Huddleston speaks!

[Heath]

"I remember how you could dive off the highest diving board."
-Past; not remote; not conditional.

"If could reach it if I was a bit taller."
- Conditional; not past; not remote.

"Could I use your phone for a minute?"
- Potentially remote, but potentially nothing but a request; not past; not conditional.


In the latter, a speaker might actively use 'could' to express some kind of remoteness if they were in a particularly formal, polite, or "I'm asking too much of you" situation... In those cases they are more likely to combine gestures, intonation, etc, to get that 'remoteness' across.

But, while there are more options for making requests between friends and some people may regularly use other options, 'could' is still used this way; usually with none of its remoteness. In these cases it's a habitual use of an item of language used to make a request and nothing else.


I'm not convinced of the value of 'remoteness' and would much rather see words like 'would' and 'could' dealt with in context. We're happy to say that other words have multiple meanings/uses, why this fixation on finding a common ground between the various uses of 'would' and 'could'?

[fluffyhamster]

I'd say that the diving is temporally (recollectively?) remote, and the state of being taller remote from reality i.e. only hypothetical, imaginary. As for requests, I try to teach remote (and progressive) forms only in contexts where there is a good chance that the request could be refused (e.g. 'Excuse me, Mr Braithwaite, Sir, but I was just wondering if I could possibly take next week off to go on holiday...' - sort of "Eigo no keigo" ne! - 'Another holiday so soon, Pilkington?! You've practically only just got back from your last one!'. Q: Is the boss exaggerating, do you think?), but the problem with saying that there is no difference between the forms 'can' and 'could' is that, well, to the student, there obviously is at least a formal difference (which begs the question of whether there is a functional reason motivating the apparent "choice"), and it might be easier to simply teach that one is a tiny bit more polite than the other, rather than that they are functionally the same, if only so you'd never hear a ?I was just wondering if I can... request form from a student (as opposed to if the context were for example about one's actual abilities: I was just wondering (to myself) if I can/could still touch my toes (but does the 'can' there also sound that bit "off"? That is, there would seem a slight mismatch in following 'was' with 'can' in both contexts)).

[Stephen Jones]

"I remember how you could dive off the highest diving board."
Remote in time

"If could reach it if I was a bit taller."
Remote from reality

"Could I use your phone for a minute?"
Remote socially

[LarryLatham]

Heath says:
"I'm not convinced of the value of 'remoteness' and would much rather see words like 'would' and 'could' dealt with in context. We're happy to say that other words have multiple meanings/uses, why this fixation on finding a common ground between the various uses of 'would' and 'could'?"

I'm not sure what you mean by "dealt with in context." Of course meanings always must be dealt with in context. In fact, that is the point. When we say that words have multiple meanings/uses, a little closer inspection of those various meanings or uses shows why the same word can be used in several ways. Each of those ways shares a certain underlying concept which can be harnessed to enhance particular meaning in a particular communicative situation. Isn't that what you mean by "context?"

The replies by Fluffy and Stephen should suggest to us that this idea of 'remoteness' can reasonably be analyzed and classified in several ways. What is important, however, is that all of them indicate some sort of remoteness, which can be used to sharpen meaning. Use of remote forms indicates that the user feels somehow "distanced" from what he is saying. It is up to interlocutors to interpret just what he means, and Fluffy and Stephen have shown us that different people sometimes interpret what is said in different ways. Well, duh!

All that said, Heath, you have a great deal of company in finding yourself unconvinced by the value of remoteness as a useful concept in grammar. Teachers, students, and even linguists have all expressed doubts. Personally, I find it highly illuminating, but I recognize that not all interested parties agree with that. I guess you just have to go with what you feel most comfortable with.

[Heath]

Yeah, I understand the philosophical remoteness underlying the first two, and it is much more about me being "unconvinced by the value of remoteness as a useful concept".

But going beyond that, in the last example, it seems to me that it can sometimes be remote socially, and it can be selected contrastively instead of 'can', but in very many uses it is not. In the case of a friend making a request of a friend, it is often an arbitrarily (and perhaps absent-mindedly) made use of one of two possible lexical items.

If in that case it is no longer remote, then the only relationship between remoteness and the use of 'could' in that situation is one of an etymology of sorts. It once had an underlying remoteness, but no longer does.


