Huddleston speaks!

[woodcutter]

Remoteness is not self-explanatory. It is something like an antonym of polite. If we need to tell people what "remoteness" means before they can apply our theory, in terms of past (not future)/polite/remote from reality, then it is a waste of time to use the term.

Huddleston likes multi-meanings it would seem, and does not really see the need for a central meaning. However, I think that it is useful to see the second conditional as a somewhat logical offshoot of the past meaning, because in an unmarked sentence the past meaning is the one we will assume. Anyway, whatever, we must always be ready to see a core meaning take on a new meaning in a special situation. To seek for ultimate logic in all things will be fruitless.

Politeness is a different matter, as I have shown elsewhere, employing past forms is only one way we can muddy the issue and produce an indirect, polite sentence. They are not usually employed in a way that is absolutely illogical.

[LarryLatham]

Remoteness is not self-explanatory. It is something like an antonym of polite.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, woodcutter. I don't want to seem obtuse, though, since despite my fuzzy take, you say it like you know what you're talking about. I'd just like to remind people, however, that it is exactly people from whom we feel a certain remoteness to whom we are polite. Polite forms are remote forms. You are not usually polite to your brother...he'd probably knock you in the head if you were. If you said, "Could I have another helping of potatoes, Mother?" you'd find yourself put to bed early with a hot plaster. "More of those delicious potatoes, please" is likely to be more to her liking. (You can argue about whether "please" is polite language, if you wish).

On the other hand, if you were granted an audience with Queen Elizabeth perchance, you'd better trot out your politest language. (Unless you happen to be the Queen's favorite first cousin, of course.)

Larry Latham

[metal56]

Remoteness is not self-explanatory. It is something like an antonym of polite. If we need to tell people what "remoteness" means before they can apply our theory, in terms of past (not future)/polite/remote from reality, then it is a waste of time to use the term.

Interesting take. Do you think that "present perfect" is self-explanatory?

And what's happening here regarding deictics?


Steve? I can't stand him!


Steve? I can't stand that man!

............

Just recently, I've been spending a lot of time ...

Back then, I spent a lot of time ...
.......

And here, regarding distancing:

That is true, but unkind.

Both true and kind.


A "report" of the same moment in time (just happened):

Mum! Steve said he doesn't want to come.

Mum! Steve says he doesn't want to come.----

Alice, on remote:

“Well, in our country,” said Alice panting a Little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else - if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.”

(Source: Laura Hidalgo Downing from Alice in Pragmaticland.)

-------------------

I have said before that the concept of remoteness in language use is meant to be only a tool, one way of looking at things. I have also stated that in the last 10 years I have introduced that concept to all my students, now numbering into the thousands, by way of simple diagrams.

Many of those students have said that for the first time they had really understood the way past simple works in time, possibility and social relations. I meet many of my old students today who remind me of how vivid the diagrams were and how discussions of distance and closeness in human perception of not only language, but life in general, have helped them maintain a clear understanding.

So, is the problem with the term, or with the explainers?

[metal56]

(10) “It’s very good jam,” said the Queen.

“Well, I don’t want any today, at any rate.”

“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today.”

“It must come sometimes to ‘jam today’“, Alice objected.

“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other day, you know.” (LG/247)

http://www.ucm.es/info/circulo/no2/hidalgo.htm

The Queen reminds me of my boss every time I begin discussing a pay rise.




Elsewhere in the paper:

Today is a proximal deictic, since it indicates closeness with the time-reference of the speaker and contrasts with other time expressions such as tomorrow, and yesterday - distal deictics, in that they indicate distant time references from the point of view of the speaker.

[woodcutter]

I'm sorry, but I don't think comments about how much we think students love our teaching have a place in these discussions. We would all like to believe that, we all have evidence for it.

I'm also sorry if I'm being slow, but I'm afraid I don't really see the point of all the examples with deictics.

If you wish to say that "remoteness" is a little heuristic tool that is just one way of looking at things, that's fine. I think I might be forgiven for getting the impression that it really is much more important than that in your classrooms.

