Identifying the verb

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barryashton

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On reflection the phrase 'straight back to his collar' may perform the function of a complement as it is an attribute of 'My father's hair'.
 

Frank Antonson

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Frank

I think what you, and the Diagramming Sentences website you referred to, fail to do is to adequately distinguish those words with the form of a participle that function as an adjective from those words with the form of a participle that do not function as an adjective. For example (modifying examples in Quirk et al that deal with this distinction):

1. She is (very) calculating.
2. She is calculating my salary.

'Calculating' has the form of a participle. In example 1 it functions as an adjective. In 2 it does not. Identifying a word as having the form of a participle is straightforward, deciding what function that word performs is not. Many participle form words will function as an adjective and many will not - but it is surely the function not the form that interests us.

One can also give examples of -ing, -ed words that function as adjectives but are not participles because there is no related verb. For example:

She is (very) talented.

'Talented' functions as an adjective but is not a participle - there being no verb 'talent' ('to talent' as you would have it).

Barry
Barry,

I have not read the rest of what you have to say yet, but several things already come to mind. One, is that I am not trying to "dis" Quirk et. al. All along I have found from the references to that team that they have done EXTREMELY complete and detailed work.
As a matter of fact, on this forum, I have several times referred to what I call the British approach to grammar as a Victorian mansion as opposed to the log cabin of the American approach. (But both buildings keep the rain and wind out.) (And Reed-Kellogg is FUN!)

About "talented" I agree. As an educator, I was very annoyed when the term "gifted" began to appear since there was no verb "to gift". But language development does not always follow clear rules. In a sentence like "He has just talented me." (which makes no sense), "talented" is, by its use, the past participle of a transitive verb. Syntax does not necessarily have to do with making sense.


I suppose that behind this whole discussion is my objection to mixing morphological terms with syntactic ones --the question of the role of "shut" in that sentence -- verb or adjective. What does it matter? It is an objective complement modifying the direct object (as I remember the sentence). If by "verb" one means, simple predicate, then that is easy. The word is "swung".

Let me read on.

Frank
 

Frank Antonson

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5jj,

Sorry that I missed that long post of yours.

First, perhaps "well hit ball" might sound a little more natural.

"Shut" in that sentence is a modifier. Call it an adjective if you must, but, as far as I am concerned, you are mixing the lexica of morphology and syntax.

You use the word "usage". For me, usage is a matter of what is acceptable. Part of prescriptive grammar. If you mean by "usage" how a word is used in a sentence, then I would call that syntax.

"But words on their own are not any part of speech. The word 'up' is, in itself, not any part of speech. It can be used as a preposition, verb, noun, adjective, etc. Similarly, the word 'shut' is not, in itself, a verb."

That puzzles me. Why do dictionaries identify them as such then? A dictionary is not going to identify "shut" as a preposition, a pronoun, or a conjunction. Dictionaries try to give the possible uses for the words.

What you say about "to" with the infinitive simply saddens me. Those books seem to depend upon the written (printed) word for their message.

French, "chanter"; Spanish, "cantar"; German, "singen". These are infinitives. In those languages the "to" is not needed because the infinitive is only one word.

When a student learns the French word, "chanter", he learns that it means "to sing".

In my teaching of morphology and syntax, I try to prepare my students for the study of foreign languages. My students were typically 14 years old.

I am truly sorry if this thread is getting tedious. It seems that there is such a variance in the terms we use.

One other thing to say, though, is that a book named "Sister Bernadettes's Barking Dog" by Kitty Burns Foley, does an amazing job of showing how much FUN Reed-Kellogg is. I would like to know if there is an experience with British grammar learning comparable to what she describes.

Frank
 

5jj

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"Shut" in that sentence is a modifier. Call it an adjective if you must, well, I called it an adjective because I wasn't happy with your calling it the past participle (of a verb) but, as far as I am concerned, you are mixing the lexica of morphology and syntax.
Only if we use your definition of 'morphology', which is rather different from the one in my (British) Oxford dictionaries or my (American) Webster's Third.

You use the word "usage". For me, usage is a matter of what is acceptable. Part of prescriptive grammar. If you mean by "usage" how a word is used in a sentence, then I would call that syntax.

"But words on their own are not any part of speech. The word 'up' is, in itself, not any part of speech. It can be used as a preposition, verb, noun, adjective, etc. Similarly, the word 'shut' is not, in itself, a verb."

