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#71
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As for philosophy, interpretations, as you have so skillfully shown, abound, so what say we stick to pragmatics, if that's OK with you? |
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#72
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That's complicated enough without looking for "authority" in intangibles. |
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#73
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. Don't get me wrong, though. Despite the incorrect numbers, I've found the discussion very interesting. |
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#74
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| Tdol said (10th March) that 'it would not be a great start to an interview to use "hiya". I must strongly disagree. I'm a world class contractor who has probably had a great many more interviews than most, and my opening line (either by phone, by email, or in person) is, and always has been, "hiya, how are you doing. I've read your blurb, worrissit you want me to sort out for you?" People really appreciate the normality of it, most people want to employ normal people, not linguists! Then again, I do market myself as a 'fan cleaner'. ...and as far as signs go...they've got around 10 words max to get an important message across. In Australia you can readily see signs stating 'No standing in the middle of the road'. Linguists will probably either (a) struggle to comprehend it (b) complain about it to the authorities (c) stand in the middle of the road to see what is wrong with doing so (d) get a $300 fine Last edited by pedant; 23-Mar-2007 at 03:34. |
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#75
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| 'worrisit'- this would incomprehensible in many contexts; if you tried to clean fans in China, you might have to adjust your notions of normality hiya- this maybe fine for a fan cleaner, but in many contexts it would be completely inappropriate- try starting a viva this way |
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#76
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. Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by Andrew Whitehead; 23-Mar-2007 at 10:47. |
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#77
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But if you were new to English, you might well interpret the sentence with "the book" as the agent of the action. In which case, you would naturally take "easily" to mean that the manner of the action performed by the book was "easy". It would be a puzzling interpretation, of course; but you would have arrived at it in a rational way. (I'm not sure why "easily" should be an indicator, by the way: it points to the manner of the action, not the identity of the agent.) MrP PS Actually, though, my point wasn't that the fact that "the book" doesn't do anything should be a criterion: it was that even though "the book" doesn't do anything, the structure might have naturally arisen by simple transference from contexts where the subject does do something, e.g. "The carriage drives well". Last edited by MrPedantic; 23-Mar-2007 at 22:47. |
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#78
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— "orange" is the subject here, and the patient in the action; the agent is unexpressed; there is no object. Cf. 2. Bill read the book. — active, transitive; Bill is the subject and the agent in the action; the book is the object. 3. The book was read. — passive; the book is the subject and the patient in the action; the agent is unexpressed; there is no object. 4. The book reads well. — intransitive; the book is the subject; there is no object, as the verb expresses not an action, but a state. (It also requires an adverbial complement to complete its sense.) #3 expresses an action, while #4 expresses a quality. MrP |
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#79
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You say it is describing a 'state', but where is the stative quality in the verb 'reads'? I have asked this several times now but it has not been answered. As far as I can see there is a circular argument going on here: a verb in a mediopassive construction has to have a stative quality, and it gets that quality by being used in a mediopassive construction. |
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#80
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I was trying to narrow the scope of the discussion. I should have made that clearer at the time. All the best. |
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