I have no idea who said it, but I remember someone saying something along the lines of grammar rules being either too general and abstract to be useful or being incomplete rules of thumb to which there are a number of exceptions.

I see the value in general but comprehensive and the value in a rule of thumb with exceptions, but remoteness seems to suffer from the disadvantages of both!

[LarryLatham]

Heath, you sound like a reasonable and intelligent fellow (or lady, I'm not sure which) to me. And based on what you have said, I suspect you're pretty good in the classroom. Which is a roundabout way of saying that going with your own comfort level is probably the way to go for your own sake, and for the sake of your students.

But let me try to give you something to chew on. You said:

"...it is often an arbitrarily (and perhaps absent-mindedly) made use of one of two possible lexical items."

Let's consider that for a moment. For that to be true, you have to believe that somehow we language users make selections of the particular words and grammatical constructions we use by some sort of mental roll of the dice. That choices can often be arbitrary and inconsequential, and therefore without meaning. That given the exact same set of circumstances on a number of occasions, our choices would be randomly distributed amongst the available alternatives. That sometimes we would choose, "Can I use your phone...," and at other times choose, "Could I use your phone...," with no difference in meaning in the exact same speaking situation.

It strikes me that that's an awful lot to swallow. I do believe that our choices of language are often made subconsciously and might therefore seem to be arbitrary because we cannot seem to think why we made one choice over another. But I submit that good reasons do exist, and that more frequently than may be realized, remoteness may play a part in the choice. Recall that a language user's feelings have a great deal to do with the way he says things. It seems to me that the choices must necessarily be deliberate even if they might be hard to analyze. Remember too, that these choices are subject to interpretation by listeners, and that mistakes of interpretation are sometimes made.

"I have no idea who said it, but I remember someone saying something along the lines of grammar rules being either too general and abstract to be useful or being incomplete rules of thumb to which there are a number of exceptions."

Unfortunately, all too many people say this, some of whom should know better. Language rules (the real ones, at any rate, as distinguished from those promulgated in grammar texts and teaching materials which sometimes are not true, or are only partly true--more common than you might think) are just specific enough, and are true nearly without exception. What exceptions do exist are mostly those created by well meaning but misinformed language mavens (including teachers) who insist that tradition must be followed; that the rules they know must be followed. (How conveniently they forget that there was a time, not really so long ago, when proper English would have been unintelligible to a modern listener.)

[Heath]

Ah, yeah, fellow.

I must admit, I am a big believer that the teacher's personality and teaching styles/attitudes play a big role in the language learning classroom (I even argue that they're, in some ways, more relevant than learning styles), so I guess I shouldn't be so against the idea of remoteness. Teachers who don't, personally, see the value of it, wouldn't be able to apply it properly even if they tried - because the motivation/belief/enthusiasm just isn't there. Teachers who do personally see the value in remoteness probably do make good use of it.

As for the subconscious bit, perhaps 'arbitrarily' wasn't the right word when it's more 'for reasons that we may or may not know or understand'. But choice of language can be made for many reasons other than meaning. Some examples: personal preference, regional differences, genre, and as you mentioned - feelings. Each of these make a difference in the choice but not one based on meaning, and therefore not based on remoteness. I just think that there are times when I use the word 'can' because it's the most common one I'd use with friends in a fairly neutral context, and other times I use 'could' because whatever mood I happen to be in at that time makes me just not want to use can... or something along those lines.

Bleh, now I'm getting hung up on details. Next I'll be arguing that the vowel sound in fell, bell, and cell is /ae/ not /e/...


Yeah, I get the grammar rule thing. Wherever I read it, it wasn't aimed at grammar rules in general, but specifically at those "promulgated in grammar texts and teaching materials which sometimes are not true, or are only partly true" - probably written around the time that grammars started getting good. I was just exploiting it for my own uses.


Thanks, by the way... talking about all this has helped me understand remoteness quite a bit more - I'm just not going to draw on it myself.

[LarryLatham]

"I must admit, I am a big believer that the teacher's personality and teaching styles/attitudes play a big role in the language learning classroom (I even argue that they're, in some ways, more relevant than learning styles), so I guess I shouldn't be so against the idea of remoteness. Teachers who don't, personally, see the value of it, wouldn't be able to apply it properly even if they tried - because the motivation/belief/enthusiasm just isn't there. Teachers who do personally see the value in remoteness probably do make good use of it."

Well put! All the best for success in your teaching.