I love Mona, NOT SUE.

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TheParser

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***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) I have wonderful news for the hundreds or dozens or three persons who seek a

grammatical explanation for the contrasted element "not Sue."

(2) A similar thread has been closed by the powers that be, so I have started this one.

(3) In the other thread, we had a fascinating discussion: is "not Sue" an ellipsis of

something, such as "I love Mona, [but I do ] not [love] Sue"? Or could it possibly

be an appositive?

(4) I have just discovered a cornucopia of information on the Web that says: YES, it

could be an appositive. It is simply called a negative appositive.

(a) As one scholar put it:

"Negative appositives identify what someone or something is not."

(5) Here are some examples from the Web:


Our failures, not our successes, will be remembered.
The federal government, not the states, is responsible for it.
The idea, not its expression, is significant.
Juliet tried to convince Romeo that he had heard a nightingale, not a lark.

(6) For Reed-Kellogg fans, you can now consider diagramming contrasted

elements as you would any other appositive.


P.S. Thanks to Lauralie2 who suggested the appositive idea in last year's thread. She has not posted recently. Hope that she is doing well.
 
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konungursvia

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You're an intelligent person, and it's always a pleasure to read your posts. This one, though I don't understand. Maybe it's because I don't like the diagramming tradition much. The human brain's natural linguistic capacity far exceeds its geometric intuitions, so we understand far more in natural language than we do from diagrams.

Just my opinion.

Hope you continue to post interesting things like this though, I could learn something. I really need to, to understand the point here.

Is it a racist joke I once heard in the seventies? Mona, Sue....
 

TheParser

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You're an intelligent person, and it's always a pleasure to read your posts. This one, though I don't understand. Maybe it's because I don't like the diagramming tradition much. The human brain's natural linguistic capacity far exceeds its geometric intuitions, so we understand far more in natural language than we do from diagrams.

Just my opinion.

Hope you continue to post interesting things like this though, I could learn something. I really need to, to understand the point here.

Is it a racist joke I once heard in the seventies? Mona, Sue....

(1) Thank you for your kind note.

(2) Diagramming (the old-fashioned kind -- not the so-called "trees" of transformational grammar ) really can help ordinary people like me to better understand grammar. I can appreciate the fact, however, that Reed-Kellogg must seem pretty juvenile to language professionals such as you. (Of course, most schools have long stop teaching Reed-Kellogg, for the students simply refuse to do it.)

(3) I know nothing about that joke, and I prefer not to know. As a wise person once said: Be careful what you put into your mind. You will never get rid of it.
 

konungursvia

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Okay, I won't tell the joke. Besides, I did my PhD on what makes jokes funny. So I'll tell you the beginning, because that might be funny enough.

I'm on the bus and I see a Frenchman in a beret, who keeps rubbing his index finger under his nostrils, saying "Ah, Fifi."

The rest involves some African American who sniffs his whole arm and mentions the name "Mona." But I can't remember the actual joke, I do declare.

Besides, it may have been sexist or improper to tell it. So I will not.
 

konungursvia

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By the way, my get out of jail free card is from Cicero:

Haec enim ridentur vel sola vel maxime quae notant et designant turpitudinem, aliquam non turpiter.

It means that what makes people laugh the most readily is something not rude at all in and of itself, which invites the listener to think of something rude.

Like that Irish song, with rimes that make you expect rude words, but ends up being completely innocent. Anyone remember the words?
 

Frank Antonson

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Like that Irish song, with rimes that make you expect rude words, but ends up being completely innocent. Anyone remember the words?

I think one of my former students knows the song. If you want to know it badly enough, I will ask him about it. I can still see him surrounded by his female classmates all giggling to hear him sing it.

Regarding Reed-Kellogg, I am not defensive at all, but proud. Diagramming sentences in that way may not be perfect, but at the very least, it is a very good start. And it is so much more interesting and beautiful than anything else I have seen.

In fact, not to stir something up, but it seems as if tree diagrams and (what is it?) phrase structure diagrams(?) have retreated from this forum.

Kondorosi (anybody remember him?) (He was banned from the forum) is one of the only examples I know of of a non-American who went to the bother to master the Reed-Kellogg language.
 

TheParser

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Regarding Reed-Kellogg, I am not defensive at all, but proud. Diagramming sentences in that way may not be perfect, but at the very least, it is a very good start. And it is so much more interesting and beautiful than anything else I have seen.


(1) Viva Reed-Kellogg!!!

