Teacher Discussion Forums

Do you think a verb has been ellipted below?

Mandy enjoyed the movie.

It's, it depends time again. "Enjoyed" can be followed by a gerund, but it can also function as a lexical verb. Now presumably the invisible verb that you are refering to would be "seeing", but "seeing" is only a short-cut for the whole movie experience. We also listen, but that is never said. I think that we could either:
1. View the enjoyment as coming directly from the movie; or
2. Indirectly through the watching of (and listening to) the movie.

This is a property of all the catenatives that are not modals. Modals and "let" which is in essence a transitive modal, together with semi-modals when acting as modals are semantically nothing more than our philosophical perspective on the action performed, or our illocutionary intent in making the utterance. In other words, there is no real action done by them and there must be another verb whether visible or invisible to which we can overlay this meaning.

"Enjoy", abstract though it is, seems to be sth that can at least said to be done, and so can act as a lexical verb.

Andrew Patterson wrote:It's, it depends time again. "Enjoyed" can be followed by a gerund, but it can also function as a lexical verb. Now presumably the invisible verb that you are refering to would be "seeing", but "seeing" is only a short-cut for the whole movie experience. We also listen, but that is never said. I think that we could either:
1. View the enjoyment as coming directly from the movie; or
2. Indirectly through the watching of (and listening to) the movie.

This is a property of all the catenatives that are not modals. Modals and "let" which is in essence a transitive modal, together with semi-modals when acting as modals are semantically nothing more than our philosophical perspective on the action performed, or our illocutionary intent in making the utterance. In other words, there is no real action done by them and there must be another verb whether visible or invisible to which we can overlay this meaning.

"Enjoy", abstract though it is, seems to be sth that can at least said to be done, and so can act as a lexical verb.

I'm with you on most of that. Taking the example of "Miller began the book.", we see that many who are familiar with American writer Henry Miller would interpret/overlay the meaning of "began writing" from "began". If, on the other hand, we knew Miller as the accountant in our office, we would have a different take on the word "began" - and so on. For me, it seems as if most people see an absent (syntactically), and not an invisible (semantically), verb.

And what about such mind teasers as "Tom has gone to town."? Absent verb? Or invisible verb?

Back soon. Time for bed.

Bill cleared the table.

He cleared the table of dishes.

He leapt over the table without touching it.

He took the table from the attic and disposed of it.

Context, context, context. Context is everything here. Confusion of context is a staple of comedians, I am reminded of Billy Connolly appearing on "Parkinson" following two other guests who had been plugging their new books.

Billy Connolly said, "It's great to be here; I've just finished my first book too...it's taken me a long time to read it, but there you go."

I'm not sure I quite understand the question, with regard to, "Tom has gone to town." "Go" can be a catenative, but here it is acting as a normal intransitive lexical verb. For this reason, I can't see any possibility of an invisible verb. That is not to say that this can't be interpreted in more than one way. We could either mean that:
1. Tom is either on his way to town or already there; or
2. Has either spent a lot of money or gone to a lot of trouble preparing sth.

This is a difference between the literal and figurative, though, rather than between a choice of invisible verbs, or the choice not to interpret any invisible verb.

I really can't see what the issue is here. Almost any sentence out of context could be ambiguous and adding extra words into them may help make them clearer. It doesn't mean anything was "left out" or ellipted.

To take the original sentence, what if Mandy could have been a small child cutting her first teeth who picked up a VHS cassette and bit it a few times. When I was very small I enjoyed Sargeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band when I took a bite out of the album, much to my father's annoyance. I grew up thinking the With a little help from my friends was the first track.

Andrew Patterson wrote:
1. Tom is either on his way to or town or already there; or
2. Has either spent a lot of money or gone to a lot of trouble preparing sth.
.

Or:

A-flatmate: Did anyone do the shopping?

B-flatmate: Tom has gone to town.

A-flatmate: Did anyone do the shopping?

B-flatmate: Tom has gone to town.

Surely this is the same as saying Tom is either on his way to or already in town. The only difference is that we have implied why he's gone.

Couldn't it be argued that "Mandy enjoyed the movie" and "Mandy enjoyed seeing the movie" might not have identical meanings? Maybe if you told us who her date was, that might shed new light on things. Lolwhites seems to have a point.

Larry Latham

LarryLatham wrote:Couldn't it be argued that "Mandy enjoyed the movie" and "Mandy enjoyed seeing the movie" might not have identical meanings? Maybe if you told us who her date was, that might shed new light on things. Lolwhites seems to have a point.

Larry Latham

Whichever verb you see a "missing", be it seeing, chewing (see lolwhite above), or even the verb you would see coming from knowing her date's name, the question is the same: where does the meaning of "enjoyed" come from? Is it from an ellipted verb (syntactic omission) that is perceived from context, or is it from someting else?

where does the meaning of "enjoyed" come from?

The context.

If speaker and listener know who Mandy is and the situation under discussion, the meaning of enjoyed is clear.

lolwhites wrote:

where does the meaning of "enjoyed" come from?

The context.

If speaker and listener know who Mandy is and the situation under discussion, the meaning of enjoyed is clear.

We hope so. I guess only Mandy really knows.

The point is we're not missing a verb here. What is lacking is ouside the sentence, not inside.

A rough analogy might be trying to plant potatoes in the desert. If they don't grow, it's no good asking "What's wrong with the potatoes?" when what they need is some proper soil.

Hear, hear!

Larry Latham

I think that perhaps the idea of invisible verbs is more useful when applied to the model equivalents. Invisible verbs may exist with other catenatives, but they surely must exist with modal equivalents such as "ought to", "be about to", "be on the point of", etc.

I would go further: it could be used as a test in deciding what is and isn't a modal equivalent, as it should be apparant that modal equivalents can't exist without another verb whether it is visible or not.