Acceptable or unacceptable?

[fluffyhamster]

I think I've heard of 'to shout sb down', but I'm not sure about 'out'. I was kind of thinking about Oz, but also, Body of Evidence (candles, "kink" etc).

I looked up 'frogmarch' and it does seem to be a whole unit, without hyphenation (in case anyone was still wondering or wanting to frogmarch themselves to their nearest dictionary).

Yeah - so? (in answer to what you said about the shouting boy - I just want to show how useful the "rudeness" function is to some people ). Hmm what the hell does 'the shouted boy/the boy who was shouted' mean, without e.g. 'at'? Or are we to assume his name was called and 'whose name' has been inexplicably ellipted?

Andy, 'reduced relative clauses', if there's a second passive later in the sentence it needs BE more, and to use two (that is, an earlier BE) would be repetitive, wouldn't it.

Hmm is (un)accusativity/(un)ergativity important (necessary to mention here)? By that, I mean, I interpreted all of the acceptable sentences simply as "passive", with reduced relative clauses.

I found no mention of accusativity in that UCL Internet Grammar of English (and very little regarding "case" in the Glossary), but there was something here:
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~radford/ ... ossary.htm

JTT, I was thinking along the same lines as you: 'Participles making up a shrunken defining relative clause that would be much better before the noun but I don't know why: 14,15,16,17, 18', BUT I think there are differing construals at work here e.g. in 'The box (that was [then]) melted...(it) was pure gold', we can see a box (perhaps not golden on the outside) becoming pure gold (or what appears to be pure gold); but would 'The melted box...' be liable to be said in many instances instead (that is, if the box is/has melted, how do we know it what we were looking at was a box to begin with?).

I suspect object > melting > pronoun substitution+'was gold' is how the discourse would be usually/most naturally structured, unless, "of course", the box somehow melted only just enough to have melted somewhat, but not enough to lose its boxiness (the slightly melted vs. the box that totally melted and is no more).

I mean, we aren't talking about a box obviously made of pure gold here that gets melted, are we...or are we?

Interesting? I for one would be interested to learn how adjective-participle and noun order themselves in "short" (adj+noun vs. noun+reduced relative) clauses, their order must be consistent based on the semantics of the (adverbially unmodified) verb. Maybe I'll melt away for a while to study this...but perhaps the answer is obvious enough. I dunno...

[fluffyhamster]

Ooh, I see you lads were busy too whilst I was typing my drivel.

[fluffyhamster]

Yeah, we expect candles to melt, and would guess candles had been present even if all that was left was a shapeless puddle of wax, but boxes...melting is often an all-or-nothing thing, so we have a box that didn't melt vs a box that did melt (halfway?) vs a (half?) melted "box"...

I'll shut up now.

[metal56]

Hmm what the hell does 'the shouted boy/the boy who was shouted' mean, without e.g. 'at'? Or are we to assume his name was called and 'whose name' has been inexplicably ellipted?

This meaning: Go shout/call Johnnie for dinner.
Not this: ?*Go shout at Johnnie for dinner.

Other meaning:

Go shout at Johnnie for not coming when he's shouted/called.

<Hmm is (un)accusativity/(un)ergativity important (necessary to mention here)? By that, I mean, I interpreted all of the acceptable sentences simply as "passive", with reduced relative clauses. >

The passive participle have their origins in (are devised from) either ergative/unaccusative or unergative verbs. Normally, the reduced relative clauses (RRs) that derive from unergatives are the most difficult to parse.

It's all the same:

The box melted was pure gold; the other was a fake.

The box (that was) melted (by Tom earlier, was discovered to be) pure gold(;the unmelted box was a fake.) passive

[fluffyhamster]

Ooh hiya m56, I added a tiny bit in an edit, does it make any difference to what you've said? I'll take a look at it all again a bit later, but I've gotta dash out right now. Thanks for replying, anyway!

[fluffyhamster]

This meaning: Go shout/call Johnnie for dinner.
Not this: ?*Go shout at Johnnie for dinner.

Other meaning:

Go shout at Johnnie for not coming when he's shouted/called.