Larry, I'm not really sure I followed your post either. "Could I have another helping of potatoes please" is fine. Using the word "mother" is not.

I'm not convinced about the analogy with the present perfect. The present perfect is not a over-arching term for A, B and (central) C. Do you not accept that when you mention the term remoteness, you then must define it to the students in the terms of unreality, politeness and past. Are they able to make any use of it without such clarification?

[woodcutter]

I'd like to renew my little assault on the "polite" part of this, if I may, now Larry is along again.

"Could" and "Would" are very unusual words. In an unmarked sentence they do not carry a past tense meaning, but a conditional one. That is also the meaning they carry in polite constructions, which I believe we can make in a number of ways, using the past tense or other things where they do not totally controvert logic. "Did you want sugar with that" (past form employed) "I wonder if you might be able to open the window" (past form not employed) are sentences which do not controvert logic, but are a little silly, just the thing which we are looking for.

"Please gave me a cup of tea" is a clanger, however.

[LarryLatham]

"Could" and "Would" are very unusual words. In an unmarked sentence they do not carry a past tense meaning, but a conditional one.

I would simply say they do not carry a past time meaning, but a remote one. When you ask, "Would you like some tea?", you are acknowledging that the answer does not reside with you. If you point to your friend and say to the waitress, "She would like more tea", again you recognize that the call is not yours, but rather you are acting as an agent in making the request.

Sentences containing "Could" or "Would" are not unmarked, in my view. They are marked by the presence of a remote auxiliary. "She wants more tea" would be an unmarked sentence.

I believe remoteness makes a tidier theory, woodcutter, and easier for students to understand. There is consistency in it. Use of remote forms always carry remote meanings, if not past time ones. On your explanation, students are forced to understand that sometimes past tense forms carry past time meanings, and sometimes not. Their question might reasonably be: How can I know when they do and when they don't?

Larry Latham

[metal56]

I'm sorry, but I don't think comments about how much we think students love our teaching have a place in these discussions. We would all like to believe that, we all have evidence for it.

Don't be silly and don't patronise me or students. Students know when something has been of value to them. My students also criticised many things they thought that I didn't teach well, the proximity and remoteness view on usage was not one of them.

I'm also sorry if I'm being slow, but I'm afraid I don't really see the point of all the examples with deictics.

I imagined it would be so. Why not go and read a little?

If you wish to say that "remoteness" is a little heuristic tool that is just one way of looking at things, that's fine. I think I might be forgiven for getting the impression that it really is much more important than that in your classrooms.

If you wish to give it more import than it has, it is not my problem. Mind you, remoteness and nearness do play a part in most people's lives outside of the classroom. Not in yours?

Do you not accept that when you mention the term remoteness, you then must define it to the students in the terms of unreality, politeness and past. Are they able to make any use of it without such clarification?

Who said I mention the term "remoteness"?

[malgeum]

I can't see the value in teaching remoteness as a vague-sounding "unified theory of the past form."

If a concept can not be broken down into one or two fairly understandable sentences, it is pedagogically useless in an ESL classroom. Not only that, it could also lead to a very serious misunderstanding of the language on the part of the learner. Students could be lead to presume, for example, that since the auxiliary's past form is used to show varying degrees of politeness (or humbleness), politeness somehow derives from some abstract idea of 'remoteness', rather than, as someone said earlier in this thread, from a deference to the other's free judgment.

[metal56]

I can't see the value in teaching remoteness as a vague-sounding "unified theory of the past form."

If a concept can not be broken down into one or two fairly understandable sentences, it is pedagogically useless in an ESL classroom.

Do us a favour?

Break down the use of some and any into one or two fairly understandable sentences.

[woodcutter]

Metal, as you may remember, I have pointed out that many students are very enthused about method schools (an issue in which I have no vested interest) to the point of paying out lots and lots of money to attend.That didn't seem to cut any ice!

