oct 2005
Posts: 65
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:41 am Post subject: |
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Hello, Hermony
Thank you very much for giving me very kind answer. I would like to reply in private message. Anyway, I was very glad at your answer. Thank you!
Best wishes,
ShoHiro |
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