I didn't know, aside from in delexical phrases such as 'Go give Johnnie a call/shout', that 'shout' had a 'call' meaning; that is, I'd always thought that

Go call Johnnie and
Go shout Johnnie (=Go and shout, "Johnnie!")

(would) have quite different meanings in speech, and that the latter only really makes any sense with the addition of "direct speech" punctuation (and would be more easily expressed pragmatically through relexicalization to 'call' in any case).

<Hmm is (un)accusativity/(un)ergativity important (necessary to mention here)? By that, I mean, I interpreted all of the acceptable sentences simply as "passive", with reduced relative clauses. >

The passive participle have their origins in (are devised from) either ergative/unaccusative or unergative verbs. Normally, the reduced relative clauses (RRs) that derive from unergatives are the most difficult to parse.

It's all the same:

The box melted was pure gold; the other was a fake.

The box (that was) melted (by Tom earlier, was discovered to be) pure gold(;the unmelted box was a fake.) passive

'The box melted pure gold' doesn't make any sense as a description of the box, unless it is a (necessarily non-gold, of a higher melting point than gold) "heater/melter" box. Did you make a mistake in the bracketing there, or should there be a comma between 'melted' and 'pure gold' (topic - comment), or something?

I get interested when parsing is mentioned because I immediately think of automated parsing, which would save me the bother (no wonder I love that "Brazilian" idea of "linear grammar" so much).

But seriously, when we have a linear sequence of DET+N+"V1"(+PARTICLE/ADVERB/"PREPOSITION")(+BE)+"V2"+...etc (e.g. 'The box melted was pure gold', 'The patient rushed to hospital [was] killed...' - said patient was suffering from zombieitus!), why not get "the parser" to simply (mechanically) assign participle(p.p)/"adjectival"/RR clause status to the first, seeing as another verb (BE at least, or V+[DET+N=O]) immediately follows?

That is, when what would otherwise be an ergative (The box melted) is followed by more text (specifically, another verb), its ergativity becomes irrelevant or is overshadowed by the other (passive) meaning that soon becomes apparent, and it doesn't require intelligence to "understand" this (I'm referring to computers there, not you, metal!), it builds up from the probabilistic tendencies that extended, continuing text allows.

Returning to 'The box melted pure gold': DET+N+"V1"+ADJ+N > no following verb, so we can instruct the parser to view "V1" as a verb rather than a participle, especially since it is followed by a N that "breaks" the "suspense" (and which obviously makes the verb accusative rather than ergative/unaccusative). About the only problem that could trip up the parser here would be the absence of a full stop or following capital, but how likely is that! 'The box melted(.) (P)ure gold was the sunrise backdrop to this senseless destruction.' (OK it's not Shakespeare but at least it isn't a limp going green/rotting lettuce leaf vegetating furiously).

Lastly, in an earlier post you said this:

Just looking at one or two:

4. The player rushed to hospital went into a coma.
5. The player rushed into hospital complained about the wait.
6. The boy rolled in the mud was scolded.
7. The terrorists paraded past the press were mobbed.
8. The car run backwards won the race.
9. The project run as planned gave profit.

Numbers 4, 5, 6 & 7 contain an animate subject, a passive participle (based on ergative/unaccusative verbs*) and a reduced relative clause; numbers 8 & 9 contain inanimate subjects and a passive participle (based on ergative/unaccusative verbs*) and a reduced relative clause.


*“Ergative” = externally caused action. E.g. “The boat sailed”.
“Unergative” = internally caused action. E.g. “She slept”.)

Irregular verbs (8 and 9, RUN) give the parser a clue right away (verb is different from participle), but here's a "tough" one: how would you view something like 'The car ran backwards and won the race'? A frequent form? A travesty (meaning-wise)? Something kind of related to my babbling here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 01658.html

I've noticed that I've been using 'here' and 'there' a lot recently, the 'here' here/there/above is "interesting": am I referring to my babbling (here), or the link sans babbling here (at this link) (it's the LL after all!). Both, of course.

That 'Something kind of related...' without the paragraph break is also a bit "ambiguous".

