Argument Structure
Lately, we have been considering different dimensions of meaning. So, for example, when we were looking at the English pronoun “it” in the following expression:
(1) “Look, I’ve got an apple, and I want you to hold it”
We can describe its grammatical meaning as ‘third person, singular.” Another way of looking at it; whatever “it” is, it cannot be the speaker, or the person spoken to, and it cannot be more than one. We know, furthermore, that ‘it’ may refer to ‘an apple’ in our example sentence, it can refer to something else besides an apple (perhaps the speaker is a beautiful but troubled blonde woman and she would like you to hold her pet snake, while she inspects an apple). Finally, ‘it’ may not refer to anything at all. That is, the expression ‘hold it’ can be interpreted, under the right circumstances, as the message ‘halt’!
Now I would like to dedicate this week’s blog entry to an aspect of this last dimension of meaning mentioned in the paragraph above. We have called “it” in the expression “hold it” (meaning ‘halt’) an expletive. In this case, ‘it’ has nothing to refer to. Note that “hold it” in this sense cannot be paraphrased by *“hold your body” or “hold your motion.” We have considered that the presence of ‘it’ is mandated by the fact that ‘hold’ is a so-called transitive verb, a word that requires both a subject and an object. Hence the impossibility of (3) below in comparison with (2):
(2) I want you to hold it!
(3) *I want you to hold!
In the terminology of Heidi Harley (English Words: A Linguistic Introduction), content listemes have an argument structure as part of their meaning. That is, part of the meaning of the listeme “hold” is that it establishes a relationship between two arguments: there must be a holder and a holdee . . . at least in the grammatical sense. (Can you tell me what term Harley would use for each of these arguments?). This is the case, even if the logic of the expression does not require them. Just as for the more contentful dimensions of words, we must also learn their argument structure, something that cannot always be predicted by semantic content. Consider the following sentences:
(4) Adam ate voraciously.
(5)*Adam devoured.
Why is (4) a grammatical sentence of English but not (5)? Note that we cannot appeal to meaning, as these two sentences mean essentially the same thing!
Lexical listemes may be associated with a range of different arguments. Consider the case of “like” below:
(6) Adam likes Eve.
(7) Adam likes going to school.
(8) Adam likes to go to school.
In (6) we see that like takes a so-called simple argument—a noun phrase. In (7) and (8), by contrast, like takes a propositional argument, a gerund in the case of (7) and an infinitive phrase in the case of (8). Again, to stress the distinction between structure and meaning, let’s look at the superficially antonymous set of sentences below:
(9) Adam dislikes Eve.
(10) Adam dislikes going to school.
(11) *Adam dislikes to go to school.
Note that there is no way to predict from the meaning of ‘dislikes’ that sentence (11) is ungrammatical. Its paraphrase is perfectly legal:
(12) Adam hates to go to school.
Hence we can see that argument structure is quite a separate thing from the lexical content of a listeme.
We have seen situations in this essay where meaning and structure clash. Harley points out, towards the end of our reading for this week, that when this happens, structure always ‘wins.’ Thus she points out that although ‘coffee’, for instance, is a mass noun (notice we quantify it with ‘much’ and not ‘many’), we may force a ‘count’ interpretation of this mass noun:
(13) I’ve had three coffees today. (‘coffees’ now means ‘cups of coffee’)
Adjectives have the structural diagnostic of permitting comparison. That is why a sentence like (14) below could be heard, even though the semantics seem to prohibit it:
(14) Today was the most perfect day I’ve had in a long time.
Here’s Noam Chomsky’s famous sentence:
(15) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
As a testament to the priority of structure over content, note just how well (15) works compared to the more meaningful but structurally impossible (16)
(16) *John sleep bed nights.
Can you think of some examples in your native language which illustrate the showdown between structure and meaning?
