Science and Technology news... :: View topic

AntÃ³nio Marques · Guest

'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 ?
--
AntÃ³nio Marques

Peter T. Daniels · Guest

On Oct 9, 11:27 am, António Marques <m...@sapo.pt> wrote:
[quote]'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
[/quote]
Omit "which."

benlizro@ihug.co.nz · Guest

On Oct 10, 4:27 am, António Marques <m...@sapo.pt> wrote:
[quote]'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
[/quote]

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.

Ross Clark

Larry Swain · Guest

AntÃ³nio Marques wrote:
[quote]'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 ?
[/quote]
you don>t. The first thing *that* the King-Emperor *did* upon (better:
when) succeeding the reclusive Mazzimilian the mad *to* the throne *was*
to throw open the Private Park to the public.

Peter T. Daniels · Guest

On Oct 9, 4:57 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
[quote]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.
[/quote]
The "lower clause" isn>t a clause, everything after the colon is just
a long and awkward nominal. There>s already a main verb in the very
first line, all the rest is decoration.

AntÃ³nio Marques · Guest

Larry Swain wrote:
[quote]AntÃ³nio Marques 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 ?

you don>t. The first thing *that* the King-Emperor *did* upon (better:
when) succeeding the reclusive Mazzimilian the mad *to* the throne *was*
to throw open the Private Park to the public.
[/quote]
That>s very well, but that>s not what he wanted to say, just as 'is' is
not 'being'.
--
AntÃ³nio Marques

benlizro@ihug.co.nz · Guest

On Oct 10, 10:15 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
[quote]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,
[/quote]
The clause I am talking about is "[which] the King-Emperor did", a
relative clause modifying "thing".

everything after the colon is just
[quote]a long and awkward nominal.
[/quote]
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
[quote]first line, all the rest is decoration.
[/quote]
?? What do you consider the main verb? And main verb of what?

Ross Clark

benlizro@ihug.co.nz · Guest

On Oct 10, 12:17 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
[quote]On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 13:57:48 -0700 (PDT),
"benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in
news:43cc82b6-c5c2-4344-879b-238f50bd6df1@n1g2000prb.googlegroups.com
in sci.lang:

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,

Meaning what I think of as the Dr Eszterhazy stories?

in which I don>t know if Avram uses deliberately
non-standard language as he>s wont whenever possible.

I don>t remember that they>re any more unusual in that
respect than a lot of his other writing.

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 ?
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.

Davidson could get away with it if anyone could. I>d like
to see it in context, but out of context my own version
would be:

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 the King-Emperor
having done, upon succeeding the reclusive
Mazzimilian the Mad on the throne, having
being to throw open the Private Park to the
public.

Brian
[/quote]
Blech. Sorry, putting more -ing>s in just makes it worse. May be a
genuine difference of grammars here.

Ross Clark

wugi · Guest

"Peter T. Daniels" :
[quote]'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_

Omit "which."
[/quote]
I thought the same at first, but... then it must also work well, eg, like:
The first thing the king having done was to open the bank...

Meseems "having" has been 'induced' by "being" which, however, operates at
another level:

(... no longer private), the first thing (which) the king did (...) being to
open the bank....

guido
google wugi

Bart Mathias · Guest

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
[quote]On Oct 9, 11:27 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

Omit "which."
[/quote]
That makes it read right for me, but I find that after that, "was to
throw," "was throwing," and "being throw" are all equally unremarkable.
I would probably write "had done ... was throw"; that makes it fail
Antonio Marques' objection to Larry Swain>s suggestion, but the ":" part
pretty well covers it in writing.

Let the AI people worry about it, I say.

António Marques · Guest

wugi wrote:
[quote]"Peter T. Daniels" :
'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_

Omit "which."

I thought the same at first, but... then it must also work well, eg, like:
The first thing the king having done was to open the bank...
[/quote]
Maybe this one can work with had...being, which however has 'was' ->
'being', which......

[quote]Meseems "having" has been 'induced' by "being" which, however, operates at
another level:

(... no longer private), the first thing (which) the king did (...) being to
open the bank....
[/quote]
Yes. If there was only one level, I think I>d go with 'the first thing
which he had done having been...'. But Avram wrote what he wrote for
some good reason, and it bothers me I can>t appreciate it.
--
António Marques

António Marques · Guest

wugi wrote:

[quote]guido
google wugi
[/quote]
Your name sounds like you could give me other suggestions in my quest
for the italian dictionary... but istr you>re dutch.
--
António Marques

Peter T. Daniels · Guest

On Oct 9, 5:53 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
[quote]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".
[/quote]
I>m talking about the corrected version without "which."

[quote]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?
[/quote]
is

The greatest thing about it is that it>s no longer private

benlizro@ihug.co.nz · Guest

On Oct 10, 4:04 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
[quote]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."
[/quote]
And you don>t consider that a clause?

[quote]
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
[/quote]
And that is the part of the sentence in which there is no problem at
all.
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.
A simple example from Trask to illustrate this kind of thing:

[The day being cloudy,] we decided to stay home.

The bracketed stuff is the participial-absolute. Understood
"was" (main verb of the participial structure) is replaced by "being",
indicating that this is the explanation or reason for the main clause.
Now if you have subordinate clauses within your participial structure,
at least in my English, you do _not_ want to participialize the verbs
in them. So

[The day we had planned to go for a walk being cloudy], we decided to
stay home.

Replacing any of those by "having", "planning", "going", or any
combination thereof, just makes a mess. And that>s what Davidson has
done.

Ross Clark

Brian M. Scott · Guest

On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 13:57:48 -0700 (PDT),
"benlizro@ihug.co.nz" <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote in
<news:43cc82b6-c5c2-4344-879b-238f50bd6df1@n1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:

[quote]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,
[/quote]
Meaning what I think of as the Dr Eszterhazy stories?

[quote]in which I don>t know if Avram uses deliberately
non-standard language as he>s wont whenever possible.
[/quote]
I don>t remember that they>re any more unusual in that
respect than a lot of his other writing.

[quote]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 ?

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.
[/quote]
Davidson could get away with it if anyone could. I>d like
to see it in context, but out of context my own version
would be:

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 the King-Emperor
having done, upon succeeding the reclusive
Mazzimilian the Mad on the throne, having
being to throw open the Private Park to the
public.

Brian


www.GetXFactor.com Leading Technology, Science, Agriculture News and information	Part of the Identityscape.com network... getxfactor.com jmoodmusic.com smartbusinesschoices.com mintdepot.com lowfaresalways.com evangelicalview.com shoppingpodder.com soproudlywehail.com webnews.ws currenthumor.com

Science and Technology news... Forum Index -> Languages Forum	Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next
Page 1 of 3