[metal56]

I think I've heard of 'to shout sb down', but I'm not sure about 'out'. I was kind of thinking about Oz, but also, Body of Evidence (candles, "kink" etc).

16. The woman melted was a witch. (Is it possible for people to melt/be melted?!)

See also, Hiroshima/Negasaki.

[fluffyhamster]

See also, Hiroshima/Negasaki.

I'd prefer we didn't have to witness such things (we probably all feel the same way ).

[metal56]

[quote="fluffyhamster]["[/quote]

I didn't know, aside from in delexical phrases such as 'Go give Johnnie a call/shout', that 'shout' had a 'call' meaning; that is, I'd always thought that

Go call Johnnie and
Go shout Johnnie (=Go and shout, "Johnnie!")

(would) have quite different meanings in speech, and that the latter only really makes any sense with the addition of "direct speech" punctuation (and would be more easily expressed pragmatically through relexicalization to 'call' in any case).

You learn something every day.

Definition

give sb a shout INFORMAL
to tell someone:

Give me a shout when you've finished in the bathroom.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define. ... &dict=CALD

<Hmm is (un)accusativity/(un)ergativity important (necessary to mention here)? By that, I mean, I interpreted all of the acceptable sentences simply as "passive", with reduced relative clauses. >

The passive participle have their origins in (are devised from) either ergative/unaccusative or unergative verbs. Normally, the reduced relative clauses (RRs) that derive from unergatives are the most difficult to parse.

It's all the same:

The box melted was pure gold; the other was a fake.

The box (that was) melted (by Tom earlier, was discovered to be) pure gold(;the unmelted box was a fake.) passive

'The box melted pure gold' doesn't make any sense as a description of the box,

I think you read it incorrectly:

The box (that was) melted (by Tom earlier, was discovered to be) pure gold.

The box was thought to be other than gold; when melted it was discovered to be gold.

I get interested when parsing is mentioned because I immediately think of automated parsing, which would save me the bother (no wonder I love that "Brazilian" idea of "linear grammar" so much).

http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/submit-sentence-4.html

But seriously, when we have a linear sequence of DET+N+"V1"(+PARTICLE/ADVERB/"PREPOSITION")(+BE)+"V2"+...etc (e.g. 'The box melted was pure gold', 'The patient rushed to hospital [was] killed...' - said patient was suffering from zombieitus!), why not get "the parser" to simply (mechanically) assign participle(p.p)/"adjectival"/RR clause status to the first, seeing as another verb (BE at least, or V+[DET+N=O]) immediately follows?

Why not indeed?

Lastly, in an earlier post you said this:

Just looking at one or two:

4. The player rushed to hospital went into a coma.
5. The player rushed into hospital complained about the wait.
6. The boy rolled in the mud was scolded.
7. The terrorists paraded past the press were mobbed.
8. The car run backwards won the race.
9. The project run as planned gave profit.

Numbers 4, 5, 6 & 7 contain an animate subject, a passive participle (based on ergative/unaccusative verbs*) and a reduced relative clause; numbers 8 & 9 contain inanimate subjects and a passive participle (based on ergative/unaccusative verbs*) and a reduced relative clause.


*“Ergative” = externally caused action. E.g. “The boat sailed”.
“Unergative” = internally caused action. E.g. “She slept”.)

Irregular verbs (8 and 9, RUN) give the parser a clue right away (verb is different from participle), but here's a "tough" one: how would you view something like 'The car ran backwards and won the race'? A frequent form? A travesty (meaning-wise)? Something kind of related to my babbling here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 01658.html

I've noticed that I've been using 'here' and 'there' a lot recently, the 'here' here/there/above is "interesting": am I referring to my babbling (here), or the link sans babbling here (at this link) (it's the LL after all!). Both, of course.

That 'Something kind of related...' without the paragraph break is also a bit "ambiguous".

I'll get back on this latter point asap.

[fluffyhamster]

You learn something every day.

