Subordinate clause, or not?

Linguist__ said:

My second problem phrase from my analysis of a child with a language disorder.

"And seen a cow said moo."

As with the first problem, the grammar is analysed despite of the error.

My problem is whether to treat the sentence as two clauses coordinated with each other, that is: 'And saw a cow and the cow said, "moo".'

Does this sound like the most plausible way to treat this sentence? If so, is 'moo' the object of 'said', or is there a special subject element for direct speech?

Thank you

Is "and seen a cow said moo" the original sentence? Because if is like that it can have two interpretation, that someone saw a cow and said moo and that someone saw a cow saying moo (which on the other hand, is it correct to say that a cow said something?, just asking).

I'm not really sure of what you've been asked to do what that of that sentence or whether you can change it in the analysis, but to me "and saw a cow and the cow said "moo" " is less ambiguous and I'd treat "moo" as a direct object. I don't know if that was really your question.. but I hope it helps anyway..

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Linguist__ said:

My second problem phrase from my analysis of a child with a language disorder.

"And seen a cow said moo."

As with the first problem, the grammar is analysed despite of the error.

My problem is whether to treat the sentence as two clauses coordinated with each other, that is: 'And saw a cow and the cow said, "moo".'

Does this sound like the most plausible way to treat this sentence? If so, is 'moo' the object of 'said', or is there a special subject element for direct speech?

Thank you

EDIT - The title of the thread is mean to be 'Coordinating clause, or not?', sorry.

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bhaisahab said:

What about "(I) saw a cow say moo"? Obviously one can't "see" a cow say anything

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Linguist__ said:

My second problem phrase from my analysis of a child with a language disorder.

"And seen a cow said moo."

As with the first problem, the grammar is analysed despite of the error.

My problem is whether to treat the sentence as two clauses coordinated with each other, that is: 'And saw a cow and the cow said, "moo".'

Does this sound like the most plausible way to treat this sentence? If so, is 'moo' the object of 'said', or is there a special subject element for direct speech?

Thank you

EDIT - The title of the thread is mean to be 'Coordinating clause, or not?', sorry.

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'The bus ran into a field where he saw a cow. Then, the bus jumped over a fence out of the field and the cow said, "moo, I can't believe my eyes."

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Linguist__ said:

I'll give some context to the speech sample to help clarify it. The child is undertaking 'The Bus Story' test, in which the speech therapist narrates a story to a child about a naughty bus that drives off from it's driver, and ends up getting stuck in mud and needs to be rescued. Pictures are used to guide the narrative. Then, the child tells the story back to the therapist using the pictures as a guide.

The child's sentence is fine in context. I think the original narrative of the section that the child is retelling is

So, I assume the child is trying to say: "And he (the bus) saw a cow and it (the cow) said, "moo".

I think the best thing to do would be to consider these as two seperate utterances - 'And he saw a cow. And it said, "moo".' Would you agree?

My main question was, in the sentence. 'And he saw a cow and it said, "moo"', is 'and it said...' a coordinating clause, and if so, is 'moo' the object of 'said'. MASM sort of answered this, but wasn't sure about the context, so maybe this post helps that.

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mmasny said:

I have a question after reading all this.
Would you find this sentence acceptable:
I saw that a cow said moo.

The literal Polish translation is perfectly correct in Polish (especially when the 'saw' is stressed). I am not sure if I ever saw 'see that' in English, but now I'm not sure either why it should be incorrect.

If it's correct I think it could be closest to what the child had it mind. He/she could have just omitted the 'that'.

PS: OK, after thinking a little bit I'm sure it's correct But I still can be wrong

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Raymott said:

It's a correct sentence, but English-speaking children of an age where this narrative would be used don't go around saying "I saw that a cow said moo" or even "He (the bus) saw that a cow said moo."
So I think you're right when you say you could be wrong.

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