October 24th, 2006 at 4:54 am
It‘s funny, because it was just yesterday that I had a nice experience concerning the structure of our language. My sister (she is married and lives in another town) came to see us. She did some shopping and had a heavy bag, so she asked my father if she could borrow the car. Of cousre, she could. As she was leaving (quite late in the evening), me, my sister, my father and my mother had following discussion:
My mother: „No (intensifier:-)) choď už, lebo Duško (my sister’s husband) sa bude hnevať.“
My sister: „Tak ja nesiem 10kilový nákup a on sa má hnevať?!?“
Me: „Veď ho odvezieš.“
My father: „On niekam ide? Kam ho máš odviezť?“
Me and my mother: „Nie Duška, ale ten nákup.“
In english, there wouldn’t be any problem in such a discussion, because there are two different pronouns for expressing an animate object (him, her) and an inanimate object (it). In Slovak, however, ‘ho’ can stand for a person (my sister’s husband) as well as a thing (the bag – nákup). In this case this is the only difference, because grammatically, both are 3rd person, singular, masculine, accusative. As both of them were mentioned in the first sentence, my father just chose a different antecedent for the pronoun to stand for. Was the sentence I uttered wrong? I don’t think so. So why did it happen that my father hadn’t recognized the antecedent I had been referring to? I hope it’s just due to the ambiguity of language and the fact that “structure always ‘wins.’“, not my failure to express myself clearly…
October 25th, 2006 at 4:50 am
I think that the meaning is one of the most interesting parts of the grammar. To realize the real meaning of what the other says is sometimes not so easy as we think for the first time. We have talked about this last year on a Hungarian lecture,when the teacher told us the most of the problems between speakers comes from communication troubles. I mean that either of them says something, but the other understands him differently, because no man knows and feels the same that other says by this or that. Even if they understand each other, there can be something that is clear for the speaker – and he thinks that he expresses himself clearly, so the listener understands him perfectly – but this is not always true. And that is why there are so many quarrels between people eg.when somebody is holding a plate in his hand, but he is looking at a book and says: “This could be an interesting book – hold it”. And the “listener” thinks of the book, but the speaker thinks of the plate and lets it to fall down, because he thinks that the second will hold it…
So this is the case, when there will be an argument because of communication troubles…So pay attention to what we say!
October 28th, 2006 at 5:35 am
Hi professor Lencho, first of all, I’d like to say that I found this article interesting and easily applicable in daily language use.
I my case, I find it quite tricky to answer to the question: “Páči sa ti?” mostly when two different objects (one animate and one inanimate) are being discussed at the same time. As Milada Kristofikova have already mentioned , English in comparison to Slovak language clearly distinguishes between animate and inanimate objects. Too much theory?!
So here is an example. As I have been lately walking home with my teenage cousin Daniela, a “cute” guy in a very nice car overcame us. Daniela out of blue looked very pale and nearly stopped breathing. The guy got out of the car and gave Daniela a sunny smile. She blashed immediately and commented on him and his ” georgeous” car. And than she asked:” Tiež sa ti páči?”. And all of sudden, I was not absolutely sure whether she was asking about the boy or his car because obviously she liked them both. And although I knew that that guy was number one priority, I started commenting on his car as first { just to annoy her a bit-and I suceeded}. I said:” Z predu celkom ujde, ale zo zadu nič moc a páčia sa mi viac športové typy”. Now it was her who got puzzled because she noticed that I was looking at the car and not at the figure of her “dream boy”. I smiled at her and she got it! Of course, she was seriously offended and ignored me for the rest of the day. She probably found me quite silly as well but I rather didn’t ask. I only said that she should learn Slovak!:-)
October 28th, 2006 at 9:38 am
I think, that grammar is very important in each language. Each language is based on it and if something is not correct from grammatical point of view, linguists are angry like dragons and want to repair everything, that doesn’t go with the right grammatical structure. But sometimes, the grammar is not enough for the whole meaning of the expression and there are several misunderstandings among people. One senence can mean for somebody one thing and for somebody else something another. Everybody thinks differently and we cannot see, what’s going on in one’s head. For example, when we take the dialogue:
Anna: Mami, včera som bola v divadle. (Mother, I was in the theater, yesterday.)
Mama: Áno?A s kým? (Yes?And with whom?)
Anna: S Michalom (With Michael.)
Mama: Na stoličke máš sveter. (There is your sweater, on the chair.)
Anna: Ok.
Anna: Mami, ja ho mám veľmi rada. (Mother, I really like “him/ it”)
Mama: Vezmi si ho. (Take it..or Marry him.)
Anna: Čože???Veď spolu chodíme len 2 týždne. (What? We’re going out only for 2 weeks…)
Mama: Nie Michala, ale ten sveter!!!Na svadbu máš ešte dosť času. (Not Michael, but the sweater!!! You have enough time to marry somebody->you are too young yet.)
Ann: Oh, Ok, vezmem si ho do izby. (Oh, OK, I’ll take it to my room.)
