Peter T. Daniels
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 Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: Re: The first thing he having done being... |
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On Oct 12, 1:42 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
[quote]On Oct 12, 5:02 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Oct 11, 5:15 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
On Oct 12, 1:08 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Oct 11, 2:04 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
On Oct 11, 4:28 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Oct 10, 4:51 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
On Oct 11, 12:52 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Oct 10, 12:09 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
On Oct 10, 4:04 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon..net> wrote:
On Oct 9, 5:53 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug..co.nz> wrote:
On Oct 10, 10:15 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Oct 9, 4:57 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
On Oct 10, 4:27 am, António Marques <m...@sapo.pt> wrote:
'One, of course, is the great Private Park, and, of course, the greatest
thing about it is that it>s no longer private: the first thing which the
King-Emperor having done, upon succeeding the reclusive Mazzimilian the
Mad on the throne, being to throw open the Private Park to the pulic.'
-- Avram Davidson, _Polly Charms, the Sleeping Woman_
I can neither read that 'having' as correct, nor find an alternative, at
least without a major rewrite. This is one of the Transbalkania stories,
in which I don>t know if Avram uses deliberately non-standard language
as he>s wont whenever possible.
In general terms, how do you apply the is -> being transformation to a
pluperfect? Is it the way above?
is -> being
will X -> will be Xing
was -> ?
had Xparticiple -> ? having Xparticiple ?
--
António Marques
The problem in the above is that the participial transformation should
be applied only to the main verb in the clause you>re trying to
participialize. The underlying clause is something like "The first
thing the King-Emperor did....was to throw open....", a kind of pseudo-
cleft in which "was" is the main verb.
I think "being" is OK there, but if the underlying form is "was", you
could use "having been". I think that>s the only available
alternative. The writer has attempted also to participialize the verb
in a lower clause ("did"), which just makes a mess. If you leave "did"
it reads tolerably, though I think it>s a mistake to combine the
clefting and the participle. Too much fancy syntax.
The "lower clause" isn>t a clause,
The clause I am talking about is "[which] the King-Emperor did", a
relative clause modifying "thing".
I>m talking about the corrected version without "which."
And you don>t consider that a clause?
Of course not. A olause has a subject and a predicate -- it>s what pre-
linguistic grammars called a "sentence."
And "the King-Emperor" and "did" would fail to qualify as subject and
predicate on what grounds?
Since when is a participle the predicate of a clause?
But "did" is a finite verb.
Where do you two see "did"? It>s "the first thing the King-Emperor
having done."
If you>ll cast your eyes back up a few lines, you will see that I was
talking about "[which] the King-Emperor did". That was my suggested
minimum correction to the original. It was also part of my analysis of
the structure of the original and what went wrong with it.
When you replied that you were talking about the corrected version
without "which", I assumed you meant "the King-Emperor did". Turns out
you actually meant "the King-Emperor having done", as in the
original.
So can we have some explanation from you of what you think "the King-
Emperor having done" consists of, and how it relates to the rest of
the sentence, and why removing "which" is an improvement?
(or do you adhere to that peculiar anomaly the "small clause," which
was the star of Radford>s first Cambridge Textbook in Linguistics?)
everything after the colon is just
a long and awkward nominal.
I don>t know what you mean by "nominal", and calling it "awkward" is
hardly an analysis of what>s wrong with it.
There>s already a main verb in the very
first line, all the rest is decoration.
?? What do you consider the main verb? And main verb of what?
is
The greatest thing about it is that it>s no longer private
And that is the part of the sentence in which there is no problem at
all.
Obviously.
I thought it would be obvious that I was referring to the main verb of
the remainder of the sentence, a rather unwieldy structure which the
writer has attempted to attach to the above by means of a participial
(absolute) construction.
The remainder of the sentence has no main verb.
Still pursuing the via negativa, I see. So what would you consider
"being" in the original? I don>t mean just its part of speech, but its
function or relation to the rest of the sentence?
It>s a nominal, an appositive to "thing."
Still not sure what you mean by "nominal".
But an appositive should be coreferential with that which it is
appositive to. If we look for something else that is coreferent with
"the first thing which the King-Emperor [did]...", it is surely not
"being" and not even "being to throw open the Private Park...", but
rather "to throw open the Private Park....". So what is "being" doing
here? Why it is functioning as a copula, connecting the two
coreferential constituents. Well, that>s my view, anyway.
A participle doesn>t copulize:
So while I>m still waiting for you to explain what you mean by
"nominal", you hit me with "copulize"!
I assume you mean "function as a copula". OK, I guess now we>ll have
to wait for you to explain just what you think "being" _is_ doing in
that sentence.
"Ross being in New Zealand" isn>t a
clause with a verb.
So what would be your account of its manifest syntactic and semantic
relatedness to such bona fide sentences as "Ross is/was in New
Zealand"?
Well, since about 1960 (Lees>s dissertation) and 1970 (Chomsky), it
would be called a "nominalization."
OK with me, as long as you>re willing to apply it both to the more
obviously nouny uses like
Ross being in New Zealand isn>t a problem.
and also to the cases where it has some kind of adverbial function,
like
We cancelled this week>s meeting, Ross being in New Zealand.
Now my view of the problem sentence is that everything after "...no
longer private:" is one big nominalization of the latter kind. The
related (or underlying) full sentence would be
The first thing which the King-Emperor did (or had done)....was to
throw open the Private Park to the public.
The main verb in that sentence is "was". And when you>re nominalizing
a sentence in order to put it to this sort of adverbial use, you only
want to nominalize (participialize) the main verb. Which is what I
think is wrong with the original.
Now, do we disagree on the analysis, or only on terminology?
[/quote]
I really don>t care -- I haven>t done any syntax since the required
course my first year in Chicago. |
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