That puzzles me. Why do dictionaries identify them as such then? A dictionary is not going to identify "shut" as a preposition, a pronoun, or a conjunction. Dictionaries try to give the possible uses for the words.
They do not identify 'shut' as a preposition, pronoun or conjunction, because it has not been used as such in recorded English. Barry pointed out that dictionaries do identify 'shut' as both a verb and an adjective, because it has been recorded being used as such.

What you say about "to" with the infinitive simply saddens me. Those books seem to depend upon the written (printed) word for their message.

French, "chanter"; Spanish, "cantar"; German, "singen". These are infinitives. In those languages the "to" is not needed because the infinitive is only one word.
And the infinitive is frequently rendered in English as one word, as in, "I can sing", "Let's go". We should not claim that something must be true in one language just because it is in another, but. if you are going to, note that, just as English requires 'to' in front of the infinitive sometimes, so French sometimes requires [FONT=&quot]'à'[/FONT] and 'de', and German sometimes requires 'zu'.

When a student learns the French word, "chanter", he learns that it means "to sing".
That does not mean that the student is being taught correctly. It does not mean 'to sing' in 'je peux/dois chanter'.

In my teaching of morphology and syntax, I try to prepare my students for the study of foreign languages.
In my teaching of English as a foreign language, I try to teach my students how to understand and produce English correctly. I do my best not to teach morphology, syntax or phonology, but to use my knowledge of these to help them to master English.
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5jj,

Most of what you have written is fine with me. There are, though, some seemingly insurmountable differences in our terms.

In the American version of morphology, as I know it, the infinitive always is preceded with "to" -- even the past infinitive "to have sung". The word "can" in "can sing" is considered a "helping verb" (quite different from other verbs, in that it does not have an infinitive form. One does not say "to can", but rather "to be able to") helping a the "main verb" "sing", which we would not call the infinitive. We would probably say something similar about "Let's go", calling it the imperative mood -- somewhat similar to "allow us to go".

I am aware of the "a", "de", and "zu" that you spoke of, but translating "parler" as "speak" would not distinguish it from "parle, parles, parlent" etc. In constructing a conjugation, then, we give, as a title, the infinitive form of the verb, e.g. the conjugation of the verb "parler". je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, etc.

The experience of teaching English as a foreign language must be so different from teaching, say, German to native English speakers. In some ways English is SOOO simple. There is almost no need for a conjugation (or a declension). But in going toward a non-English language, I find the verbs "to be" and "to go" quite useful to prepare students for what they will encounter.

So often I have heard people say that they only understood English grammar when they studied Latin. The use of "traditional grammar" here, is currently very much out of fashion. I think Chomski is partly to blame. I buck that trend.

I would not want to tackle German without prior knowledge of gender, case, number, tense, mood, relative pronouns, antecedents, irregular verbs, etc.

I hope this discussion can be continued in good spirit.

Frank
 

5jj

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In the American version of morphology, (you still haven't addressed the question of why your understanding of 'morphology' is rather different from that given in British and American dictionaries.) as I know it, the infinitive always is preceded with "to" -- even the past infinitive "to have sung". The word "can" in "can sing" is considered a "helping verb" (quite different from other verbs, in that it does not have an infinitive form. One does not say "to can", but rather "to be able to") helping a the "main verb" "sing", which we would not call the infinitive.

Well, we have a fundamental difference of opinion here. Most grammarians, British and American, that I have read do consider 'sing' in "I can sing" to be an infinitive. If you think it's not an infinitive (or 'bare infinitive' as it's sometimes called), then what do you think it is?

We would probably say something similar about "Let's go", calling it the imperative mood -- somewhat similar to "allow us to go".
Is it of any value to consider that English has an 'imperative mood'?
It just happens that 'let' is followed by the bare infinitive, and that 'allow' requires 'to' before the infinitive, just as some French verbs require [FONT=&quot]'à'[/FONT] and 'de'.

I am aware of the "a", "de", and "zu" that you spoke of, but translating "parler" as "speak" would not distinguish it from "parle, parles, parlent" etc. In constructing a conjugation, then, we give, as a title, the infinitive form of the verb, e.g. the conjugation of the verb "parler". je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, etc.
Frank, we cannot analyse English grammar by talking about what happens in French. One of the problems with the English grammar that was taught until the 1960s (indeed, until today in some places) is that writers tried to apply the rules of Greek and Latin grammar to English. People used to speak of nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative etc cases in English nouns. This is rubbish. Apart from a possible 'possessive' case (with the 's/s' suffix), English nouns do not show case. With some pronouns, it is possible to speak of an 'objective form' but the word 'case' is irrelevant. The English word 'him' can be used to translate an accusative, dative or ablative Latin equivalent; that does not mean that English has these cases..

