adverb

[Andrew Whitehead]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

1. I've always heard 'phoneme' used the way Casiopea used it. (Question aside: Why isn't the /p/ included among the phonems? And I'd split the /o/-phoneme into the phones [o] and [u] - is that the "great, lost" phone #8? I'm not an expert, really.)

2. I'm very interested in the idea that "open" in "pushed open" can be a verb. (It's especially interesting to hear about the mistake "pushed opens" etc.) Is there a term I can google? (Ad hoc, I find it different from all other "verb+bare infinitive"-constructions, such as "He helped open the door.")

Very interesting thread. Thanks for the discussion.

1) I am not surprised at all, the only people who talk about phonemes are linguists, who use it to describe a short sound - I know that already!

To repeat what I said earlier, it could be my memory that is wrong or it could be that the word was hijacked to describe a string of words used in one unit. Don't forget that 'phoneme' literally means 'sound' - being a short sound is not intrinsic to the meaning.

If phoneme is the wrong word, then what is the right word?

2) verb etc. describes how a word is used, not a property of the word, and in many compounds it is not clear what the word is doing.

Explore that idea: try these concepts -

In 'pushed open', open is a preposition carrying the idea of motion as in 'pushed away"

In 'pushed open', pushed is an adverb describing the way the door was opened.

In 'dining table', dining is an adjective describing the table.

Before the linguistic army jumps on me with 1,000 reasons why those words can't perform those functions - I am not saying they do. They are ideas to play with.

If you want to Google, try compound verb, serial verb, or phrasal verb. Phrasal verbs do not have to be verb-verb though, and rarely are. You will find that in practice verb-verb pairs are usually auxiliary+main.

[2006]

Why isn't "open" simply an adjective, as in 'I made the child happy.'?

Do people really say 'I pushed open the door.'? (or 'I made happy the child.')

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Andrew Whitehead

1) I am not surprised at all, the only people who talk about phonemes are linguists, who use it to describe a short sound - I know that already!

To repeat what I said earlier, it could be my memory that is wrong or it could be that the word was hijacked to describe a string of words used in one unit. Don't forget that 'phoneme' literally means 'sound' - being a short sound is not intrinsic to the meaning.

[...]

Before the linguistic army jumps on me with 1,000 reasons why those words can't perform those functions - I am not saying they do. They are ideas to play with.

Hehe, sorry. I really should pin this to my computer screen while visiting here:

It is worth remembering who your audience is, as this is a 'using english' forum and not a 'linguistic analysis' forum...

You will find that in practice verb-verb pairs are usually auxiliary+main.

This is my problem. I'm trying to wrap my mind around "open" as a verb in "pushed open"; specifically how the phrase must appear to someone who mistakenly says "pushed opens" (considering it's not a "consistency slip"; i.e. mis-remembers the sentence s/he was going to say.)

Thanks for the google-tips.

Originally Posted by 2006

Do people really say 'I pushed open the door.'? (or 'I made happy the child.')

They do say "I pushed open the door," but they don't say "I made happy the child." (They could in fiction, but it's not "natural style" - I think.) I think you found the reason why Casiopea said that it "definitely can't be an adjective in "pushed open the door". (Notice that it can be an adjective in "pushed the door open.")

[bianca]

He pushed the door open.

My opinion is:

1. The syntactical pattern in the sentence is:

Subject (he) - Predicate (aux.verb: pushed) - Object (the door)- Predicate (adj: open).

2. The morphological pattern is:

pronoun - auxiliary verb - noun -adjective

"Open" is a predicate, expressed by an adjective. The adjective "open" modifies the noun "door", not the verb "push".

"Open" is never an adverb (openly is), and no way a prepostion! It can only be a verb or an adjective.

[2006]

Sorry all. I had my head up my butt and thought the original sentence was 'I pushed the door open.'
I would not say "I pushed open the door.", so I won't make any further comments.

[kohyoongliat]

I'm surprised that my question has drawn so much interest in that there are replies from so many members with different views.

[bianca]

Isn't English generous: there are as many grammatical patterns in a sentence as there are opinions.

[Andrew Whitehead]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

Hehe, sorry. I really should pin this to my computer screen while visiting here:

I wish I knew how to do that! Many years ago, before Windows 95 even, I had a little programme from Post-It that did just that.

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

This is my problem. I'm trying to wrap my mind around "open" as a verb in "pushed open"

It is a state verb, telling us the state of the door. Verb-verb constructions without an auxiliary are unusual, and in all the verb-verb combinations I can think of they are active/stative combinations, such as "he died happy". They are used to differentiate the cause of the happy state...

"he died happy" ---> he was happy about something else when he died
"he died happily" ---> dying made him happy

In a similar way, in 'pushed open' the first verb (pushed) and the second verb (open) are not directly connected - meaning that open is the state of the door while pushed is an action by 'he'.

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

specifically how the phrase must appear to someone who mistakenly says "pushed opens"

I suspect that this is an error in connecting the sentence elements, and the train of thought is "He pushed the door. He opens the door."

This is not the case as open in this sentence is stative - it would be redundant if it wasn't - and connected to the door - "He pushed the door. The door is open."

Originally Posted by bianca

He pushed the door open.

My opinion is:

It is a very beautiful opinion and a pleasure to read, but the topic of the thread is:-

'I pushed open the door. Is 'open' an adverb?'

[kohyoongliat]

Originally Posted by bianca

Isn't English generous: there are as many grammatical patterns in a sentence as there are opinions.

I agrree. That why English experts and grammarians sometimes disagree.

[Andrew Whitehead]

Originally Posted by kohyoongliat

I agrree. That why English experts and grammarians sometimes disagree.

You mean grammarians are not experts?