When there is not expressed everything in the sentence and the sperker thinks, that the listener will understand because of the context, there can happen several missunderstandings. Here, we had two different contexts and Mother refered to one (sweater) and Ann to the other (Michael). The structure of the sentence didn’t reveal the whole meaning. It is because of:
1. “ho” can reffer to human beeing and also thing
2. „vziať si“ can have the meaning of “,take it” or “marry him”
October 30th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Hi, I´d like to concentrate to your example of ‘count’ interpretation of the mass nouns. I´ve had three coffees today…dnes som vypila 3 kávy, in Slovak language it´s the same meaning but let´s have a look on some other examples: včera som dočítala Hviezdoslava (exact translation – I´ve finished reading Hviezdoslav)or videla si už Markovu (it does not mean that: have you seen Mrs.Markova but if you´ve seen her materials for studying) in our language it is a kind of literary device that can be expressed in latin as ´pars pro toto´ ´totum pro parte´.
October 30th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Hi Mark,
your latest essay on “Words and their meanings” was very absorbing and catchy. I realized how many examples can be find easily almost everywhere (everyday communication, TV, newspapers, etc.), I just did not pay attention and never looked at these expressions from the lingustics point of view. My usual comment on such a situation was:”It was just misunderstanding, I did not understand what you meant by this.”
So now I would like to share with you one story which was not about misunderstanding, but it was a direct stricture with hidden meaning. I think that this term in literature is recognized under the term allusion and it depends on human being s knowledge and imagination how he is going to explain the particular meaning. The incident happened lately in Slovakia and maybe a lot of my classmates have heard or read about that because it was described in all kinds of mass media. Shortly, there was a heated argument between the famous rich Slovak lawyer and the former Secretary of the Interior (his surname was Palko). The above mentioned lawyer wanted to show his disagreement with Palko s opinions and the politics which Palko was doing, so one day he put a big slogan on his Hammer(it is a brand of car, by the way, the note mostly for girls), which he parked in the center of our capital city. The sign said:”Palko je orgán:”(in Slovak orgán can be genitals, or authority). I am positive that everybody knows what the mad author of the sign wanted to tell us.
For sure,the creator is aware of a big discussion which he evoked by his sign among people in politics, printing press, etc., but he has never thought, that he would have been mentioned during the lesson of Lexical Semantics. Have a nice evening.
October 30th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
The interdependence that exists among structure and meaning is always interesting to observe, as well as the people’s reactions to it. That is why I find this week’s blog entry to be quite motivating.
For starters, I must say that even though there is a strict linguistic terminology that could explain everything that is mentioned in the text, I find the theme that is dealt with in it, to be also related to some sociological and philosophical, as well as psychological issues. In what way is this so?
Before commenting on the last question that you ended this entry with, I will shortly deal with examples (4) and (5): The first example is grammatically correct because voraciously is an adverb and it follows a verb that is defined by it more closely. As for the (5), to devour needs an object in order to make any sense; without it, this sentence is just a “bunch of words”.
1. He devoured a large meat loaf.
2. She was devoured by the desire to succeed.
As for the hold it example, I cannot help it but to view it from several points of view. I understand it to be a theme, while hold is not just a verb, because, in a way, it embraces the agent (one that is to become such) as well. Actually, it indicates that there has to be an addressee, because it would have no meaning if it was to be seen as an independent relation. It is an imperative case, which means that there is some you (sg. or pl.) that is expected to hold it;
(as for that other point of view, hold it has its pre-phase, when it functions as a verb, as mentioned above; and it has its post-phase when the addressee becomes an agent who is doing the holding thing. 1. John is holding an apple. 2. John is making no movement)
So, why is structure given the priority over content?
An observation that my friend made couple of days ago, comes to my mind. We were chatting, when he suddenly exclaimed: “I saw a remarkable gravestone in the cemetery the other day. It was dedicated to this 12-year-old girl and her dog. It was absolutely fantastic, with all this details that it had…”; He was interrupted by my girlfriend who was disgusted by what he said: ”How can you say such a thing? That is horrible!”. But he continued:” I am not talking about what it represents. I am sorry for the poor girl, but the effect of the gravestone was very positive; I honestly appreciated its design; its elegance.”
Even though this story might sound a bit morbid, I find it to be a good example of the importance that package has for the consumer of its content (in our case, it is the meaning).
How one is to understand the meaning of a certain sentence largely depends on the manner in which its holder (sentence) is formulated (grammatically, stylistically).
