EXCLUSIVE: Fluffyhamster declared grammar dunce!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:58 pm

Actually, it isn't an exclusive. It's all over the Japan forum. Read all about it!
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=64791

Oh, and some of you might be thinking this news (i.e. the thread title) isn't so surprising and could thus do without the exclamation mark (you might also like to change 'declared' to something like 'confirmed as').

Anyway, the short story is: Verb phrases - what are they all about?

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:47 am

Nobody said you were a dunce. They said you hurt their brains. It is almost the opposite really. They don't want to play with you because you read all these fat modern books and try and apply (in a style which is less than crystal clear) what the pesky eggheads say about verb complexes etc to everyday forum questions.

Anyway, I agree with Ouyang - the first question calls two slightly different things the same work. I also think the third question has a very questionable "gerund". The second question is more answerable, but still shouldn't be inflicted on high schoolers.

Put two verbs together and the grammarians of the world go to pieces.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 1:52 pm

I thought my two posts there, especially the second, were a model of clarity and commonsense (why would anyone object to overlapping terms that help alter the focus of investigation and thinking somewhat?), and that Leech is hardly a big fat non-mainstream total egghead tome (in fact, I'd assume that it's the sort of stuff that most English teachers have at least skimmed and are basing their viewpoints on); yes, I know that getting too farty can kill a discussion, but I thought I was wearing whatever "learning" rather lightly there, and was assuming that being slapped down so meant I knew nothing or was confused. Anyway, seems I was wrong (about being wrong/expecting to be enlightened).

I'm not sure if that Ouyang is the same as the one on these Teacher forums (especially this AL one), but here's a question for you - did you find his and the next person's post a little...prescriptive? ('We cannot/don't say...we should say...instead''):

The people ((who are going) to eat the different kind of foods) have arrived.

Mary had no friends to talk it through with/to thrash it out with.

Not that there aren't complex ideas behind the sentences (and a little too much for many high school students).

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 6:14 pm

Yes, I use the same username on both forums, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I haven't made any attempt to buy or read the bulk of the grammar references that fluffy regularly cites. It's not because I don't think I could learn something. I'm just cheap and overworked.

I think I've expressed my opinion about the types of verbals which are used in these examples in a previous thread. Maybe not. I consider them a blind spot in most grammars. It would simplify English grammar if all verbal phrases could be classified as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, but fluffy's modification of my example is a good illusstration of why this isn't accurate. He tries to represent the structure as a reduced adjective clause.

"The people ((who are going) to eat the different kind of foods) have arrived."

However, the sequence "are going to" is primarily classified as a phrasal modal, so "eat" would be a primary verb in his relative clause, but it's an infinitive in the original example.

I think the most important point for students is that clauses can be classified by sentence patterns. Traditionally, there are five or six patterns, depending on whether you include one or two for linking verbs. The issue is whether the noun clause in question 62
"He remarked that he wished he could hire some people(62) to eat different kinds of food and chemicals ...."
should be classified as a S-V-Object pattern or a S-V-Object-Complement pattern. A related example would ask whether the following three sentences have the same pattern.

"She made him the subject of an experiment."
"She made him nervous."
"She made him eat different kinds of food and chemicals."

I would say they do. The first two examples are regularly classified as object complements, the first having a predicate noun and the 2nd a predicate adjective. However, classifying the third verbal phrase as a predicate adjective is problematic. So, it's basically avoided in most of the grammar references that I have read. The fact that Japanese academics are creating flawed questions about object complements indicates to me that they have been left to reach their own conclusions in lue of comprehensive grammars by native English speakers.

I'm not implying that I've done extensive research about these kinds of constructions. However, I'm pretty sure that I have seen grammars that consider the sort of non-finite clause in my 3rd example to be an object. Consequently, they classify the sentence pattern to be S-V-O, and group it with sentences like, "I know he eats different foods and chemicals."

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:51 am

Aren't you afraid to mention "prescriptive" around me by now FH? I think, of course, that Ouyang could have said "we don't usually say" instead of being firmer, but what difference does it really make?