Definition

give sb a shout INFORMAL
to tell someone:

Give me a shout when you've finished in the bathroom.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define. ... &dict=CALD

Hmm. So 'Go (and give sb a shout/)call sb' can mean call them (doubtless in order to tell them something) or simply tell them something (after attracting their attention), relay whatever is important in the context (even if the request to call them/give them a call or shout didn't specify why). But 'Go shout sb' means...any dictionary entries for that? Or has this question been answered already and I was too dumb to notice?

I think you read it incorrectly

Yes, I must have got fixated on the brackets and forgotten that it wasn't meant as a second, different sentence but simply meant to represent the original sentence's "missing bitties". I like brackets, I guess (the fixation could get worse if I grow to like constituent analysis, not that it in itself seems that difficult on the surface of it). I also have a penchant for stupidity sometimes.

I get interested when parsing is mentioned because I immediately think of automated parsing, which would save me the bother (no wonder I love that "Brazilian" idea of "linear grammar" so much).

http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/submit-sentence-4.html

Thanks for the link, I had some fun forcing it to process setences like The dying patient rushed into the hospital was killed by a zombie in the next bed before he himself could turn into one. Cool!

But seriously, though, I will be reading the stuff on that site with great interest, especially:
http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/dict/introduction.html

So, again, many thanks.

Why not indeed?

Indeedy indeed!

I'll get back on this latter point asap.

No rush, take your time!

[metal56]

You learn something every day.

Definition

give sb a shout INFORMAL
to tell someone:

Give me a shout when you've finished in the bathroom.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define. ... &dict=CALD

Hmm. So 'Go (and give sb a shout/)call sb' can mean call them (doubtless in order to tell them something) or simply tell them something (after attracting their attention), relay whatever is important in the context (even if the request to call them/give them a call or shout didn't specify why). But 'Go shout sb' means...any dictionary entries for that? Or has this question been answered already and I was too dumb to notice?

I think you read it incorrectly

Yes, I must have got fixated on the brackets and forgotten that it wasn't meant as a second, different sentence but simply meant to represent the original sentence's "missing bitties". I like brackets, I guess (the fixation could get worse if I grow to like constituent analysis, not that it in itself seems that difficult on the surface of it). I also have a penchant for stupidity sometimes.

I get interested when parsing is mentioned because I immediately think of automated parsing, which would save me the bother (no wonder I love that "Brazilian" idea of "linear grammar" so much).

http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/submit-sentence-4.html

Thanks for the link, I had some fun forcing it to process setences like The dying patient rushed into the hospital was killed by a zombie in the next bed before he himself could turn into one. Cool!

But seriously, though, I will be reading the stuff on that site with great interest, especially:
http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/dict/introduction.html

So, again, many thanks.

Why not indeed?

Indeedy indeed!

I'll get back on this latter point asap.

No rush, take your time!

Hmm. So 'Go (and give sb a shout/)call sb' can mean call them (doubtless in order to tell them something) or simply tell them something (after attracting their attention), relay whatever is important in the context (even if the request to call them/give them a call or shout didn't specify why). But 'Go shout sb' means...any dictionary entries for that? Or has this question been answered already and I was too dumb to notice?

In this context "call" and "shout" are synonyms. Would you never say:

Go call John for dinner. He's in the yard.

Go and call/shout John for ...
Go and fetch John for ...
Go and get john for ...

etc. (The conjunction can be omitted, as can "give")

[fluffyhamster]

No, I don't think I have ever said, or would ever say, 'Go (and) shout John for dinner'.

I also can't help but observe that we have gone from 'The boy shouted never paid attention' to 'The shouted boy/the boy who was shouted' (truly strange "sentence fragments", all of them, that - just saying that I'm taking your seeming word for it - apparently have the more or less the same meaning ) to 'Go shout/call Johnnie for dinner' (cunningly contrasted with '?*Go shout at Johnnie for dinner' ), the last (two) of which has had a 'for' inserted, by the way.

These changes in syntax and little additions do change the meaning of the "form" , but nothing so far has led me to believe that 'shout' has anything like the meaning of 'call' (unless it is used delexically - "give sb a shout/call').