Take the following example, for instance: When reading the same idea observed and presented by two different authors (even in the case of using the same set of words with possibility of adding few extra expressive means), e.g. T. Parsons and Ch. Bukowski, one can notice the great difference that exists in how they wrap up their thoughts. Bukowski uses “hard” and raw language, which he makes an important part of the primary idea. Parsons constructs softer and more fluent sentences, which do not bring up so much tension and anger to the surface. The readers will go through different emotional states while comparing thiese texts, and will probably view the same problem in a quite different manner, not being fully aware of it.
The way we produce a thought, dictates the reaction to it. One will respond to a sentence told by a foreigner who makes grammatical mistakes and permutations in his speech, in one way, and to the same sentence told by the native speaker who perfectly manages both grammar and style, in another.
Human beings need structure because of the complexity of the process of perception that they use while reading or listening to some text. Man judges everything – length of the sentences, choice of terminology, how the meaning is reflected, how many levels of it exist in a given text…human brain functions in a way that requires some sort of grouping, organizing and arranging – according to set of rules that it is programmed to view as correct – of what it perceives, so that what he “sees” makes sense. In anything one does, there has to be something familiar and recognizable, something to hold on to while exploring the new world.
One more thing: If the forbidden knowledge hadn’t been hidden in a sweet, red, juicy fruit, do you think Eve would have longed for it that much? And maybe it is not about what the snake said, but how it said it.
October 31st, 2006 at 1:43 am
I would like to comment on different dimensions of meaning especially of pronoun it.As you may notice in Slovak language declension of pronouns “it”and “he” is in some cases the same.”ho” can refer both to animate as well as to inanimate nouns.I noticed that this ambiguity of meaning is used especially in advertisements. Imagine that you are listening to the radio when you suddenly hear such advertisement.”každá žena po ňom tuží.(each woman longs for him).Cíti sa s ním spoľahlivo(she feels with him secure).vyhovie všekým jej požiadavkám(he is able to meet her requirements )Skrátka je je jej miláčikom.(in sum, he is her favourite).To je nový model Peugeut.Každá žena sa doňho zamiluje.(that´s a new model of Peugeot.Each woman falls in love with him).I think that the first thing that comes into your mind is that this woman is talking about a perfect man.In fact, we can´t know whether it is a man or something else.This ambiguity of meaning is many times used when we want to play with its meaning.In this case the meaning of content word changes a little bit because of its function word which in this situation refers to a car.Our first idea of woman talking about her perfect man disappears after we hear that she is talking about her new car. So we can see, that the meanings of content words can be molded very easily.I just want to add, that a chapter dealing with relationships and argument structure was for the first time difficult for me to understand .I tried to read it more times. so I was trying to analyse the argumnet structure in the sentence John hold it. John refers to agent(the argument that is doing the action) and “it” refers to theme( the argument that´s having the action done to it).am I right?
October 31st, 2006 at 4:09 am
I was thinking for a while what I should write about in this week‘s blog. I must say nothing wanted to come into my mind for a long time,but then, we had a little party in our room, you know a little bit of wine which cuased a little bit of fun, and my friend Katarina accidently found out that jokes are a good example of the showdown between the meaning oand the structure. It means when one structure has more than one meanings, sometimes totally different,this difference is the reason to be funny.
Jokes are sometimes culturally different depending on concrete country, society, prejudices. But they are a lot of times based on confusion in understanding, when somebody who asks simply means something different than somebody, who is answering, understands.
That’s why jokes are here and here are some examples of it, I hope it will be fun also for you:
Pýta sa manželka manžela:
“Miláčik, môžem sa pozerať na televízor?”
“Môžeš, ale nezapínaj ho!”
Wife is asking her husband:
„Darling, can I watch TV?“
„ Of course, you can my sweetheart, but don’t turn it on.“
Maybe you don’t understand what is funny here, but don’t worry, I will explain it to you.
„Pozerať sa na televízor“ in Slovak has two meanings,watch TV, but also it can mean to look on the TV screen.In English it is easier, it has only one meaning, to watch TV.That’s why it was so easy to make fun from the poor wife:´-)
Another example:
„Chcela by som si vyskúšať tie šaty vo výklade.“
„Nemyslíte, že lepšie by to bolo v kabínke?“
„I would like to try that dress in the shop window,can I?“
„ Don’t you think that it would be better to try it in dressing room?“
I think this example was a little bit easier to understand for you. Fun here was based on the usage of preposition.However, the preposition „in“ as the preposition „v ( vo )“ in Slovak, were used properly, like the structure, the meaning can be applied in two different ways.