I would think that you have to treat " X makes X eat X" as two verbs with two subjects, and thus two clauses, or else end up loopy. That is generally the treatment I have seen, as far as I recall.

I think "the money to buy" can be understood as "the money which is for buying" whereas you can't do that with people "the people which are for eating the X" * - or at least we usually don't - that is why I view them as different. (And it because of this that you can start the sentence with money but not people in Ouyang's example on the other thread). You might say "Money buys things" though, so I would probably have got the question right.

As to Fluffy's explanations - it is very hard to follow other people's grammatical musings at the best of times. A "reader-responsible" style hamster quoting unread texts is a special challenge. Reader-responsible, as far as I understand it, mainly means assuming that the reader is smart and au fait with the subject matter. We Anglo-Saxons tend to think this assumption is not warranted.

And then FH can get himself in a pickle as well, and seems to have here. I don't think you can add in an "are going to". These are not the same:

I hired some people who are going to burn down the school!
I hired some people to burn down the school!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:28 pm

Those/the people (that are) for analyzing A B C as X Y Z, raise your hands!

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:29 pm

Eh?

The difference in "deep structure" for the first of the Japanese questions can be seen like this:

For example

The slaves to make the fire are here
The slaves to make the fire with are here

(maybe they've got straw clothes?)

The deep structure in this case is different because only in the first case will the slaves be the ones to build the fire. We can use the "with" to reduce this ambiguity but in practice we really almost never need to - we rely on the difference between animate and inanimate objects.

So "I hired some people to eat X"
and "I used some money to buy X (with)"

have different underlying structure.

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:50 am

The hamster appears to be perturbed.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:12 am

Now that's Korean forums talk!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:30 pm

Not too perturbed, woody, just a bit busy (the cat and house need defleaing)...but it would probably take more time and effort (I've never claimed to be particularly knowledgeable) to answer these questions of "best or most consistent analyses" (or your "deep structure") than I really want to spare, to be honest! I might revisit this thread at some point, though.

donnach · Post by **donnach** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:42 pm

I wonder what a class co-taught by all three of you would be like?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:10 pm

donnach wrote:I wonder what a class co-taught by all three of you would be like?

It would certainly be an experience, that's for sure!

You know Woody, I'm thinking of borrowing that last pic there to be my new avatar over on the Job Discussion forums.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:37 pm

I have previously ranted against the use of avatars on all available forums, especially since on the Korean forums people have recently been exposed to avatars of people consuming their own liquid excrement and similar things..........

A raging hamster beats that, that's for sure.

In real life however, I seldom rant. A class involving me and another big-mouthed teacher with alien views (like the camps I did this summer) will simply see me being quiet. And I think in a class with Ouyang I would have to let him get on with it - whether or not I find his views obscure in places he certainly is surer footed with the rough edges of grammar than I am. FH has read so many grammar books with contradictory approaches that he doesn't know what day it is any more, so he will probably feel the same way.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:21 am

I take it that the Huddleston (An Intro to the Grammar of English) didn't do it for you then, Woody? Might I suggest one of the Quirk grammars instead? (SJ and Donnach swear by 'em). Reading that would sure beat beating yourself (and implicitly others) up about the "total" lack of an agreed/agreeable terminology.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:42 am

No, I tend to believe that there are significant fundamental differences in the way different people approach things - with special reference to internet discussions where any old page will do as evidence mark you - so that a lot of the time people are jabbering away at cross-purposes. For example, one of the most basic things we talk about, a unit from which we begin our discussions and build our theories upon, perhaps, are nouns.

And what the heck are they anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun

(The wiki entry for verb, by the way, kicks off by mentioning "actions" amongst other things, and has that sign at the top that says "expert needed". Can any of you experts help me out with a real definition?)

Stephen, however, has said such problems (among experts, of course) are usually only a matter of "terminology".

I dipped into Quirk here and there, when I lived in more civilized parts, and I've seen other people's dippings in. Do you really read these works cover to cover?