The experience of teaching English as a foreign language must be so different from teaching, say, German to native English speakers. In some ways English is SOOO simple.
Tell that to people trying to learn English!
I did, for many years, teach German to English speakers, so I do have experience of both sides.
[...]
So often I have heard people say that they only understood English grammar when they studied Latin. The use of "traditional grammar" here, is currently very much out of fashion. I think Chomsk[STRIKE]i[/STRIKE]y is partly to blame. I buck that trend.
Fine - if you want to teach 'grammar'. I have never actually seen much point in that. I doubt whether Shakespeare could have told a predicate from a preposition, but that didn't stop him writng a couple of good lines of verse from time to time.

I would not want to tackle German without prior knowledge of gender, case, number, tense, mood, relative pronouns, antecedents, irregular verbs, etc.
Well, most Germans manage it pretty well until they go to school, and until about a couple of centuries ago, most of them didn't go to school. Until fairly recent times, most non-German merchants, servants, shippers, hoteliers, etc managed to converse with their German colleagues, masters, clients, etc without the faintest idea of what a 'mood' might be. In some parts of the developing world today, there are illiterate people who can communicate happily in four or more languages.

I hope this discussion can be continued in good spirit.
Well, I am in very good spirits.
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Bjj,

Good. We will continue the thread. But I will wait unit a little later in the day to give you a better response.

I am glad to hear of the term "bare infinitive". I had never heard it before. I could find it useful. Though, within the the young community that I have taught "main verb" (in a verb phrase) works well.

As long as we remain civil, this discussion could be very useful.

Frank
 

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Bjj,

I imagine that you have seen this quote from Mark Twain before. I want to be sure to include it in our discussion.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.
- Appendix D of A Tramp Abroad, "That Awful German Language"

Frank
 

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As Twain was making a humorous comment, I don't really see that it's relevant.
 

Frank Antonson

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Yes, humorous.

But if there were no truth behind it, where would the humor be?

In any case, I will later reply to your other comments.

Frnak
 

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5jj,

There is so much to respond to. I am sure that I will miss some of it.

My use of "morphology" comes from Harmon and House. I will be showing the table of contents of the book in a video which I am going to make and post today. In that video I will also show some little books that very concisely lay out what Americans think of as grammar (morphology) and syntax. I recommend that you check it out. It will be on the Youtube Channel mrbisse1 and will be video 94.1.

My principal reason for teaching English grammar is to use what English speakers already know about a language as a matrix for the learning of a foreign language. The declension of the English pronouns, for example, gives a way to show person, number, case, and gender -- all four of which are very important in German, for example.

Regarding the complexity of German compared to English, consider that the most common word in English, "the", has at least 6 variants in German (der, die, das, des, dem, den) and probably twice that many "slots" for their use -- which must be gotten right or the German sounds illiterate. Add to that that these same words function as relative pronouns. Our word "a, an" which changes only because of elision (like the pronunciation of "the") offers in German a similar challenge.

I once asked a very good German friend of mine what English speakers do with the problem of "the" if their German is not very good. She said that she thought that they just generically used "der" or something like it.

In many ways English is beautiful in its simplicity -- except for spelling.

I'll post this and then look back at your other comments.

Frank
 

5jj

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My use of "morphology" comes from Harmon and House. I will be showing the table of contents of the book in a video which I am going to make and post today. In that video I will also show some little books that very concisely lay out what Americans think of as grammar (morphology) and syntax. I recommend that you check it out. It will be on the Youtube Channel mrbisse1 and will be video 94.1.
I will try to find time to watch the video. In the meantime, I will just say that I have met quite a few Americans who use 'morphology' in the same way as I - as defined in Webster's 3.
Regarding the complexity of German compared to English, consider that the most common word in English, "the", has at least 6 variants in German (der, die, das, des, dem, den) and probably twice that many "slots" for their use -- which must be gotten right or the German sounds illiterate. Add to that that these same words function as relative pronouns. Our word "a, an" which changes only because of elision (like the pronunciation of "the") offers in German a similar challenge.
You have taken one aspect of German grammar out of context. The many forms (morphological? ;-)) of German are part and parcel of the case system, which is an integral part of German - as it is of Latin, and many other languages. For learners whose native language has no case system, or (like English) only the vestigial remains of one, a case system is difficult to comprehend initially. The lack of one in a language is difficult for people who have grown up with one. Cicero, were to to be suddenly transported to modern England, would be dumbfounded by the importance of word order in modern English. . The fact that an amorous situation can be formulated in English only as 'the boy loves the girl', in German as 'der Junge liebt das Mädchen' or 'Das Mädchen liebt der Junge'; or in Latin as any of six orderings of 'puer/puellam/amat' does not make any one of these 'easier' or 'more difficult' than the others.