And the last example, which I think doesn’t need a commentary, maybe only I can say that the world „ mesiac“ means in Slovak „ moon“ , but also „month“.
( And also one comment on my defence, I am not a blonde girl
Stretnú sa dve blondínky. Jedna sa pozerá na oblohu a pýta sa druhej:
- Počúvaj. Čo je to tam hore, to okrúhle a žlté?
Druhá jej odpovedá:
- Ty si úplne blbá? To nevieš? Veď to je mesiac.
- Ja viem, že to je mesiac, ale neviem či január alebo február.
Two blond girls meet in the park at night.
One asks another:
„Don’t you know what that yellow and round is up there?“
The second one answers:
„ You are stupid or what? That is a „mesiac“ ( in English „moon“), of course.“
„ I know, I know that it is „ mesiac“ ( in English „month“ ), I am not stupid, but I still don’t know which one, January or February.“
I am really sorry that I used this kind of joke, I really have nothing against blonde girls, but you know fun is fun
October 31st, 2006 at 4:59 am
Hello,
I would like to comment on this chapter from Harley that we have read for the previous lesson. It was really interesting, but I was thinking about the part in which the two broad classes of relations are mentioned- the first where the single argument is in control of what is happening and the second where the single argument is not in control. There is also mentioned that sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between these two cases as in the case of “laughing”. In my opinion, “laughing” belongs to the first group (i.e. where the single argument is in control). I think that you can control the “act” of laughing, but you cannot control the reason that makes you laugh.
e.g. Someone tells you a joke- the joke makes you laugh, you are not in control of it, you cannot decide whether the joke makes you laugh or not, you just experience it, but you are in control of the fact whether you really start to laugh or not.
In some cases you want to laugh, but you simply cannot because it is inappropriate. In this case you are in control of laughing.
What is more, you can start laughing without any reason.You do it deliberately. So I think that when you are laughing, you are in control of it.
I also found interesting the meaning of “or” mentioned in the Study Problems (1) where “A or B” can mean that only A is true or only B is true or both are true. In the sentence a) “We´ll stay inside if it´s cold or if Susan´s sick, otherwise we´ll go out.” if Susan is sick and it is cold they will stay inside because in this case both statements(A or B) can be true in order to stay inside. But in b) “Entrees come with soup or a salad.” if someone orders both soup and salad, they will not be both free. Only one of the statements (A or B) can be true in order to get one of them free.
To sum up, “inclusive or” (in the sentence a)) means that it includes both statements A and B and it does not matter whether only one of them is true or both are true ( such as in the sentences ” I can´t swim or ride a bike.”, “When was the last time you drank beer or wine?”). But in the case of “exclusive or” only one statement can be true, so it excludes the other statement ( such as in the sentences “You can have Tuesday or Thursday off.”, “Should I do problem 6 or problem 7?” ).
Because you are interested in the Slovak language, I want to add something about the the translation of “or”. What is interesting, in all these sentences in 1d) “or” can be translated as “alebo”, but in ii I would translate it as “ani”. In the negative sentence it is better to translate it as “ani”, it sounds more natural.
“Neviem plávať, alebo bicyklovať sa.”
“Neviem plávať ani sa bicyklovať.”
Best wishes.
October 31st, 2006 at 10:42 am
It is unbelievable how confusing the language can be on one hand, and how automatically we use it without knowing the reeason (a lot of coffee/much coffee), however, on the other one. Many times all we know is that “it” sounds odd (I dislike to go to school.). The same happens with my language. Concentrating so much on meaning we often miss the structure – the trickier part of language. I am sure I am using dozens of such sentences every day, but at the moment I could think only of these:
- we can say “Nenávidím ťa” (I hate you), but “Návidím ťa” as a possitive form is nonsense! Moreover, even the negative “Nenenávidím ťa” (I do not hate you)is impossible
- there are some adjectives in Slovak, that we simply do not use in their negative forms, such as:
“láskavý” (kind, sweet ), “krotký” (mild, domestic), “lenivý (lazy, inactive), “drzý (insolent, cheeky), “usilovný (hardworking,)…
- and sayings like:
“Pohni sa!” meaning either Hurry up, or Move on/forward!