(2) Now that I am going to diagram contrasted elements as an appositive,

I have one question: where should I put the word "not" in the diagram?


Thank you
 

Afit

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"I love Mona, not Sue"?


This sentence is open to two interpretations to me:

1. It is I who love Mona, and not Sue.
1. I love Mona, but I do not love Sue.

There is an understood coordinator "but" in each case after the comma (asyndentic coordination).

1. I -- but not Sue -- love Mona. -- With the first interpretation, I detect some degree of similarity to a sentence with an interpolated conjoin.

2. I love Mona, and/but not Sue -- the second conjoin is probably an elliptical clause which is appended as an afterthought to the first clause.
 

Frank Antonson

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Dear Afit,

I love it when you use all of those big terms that I do not understand at all!

But also, one of the things I love best about using R-K diagramming is that there are no terms in the diagram at all.

Can you, Afit, R-K? That "R-K" , incidentally seems to be a verb which was born on this forum. I believe that the Parser was the father.

Frank
 

Afit

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It is simply called a negative appositive
:-o

Never heard the term so far.

I love x, not Y.
I love [STRIKE]X,[/STRIKE] [not Y]. :?:

Can you, Afit, R-K?

I can't, but I keep trying. ;-)

 

TheParser

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:-o

Never heard the term so far.

I love x, not Y.
I love [STRIKE]X,[/STRIKE] [not Y]. :?:



I can't, but I keep trying. ;-)



(1) Thank you for your beautiful diagrams.

(2) I can hardly type these words let alone post a diagram.

(3) If we accept the idea of a negative appositive, then I believe that an appositive

(positive or negative) should be diagrammed with parentheses:

Usingenglish.com (a leading English helpline) / is/ famous.

(4) Now let's have a negative appositive such as:

California, not Texas, has the most people. / California has the most people, not Texas.

(a) I believe we would R-K it as:

California (Texas)/ has/ people.

(i) we would put "most" on a diagonal line under "people."
(ii) I always get confused where to put "the." Does it go on its own diagonal line under "people," or does it go on a bent line under "most"?
(iii) The million dollar question is: where does "not" go?
(a) I propose writing "not" on a short line above and to the left of "Texas," with a dotted line leading down and connecting to the horizontal line.

(5) Thanks to Mr. Antonson, usingenglish.com is the only English helpline that

offers a forum devoted to questions about Reed-Kellogg. I hope that he offers us

his "map" of the sentence.
 

Frank Antonson

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Somehow, Alfie, I KNEW that you could R-K ;-)))

Frank
 

Afit

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Somehow, Alfie, I KNEW that you could R-K ;-)))

Frank

I have only vague ideas as to how I have managed to earn the benefit of the doubt with you. :up:
 

Afit

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California, and not Texas, has the most people.

Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be in apposition.

This is obviously not the case with "California" and "not Texas".

What is your definition for an appositive, James?
 

TheParser

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This you like? :?::up:


Beautiful!!! I was thinking, though, that the line for "not" would be a horizontal

line above and to the left of the word in parentheses ("Texas").
 

TheParser

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California, and not Texas, has the most people.

Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be in apposition.

This is obviously not the case with "California" and "not Texas".

What is your definition for an appositive, James?


Yes, I always thought that two noun elements had to be positive in order to qualify

for the term "appositive":

The United States, the most important country in the world, lies between two

oceans.

But as I explained, many grammarians accept the idea of negative appositives:

Family, not money, is the most important thing in life.

It seems a nifty way to diagram such sentences -- instead of dreaming up some

long ellipsis.
 

Afit

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Beautiful!!! I was thinking, though, that the line for "not" would be a horizontal

line above and to the left of the word in parentheses ("Texas").

"Not" belongs to "Texas"; that is why I branched it off the parenthesised part.

But as I explained, many grammarians accept the idea of negative appositives.

I think we can call it what we want, as long as we understand to what "not" belongs and how "not Texas" is bound to the matrix clause.
What I am missing from grammarians is the provision of motivation for accepting their views.
 

Frank Antonson

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When I teach about appositives, I use the term "renames". It would probably be better to say "re-states".

"He was angry, furious" For me "furious" here is an appositive.

Incidentally, at the moment I am too lazy to find it, but in some Shakespearean play (I think that it is "Love's Labour's Lost" there is an absolutely ridiculous (spectacular) example of extended apposition. I think it is telling what love is, the appositives being predicate nominatives.
 
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