(Incidentally, many speakers of German dialects do nor 'sound' illiterate if their versions of the various forms of the definite article appear indistinguishable. They might appear to be not very well educated if they used an incorrect form in writing. There are, however, books on German usage, just as there re on English usage. Native speakers don't get it right all the time.)
In many ways English is beautiful in its simplicity -- except for spelling.
As far as I know, there is no evidence that English is any 'easier' or 'more difficult' than any other natural language.
 

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5jj,

Yes, I know what you mean about English word order. And, actually, I am normally very reluctant to describe one language as harder or easier than another. Students used to ask me that all the time. Basically I told them that there is no such thing as an easy foreign language. They are all hard.

However, sometimes I would add that it depends a lot on what the native language is that you are starting with.

For a Portuguese-speaker, for instance, Spanish is not hard. German would be much harder. For a Swedish-speaker, or a Dutch-speaker, I think that English is not so hard.
I once heard English described, tongue in cheek, as a dialect of French.

I am not sure if there is any "scientific" way to measure it -- probably there could be.

At a later point, I want to look more widely at the forums on this website. I intend to teach, online, beginning German to English speakers -- free, as I am doing my "Frank's Hum Hundred" course. I am in no way trained to do this, so it will be fun for me to see what happens.

I DO hope that you look at the video. Just a minute...I guess I can now offer you the link because it is available.
mrbisse1's Channel - YouTube

There. That should do it. You should there be able to see where we Americans are coming from.

Frank
 

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Thank you for the link. Unfortunately, I could not read the print in the books, but I gathered enough to make a few points.

1. You did, in previous posts seem to suggest that your view of morphology was the American view, and that your view came from Harman and House. From what little I could read, your House & Harman did not appear to confirm this, and you said on your video that you did not fully agree with how they dealt with morphology. Unfortunately, you skipped over the morphology secction of the book.

2. The Fundamentals of Grammar was published over thirty years ago, and the House and Harman sixty years ago. Quite frankly I think we need something a little more modern than this:

House, Homer C., and Susan Emolyn Harman. Descriptive English Grammar. 2d ed. Revised by Susan Emolyn Harman. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1950.

  1. Prescriptive.
  2. Remarks in the introductory matter indicate that the philosophy of the work is prescriptive. The preface reads, “By studying and comparing the two levels of English [standard and substandard], the average student will be able to discover for himself that the best English is grammatical English.” Insists on correct pronoun case. Chapter three on pronouns says, “In standard literary speech who is restricted to nominative uses, and whom to the objective constructions; but in informal speech, who is often used where the rule calls for whom. But careful speakers do not, as a rule, use who to introduce an interrogative sentence unless it has a nominative function. Whom is the form approved by our cultivated writers.” Encourages the use of common gender. Chapter three on pronouns says, “It is well to remember that he, his, him may be used to indicate masculine or common gender. She and her must be used only when the antecedent is known to be feminine.” Insists on correctness in grammar. The book freely insists that some grammatical forms are correct. Chapter five on verbs says, “Failure to recognize the correct antecedent of a relative pronoun may result in error . . . In this sentence the verb must be plural.” Includes traditional diagramming. Part two says, “The system of diagramming employed and described in this text is one of the simplest and one of the most widely used of all the systems of diagramming now taught in the public and private schools of America. The lines used in the diagrams are few, and their significance can be mastered in a very short time.”
English Student Resource Guide: Annotated Bibliography of Various English Resources - Student Pulse

You and I have fundamentally different ideas about grammar, Frank, so we'll have to agree to differ.

As for the two words we have been talking about, I'll stick with the definitions of morphology and syntax given in my (British) Oxford English Dictionary, my (American) Webster's Third New International Dictionary and in several dozen dictionaries here: OneLook: General dictionary sites.
 