“Páči sa” standing either for Here you are (when giving sth. to sb.), or Like it?
Have a nice holiday as well, Mark!
October 31st, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Misunderstandings in language points out, that it is as imperfect as those who use it and varies from individual to individual. You often have to consider political correctness, when writing to a wide public. I read about a funny accident, which happened in England. They promoted a gig of a Hungarian Gypsy music group Száztagú Cigányzenekar, which means musical group of hundred gypsies. Actually there are 100 Hundred gypsy musicians mostly playing on violin. The ad goes:”The only time you want to see 100 gypsies on your doorstep”. When they realized their mistake they quickly apologized.
)
I know it’s not a really good example of the linguistic problem I’m supposed to describe, but I found it humorous
The problem of inclusive and exclusive OR as described in Harley reminded me of computer programming language. It’s used in the same way. An exclusive OR operator is a Boolean operator (can carry either ‘true’ or ‘false’, often coded 1 and 0, respectively.) that returns a value of TRUE only if both its operands have different values. Contrast with the inclusive OR operator, which returns a value of TRUE if either of its operands is TRUE. Whereas an inclusive OR can be translated “this, that, or both,” an exclusive OR means “this or that, but not both.”
An exclusive OR is often called an XOR or EOR.
Boolean value 1=TRUE
Boolean value 0=FALSE
Little bit of DELPHI (programming language) syntax:
IF thunders OR rains THEN we don’t go out
(INCLUSIVE OR =we don’t go out if it rains/thunders/rains and thunders at the same time)
thunders(0) rains(0) = FALSE (We go out)
thunders(0) rains(1) = TRUE (We don’t go out)
thunders(1) rains(0) = TRUE (We don’t go out)
thunders(1) rains(1) = TRUE (We don’t go out)
This example is not applicable in linguistics for exclusive or, but it would work this way in computer sciences.
IF thunders XOR rains THEN we don’t go out
(EXCLUSIVE OR =we don’t go out if it rains/thunders)
thunders(0) rains(0) = FALSE (We go out)
thunders(0) rains(1) = TRUE (We don’t go out)
thunders(1) rains(0) = TRUE (We don’t go out)
thunders(1) rains(1) = FALSE (We go out)
November 1st, 2006 at 6:37 am
I agree with the idea according to which the stucture of a sentence or phrase makes the sentence or phrase meaningful and the meaning of the sentence or phrase is secondary. For example the sentence ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously’ is not strange for me. I can imagine a painting or other work of art having the same title. According to that point any logically odd sentence can have meaning for somebody who is sufficiently imaginative and has a certain level of abstract thinking. In that case the sentence ‘The dead boy entered the room’ could be meaningful if we think about a horror movie, and a sentence like ‘At night Susan usually wears sunglasses because the sun irritates her eyes’ could be meaningful if Susan was a girl from another planet. On the other hand, the same sentences with false structure would appear to be incorrect and disturbing for everybody. Lets consider the following sentences: ‘Colorless green idea sleep furiously’, ‘The dead boys enters the room’, ‘At night Susan usually are wearing sunglasses because the sun irritates her eyes’. We could therefore conclude that the sense of a sentence is given by its structure. I think that it is caused by the finite character of the structures, while the meaning of the words and their combinations is infinite.
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:16 pm
First, I´d like to express that I did enjoy the reading from Harley´s book about Argument Structure mainly because of clear way of explaining the subject mater. It was also contributing for me to read the comments on the blog about Argument Structure, where several examples given by my classmates have shown that correct grammatical structure is sometimes not enough for full understanding of a message. But what is interesting is that though a sentence like „He dislikes to go to school“ is ungrammatical, we still get the message!!!!
November 4th, 2006 at 7:37 am
Hi,
after reading Harley I would like to go some comment on your essay. At firts, I was thinking about your examples as you wrote in this article. For the (my) help I was translating them into Slovak and I found some differences.
(4) Adam ate voraciously. – Adam jedol dychtivo. — Even in Slovak translation it sounds good, not only in English; and this sentence is gramatically corret. Although we do not know what was he easting, it is not necessary to know it, we understand the meaning(message). But
(5)*Adam devoured. – Adam zožral, zhltol. In this sencence authomaticaly I was asking what was he devoured? Something was missing me in this sentence. The object? Some information? I pointed this sentence from the meaning, not from grammar point, because we all know that the first sentence is grammatically correct, and the second is not.
Second:
(6) Adam likes Eve.- Adam má rád Evu.