I see you have wheeled out the "you are too low-brow to understand" argument at last. You could be right. However, I take solace from the fact that Rodney Huddleston is too, and I don't see Michael Lewis in my dictionary of applied linguistics. "Remoteness" in the same volume makes no mention of this chimercal seeming "polite" function.

Larry, I see "I would like some tea" as having a missing "if you would be so good as to give me some" element.

Maybe unmarked was the wrong word, but "would" and "could" are unusual in not carrying a past meaning in the most basic of sentences in which they appear.

As I said while you were away, to me this is the same kind of thing as variations in a word like "blue". Blue has a central colour meaning, but while the central meaning is influential in "He feels blue", there is a wholly new semantic force - "sad". Students have to be prepared to look at new semantic meanings on familiar items in marked circumstances. Thus should look on a "ed" inflection as a past inflection, but one which takes on futuristic conditional properties in marked circumstances. I do not feel it is quite right to say that the inflection would take on any particular "polite" property, but even if it is, that is still a lesser variation of the central past meaning.

By the way, Huddleston does seem keener on a central meaning later on in his text!

[fluffyhamster]

I don't think the analogy with "blue" really works (and as you yourself say, woodcutter, "there is a wholly new semantic force" to its "sad" meaning) - might as well spell it "bloo" for all the "central meaning" it retains! (is the only reason it exists because songwriters needed a word to rhyme with "loo", or something? ).

So, although "blue"="sad"=sense 2 of the adjective in a dictionary, the gulf between it and the "colour" sense is arguably much greater (to my mind at least) than that between the various uses of e.g. the modal ("can" vs.) "could". Does it really matter if one teacher decides to add what they see as a unifying element to any functional description of the various meanings of a form? If you don't like the extra word, you can always just omit it, or highlight what you think is the distinguishing factor (which nobody, as far as I am aware, is contesting is e.g. possibility vs. requesting vs. suggesting. etc).

If for no other purpose than as an exercise in using the font commands here on Dave's, I've added a bit to the definitions from The New Oxford Dictionary of English:

could modal verb past of can1.
- used to indicate remote possibility: they could be right | I would go if I could afford it.
- used in making polite/"remote" requests: could I use the phone?
- used in making "remote" (=tentative) suggestions: you could always ring him up.
- used to indicate (-) annoyance because of something that has not been done: they could have told me!
- used to indicate a strong(!) inclination to do something: he irritates me so much that I could scream.

It would seem somewhat odd or counterintuitive to me to add "remote" to the last two uses listed above, but I'll leave that to you guys to argue over (if you want).

[LarryLatham]

- used to indicate (-) annoyance because of something that has not been done: they could have told me! (...but they didn't)
- used to indicate a strong(!) inclination to do something: he irritates me so much that I could scream. (...but I won't)

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

I am open to good argument against the concept of past forms as remote. But so far, I haven't seen a convincing one.

I also don't think the analogy with "blue" works very well, because as you say, woodcutter, "blue" has semantic force. Words like "could" or "would", however, do not carry the same kind of semantic force. They are different kinds of words, and exist only for grammatical purposes. They do have meaning, but only in that they convey a sense of ability or possiblity. Indeed, they are remote forms of "can" and "will" (but please, they are not "past" forms, at least not in the sense that they connote past time). There's no sense of the past at all in, "I could come tomorrow."

Larry Latham

[metal56]

I am open to good argument against the concept of past forms as remote. But so far, I haven't seen a convincing one.

I also don't think the analogy with "blue" works very well, because as you say, woodcutter, "blue" has semantic force. Words like "could" or "would", however, do not carry the same kind of semantic force. They are different kinds of words, and exist only for grammatical purposes. They do have meaning, but only in that they convey a sense of ability or possiblity. Indeed, they are remote forms of "can" and "will" (but please, they are not "past" forms, at least not in the sense that they connote past time). There's no sense of the past at all in, "I could come tomorrow."

Larry Latham

Or in:

My daughter would not be bullied.

My daughter would not be bullied, she fought for herself against all comers.

My daughter would not be bullied. She will stick up for herself, so be warned.