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5jj,

First, thanks for looking at that video. I am sorry that the print could not be clearer. I assume that you viewed it using the full screen. With that, I found that I could read most of the first two booklets if I tried hard enough and paused at just the right moments.

Yes, agreeing to disagree sounds like a good idea. There can be no doubt that, even if I don't represent a pure American version of grammar, there is a big difference between it and what I call the British version.

Please don't lose sight of the fact that I was (and continue online to be) teaching children between the ages of about 12 and 14. At least that is my present target audience. That's the reason that I treated the word "morphology" somewhat gingerly. In the preface to the first of those student booklets you might be able to make out from the print that I tried to explain about it. I was afraid that my students would be put off by the word "morphology". The were used to "grammar", but I wanted to make sure that they could separate parts of speech from parts of sentences. The big offender for me there is the term "verb" as opposed to "simple predicate". I am sure that you recall that it was Barry's search for the "verb" in the sentence that lead me to respond.

Regarding a lack of modernity with Harman and House, I don't regard it as necessarily bad. It seems to me that the golden age of linguistics, then probably called philology, was sometime between Sir William Jones and the Grimm Brothers, when so many languages were first being described and deciphered -- e.g The Rosetta Stone. By comparison, to me, the modern state of the study of grammar seems muddled. Similarly I prefer Shakespeare and the Dutch Masters to modern literature and art.

Finally, I guess I want to mention "FUN". Grammar and syntax, as I know them, have been a lot of fun, not only for Gertrude Stein but for so many others as well. On this forum TranceFreak once expressed her amazement that sentence diagramming could be fun. She said that fellow students used to give her part of their lunch if she would do their diagrams for them.

I hesitate to share the following link with you because it suggests chaos in the classroom, but it might show you what I mean by the fun.

Competitive Sentence Diagramming-Round 2 - YouTube

I THINK that will take you there.

This has all been interesting,

Frank
 

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A very belated foray into this thread, I fear, but....

I think that Frank's point is valid: the wide application of the term 'verb' creates a problem bewailed by many a professional grammarian, and which some have sought to solve by introducing the term 'verbal' to refer to any finite or nonfinite verb form (thus including both finite 'swung' and participle 'shut' here), reserving 'verb' for the finite component of a verb phrase (thus including 'swung' but excluding 'shut' as used here).

As for 'shut' itself, although a verb(al) in terms of general classification, I would concur with the analysis already offered that it serves here in the role of predicate adjective, i.e. one describing the final state/condition of the subject after performance of the verb.

I would, however, take issue with the label 'copular' being applied to 'swung', on the grounds that part of the generally accepted definition of a copular verb is that complementation is obligatory in order for it to make sense.

The gate swung.

while perhaps semantically a little "bare", is nevertheless grammatical...
 

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I had thought a little more about this sentence and I realized even more how out of practice I am.

Reed-Kellog would say that in terms of "parts of speech", "morphology" "swung" and "shut" are both forms of verbs. But in terms of "parts of sentences" "swung" is the simple predicate and "shut" is an objective complement. The direct object is the understood reflexive pronoun "itself". A "sort of" test for an objective complement is to see if the infinitive "to be" could be inserted into the sentence. e.g. "The sun made the apples (to be) red" "The gate swung (itself) (to be) shut.
 

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I had thought a little more about this sentence and I realized even more how out of practice I am.

Reed-Kellog would say that in terms of "parts of speech", "morphology" "swung" and "shut" are both forms of verbs. But in terms of "parts of sentences" "swung" is the simple predicate and "shut" is an objective complement. The direct object is the understood reflexive pronoun "itself". A "sort of" test for an objective complement is to see if the infinitive "to be" could be inserted into the sentence. e.g. "The sun made the apples (to be) red" "The gate swung (itself) (to be) shut.

I'm afraid I cannot agree with this assertion. 'Swing' is a simple intransitive verb. I have never heard of a reflexive form 'swing oneself' (except, perhaps, as children's English with reference to swings in the park).

By the lights of this argument, you might as well claim that

They returned unharmed.

is elliptical for

?They returned themselves unharmed.
 

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Not quite.

"They returned unharmed." is more likely elliptical for "They returned (in an) unharmed (condition)." or "They returned (, and they were) unharmed."

It's different.

One could certainly say that since the door was hung out of plumb, it was always closing itself.

"Returned" in your example would not be transitive.

Thanks for the comment.
 
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