(7) Adam likes going to school. – Adam rád chodieva do školy.
(8) Adam likes to go to school. Adam rád chodí do školy. – These 3 sentences have totally diferent message/meaning. First sentence decribes some likeness, second activity that is repeatedable (repeated around), third – decribes only as a habit. He like this and like that. It is like something usual.
Third:
(9) Adam dislikes Eve.
(10) Adam dislikes going to school.
(11) *Adam dislikes to go to school. – hate !!! – First 2 sentences are grammatically and by the meaning correct, but the last sentence – we can no to say “dislike to go” but rather “hate”, or “dislike going”. Why it is so? The rules. After LIKE we can use -ing form and to infinitive form, but after dislike only -ing form.
In Slovak it is similar. We can use:
-”Milujem čokoládu”, but not!
-”nemilujem čokloládu” – but “nemám rád čokoládu”. It is not only from the point of meaning but also from point of grammar, too.
I wish you a nice weekend. Michaela
November 4th, 2006 at 7:58 am
First, I really appreciate a group work last lesson.It is a good way of interacting with each other, exchaning knowledge on a particular topic and I suppose students have better understanding of the topic as well.
Secondly, I would like to comment on the essay concerning an argument structure.To point out the difference between structure and meaning have a look at this dialogue.
Jane: Bye Klára.I go to the reading room.(this statement is made at the moment of speaking so there should be I am going instead of I go.).
Klára: Bye.
By this dialogue I want to
support the idea that it is
impossible to predict from the lexical content of a listeme that the sentence is ungrammatical.So
there is no way to predict from the meaning of ‛go’ that the sentence is ungrammatical.
November 5th, 2006 at 10:57 am
Hi Mark.
I would like to comment on
Argument Structure.
When I read the chapter Argument Structure,was little bit confused by all relations between arguments. However, all examples included in the text helped me to understand it more clearly.
Grammar of each language is very complicated and all rules have always certain function and sometimes it’s difficult to explain them logically. The grammar gives certain order and structure to our speech,otherwise it would be only ‘flow of words’. Why we can say- Adam dislikes going to school and Adam dislikes to go to school is grammatically uncorrect. The meaning is the same,but the structure is different with infinitive to and -ing. It’s like the puzzle,we have to find the right part(dislikes) which comes to the next one (-ing,not to) to create a picture(sentence).
I’like’ all exceptions in grammar,when you learn some rules,there is usually always an exception and it’s original rule is not valid anymore. e.g. mass noun coffee-countable/non-countable.
BTW I liked the explanation of substance vs.shape naming properties of nouns. When you use all rules correctly,there is still sometimes very ambiguous to understand the meaning of speaker’s intention correctly. This little misunderstanding makes every language even more mysterious and magical/that’s the glamour of human’s communication.
P.S>: Nobody here in Slovakia belived me that grammar in England is not taught at school.Mark,can I ask how is it in the USA,thanks.
November 5th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Hello!
I think a frequent clash between the grammatical structure and meaning is very frequent in the case of song lyrics. The example of “he walks what he talks” is not the most approppriate one but I like the fact that its structure is alright and, in addition, its meaning is quite deep. Many elliptic syntactic structures that are invented for the lyrics purposes are often more straightforward in expressing a really strong thought than some long texts of a diffent kind. But these are more monothematical phrases in one song lyric: “deadlines, meetings, contracts, D-days, and structure, responsibility, have tos and need tos, and get tos by three, eleventh hours and upset empoyees” (Alanis Morissette). They give us quite a clear idea of what the lyric deals with. Or: “strange, thought I knew you well; thought I had read the sky, thought I had read the change in your eyes…” (Tori Amos). Or: “that I would be good even if I lost sanity…” (Alanis M.), and many more.
November 6th, 2006 at 3:48 am
While I was reading Harley’s Argument Structure I was trying to make it easier to understand the concept of „agent, theme, experiencer…etc” so I „translated” them into grammar. I identified agent and experiencer with subject, theme with object and propositions with subordinate clauses.
As for the showdown between structure and meaning: it is the basic method of jokes and anecdotes as Ivana has already mentioned.
Recently I saw a Hungarian movie „Magyar vándor” (Hungarian wanderer) in which the King –holding a sceptre in his hand- has enough of his lover and says to the two guards:
King: Vigyétek a vesztőhelyre! (Take her/it to the prison.)