Hmm, I said, 'Go (and give sb a shout/)call sb' can mean call them (doubtless in order to tell them something) or simply tell them something (after attracting their attention), relay whatever is important in the context (even if the request to call them/give them a call or shout didn't specify why), which makes it sound like 'call' and 'tell' are the synonymous pair now, but that tell is only for glossing, 'tell' is ditransitive:

A: Call John* (for dinner)/Tell John (that) dinner's ready.
...
B: (John) Dinner's ready! (or perhaps just 'John!' if John is aware and knows it's about that time; or hell, why not just both! 'John, dinner's ready, dammit! And there's a policemen here to see you!')

*Isn't that what the evil liquid polyalloy shapeshifting terminator said in T2?! Miniquotes! The new craze sweeping Dave's! (You thought the quotes on the spine of Empire were difficult? Think again!).

[metal56]

No, I don't think I have ever said, or would ever say, 'Go (and) shout John for dinner'.

I also can't help but observe that we have gone from 'The boy shouted never paid attention' to 'The shouted boy/the boy who was shouted' (truly strange "sentence fragments", all of them, that - just saying that I'm taking your seeming word for it - apparently have the more or less the same meaning ) to 'Go shout/call Johnnie for dinner' (cunningly contrasted with '?*Go shout at Johnnie for dinner' ), the last (two) of which has had a 'for' inserted, by the way.

These changes in syntax and little additions do change the meaning of the "form" , but nothing so far has led me to believe that 'shout' has anything like the meaning of 'call' (unless it is used delexically - "give sb a shout/call').

Hmm, I said, 'Go (and give sb a shout/)call sb' can mean call them (doubtless in order to tell them something) or simply tell them something (after attracting their attention), relay whatever is important in the context (even if the request to call them/give them a call or shout didn't specify why), which makes it sound like 'call' and 'tell' are the synonymous pair now, but that tell is only for glossing, 'tell' is ditransitive:

A: Call John* (for dinner)/Tell John (that) dinner's ready.
...
B: (John) Dinner's ready! (or perhaps just 'John!' if John is aware and knows it's about that time; or hell, why not just both! 'John, dinner's ready, dammit! And there's a policemen here to see you!')

*Isn't that what the evil liquid polyalloy shapeshifting terminator said in T2?! Miniquotes! The new craze sweeping Dave's! (You thought the quotes on the spine of Empire were difficult? Think again!).

These changes in syntax and little additions do change the meaning of the "form" , but nothing so far has led me to believe that 'shout' has anything like the meaning of 'call' (unless it is used delexically - "give sb a shout/call').

Are you saying that delexicalised verbs are disallowed in the kind of constructions I posted? ... Then, I can do nothing more for you except to say "go seek".

Shout me later if you need other help.

[fluffyhamster]

Are you saying that delexicalised verbs are disallowed in the kind of constructions I posted? ... Then, I can do nothing more for you except to say "go seek".

I'm not sure if I'd go that far (in saying, and thus, nor seeking either!). Why don't you tell us, metal?

Shout me later if you need other help.

Doubtless somebody can google up some evidence that some supposedly great writer (who was probably high on drugs at the time) tatooed that on on the side of a cow in pre-printing press times (when spelling was dodgier), but in the meantime, tell me honestly, where do you get examples like that from? I'm wondering if there's now a search engine called Gaga, or an American dictionary called Windup's or something somewhere.

[fluffyhamster]

Oh, I also just wanted to say (and please don't take this the wrong way, metal), but could you try to select the more essential parts of posts (especially the lenghtier, which are often mine, I guess ), rather than quoting the whole lot every time? Having to wade through reams of similar-looking posts can get tiring and sometimes confusing too, and I've noticed that even you, the master of it, find it difficult to get the quote feature functioning correctly if you feel a need to add comments halfway through rather than after the mass of quotes within quotes you're dumping. It also makes it increasingly hard for the next poor soul who wants to quote something "in context". Anybody who bothers following a thread even halfway closely will soon know or remember who the main perpetrators are, and there is as much if not more context to be had in a quicker (i.e. shorter) series of exchanges (at least, between the lengthier original posts themselves).