One of the guards comes to the king and takes out the sceptre from his hand. The other guard tells him :
Guard 2: Only you can be such an idiot that you want to take the sceptre to the prison.
Guard 1: Oh, really? If you are so clever then tell me what should we take to the prison.
Guard 2 (watching around and thinking): The door! : )
But it’s again the same thing as was already illustrated in the first comments. However while Slovak also distinguishes three genders (inanimate, male and female) as English does, in Hungarian there are no genders at all. (and this can cause even bigger misunderstandings
November 6th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Hi,
I would like to add my experience with little misunderstandings that could appear in the conversation because of the language and structures.
Few days ago I asked my friend to come to see my family and have a little talk with them. It was the first time he visited my home, so he was a little nervous, and so was I and my mum. Everything went ok but in one moment my mum asked us if we wanted her to “clear off” or to stay there (Mám vypadnúť alebo ostať tu?). My friend said:”Kľudne” (sure; of course). Then he was thinking about his answer a little and said again:” Kľudne…ostante” (Of course, stay here). He added the other word because it was not clear what he wanted to say: whether he wanted her to clear off or to stay. It is for sure that politeness and good manners imply that it was meant for “stay here”;however, we cannot be sure that everyone understands it like that. And finally we had something to laugh at…
November 7th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Hi Mark,
At first I would like to apologize that I write my comment to this topic so late but it concerns something that happened only few days ago. But before I start, I would like to say that I really liked our last lesson about argument structure. I, personally found the part when we tried to find the smallest possible argument structure of particular verbs very interesting. We did something very similar also in German language that’s why it was not as unfamiliar to me and I was pleased that I could meet it again also on English lesson.
And now to the main point of my comment. It concerns the ambiguity of the meaning of some utterances that may appear in Slovak language because our rules allow substituting inanimate things or nouns by personal pronouns (he or she). I thing that one of the examples is mentioned also in the first comment written by milada, and here is another one. As I have already mentioned, it happened to me few days ago. My new printer did not work that’s why I asked one friend to have a look at it although he was not a big pc-specialist. After he had left, I started to chat with my friend on icq :
Friend: Cau, Ako sa mas?
Me: Ja? Celkom v pohode. Doteraz bol u mna jeden chlapik kvoli tej pokazenej tlaciarni a zistil, ze mam asi nieco s PC. No, a teraz, ked odisiel, tak mam pocit, ze asi aj s nim, po tej jeho navsteve, nieco budem mat:))
Friend: Heeeej? Takže asi budes mat noveho frajera,ze?:) Super.
Me: Prosim? Nerozumiem.
Friend: No, ved s tym opravarom PC.
At first I found his reaction a little bit strange and I did not understand how did he hit upon the idea that I’m going to have a new boyfriend and that it will be the pc-repairer. Then I read my answer once again and I did understand why he asked such an illogical question. It was because I used a personal pronoun (nim) to point at an inanimate object, in this case the PC. It was logical that my friend could not know which from the two objects (the repairer, the pc) this pronoun refers to. From the point of structure, he made no mistake. But concerning the meaning, he completely changed the meaning I intended to create by my utterance.
(I am not sure if I’m right but in this case we could also speak about deictic meaning.)
November 19th, 2006 at 4:09 am
Yesterday I was watching TV and I found there an example for the situation when the form is more important than the contents of an utterance. In the program “7edem s.r.o.” the chairman informed about an event happened to Benjamin Netanjahu when having an occasional speech because of the burial of a well-known statesman. Netanjahu said about him that as member of his government, the dead politician was honest and hearty person. After the burial it was cleared that the entombed politician has never ever been a member of Netanjahu’s government. The funeral speech completed its mission and everybody has to deduce the results of such speeches on his own…
Another and less general way how the language is abused or at least controlled by its form is the already mentioned usage of personal pronouns. Many jokes were created this way (as Iva Lettrichova writes). And in everyday speech many others arise even unintentionally. For instance in our family it is normal to use backhanded utterances to lighten the atmosphere if needed. Nobody can argue that allusions with sexual connotations are not popular in our society.
December 19th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
We distinguish 7 argument structures in English. 1. Agent, 2. Causer, 3. Agent-Theme verbs, 4. Agent Verbs and Theme Verbs, 5. Experiencer-Theme verbs , 6. Experiencer Proposition verns, 7. Agent –Proposition Verb.
Theme- is someone/something undergoing the action
Agent- someone who is doing the action