The time you stayed at home/The time you spent on these actions.

[Marika33]

I was told by a native English speaker (and a great teacher) that the difference between "for an hour" in the two,
1) "I went home for an hour" and
2) "I walked home for an hour",
is that in 1), "for an hour" is the time you stayed at home. You went to your house, you stayed there, and then you left.
While in 2) "for an hour" is the time you spent walking.

My first question is, can you use 2) in the other meaning (to talk about the time you stayed at home)?
And the second question is, which meaning do these (below) convey, a) the amount of time you stayed at home, b) the amount of time you spent on these actions, or maybe they could convey either one depending on the context?

1. I went home for an hour. (Here, "for an hour" is the time you stayed at home).
2. I walked home for an hour. (Here, "for an hour" is the time you spent walking. Could it be used to talk about the time you stayed at home as in 1?)
3. I came home for an hour. (?)
4. I got home for an hour. (I assume in this one, "for an hour" is only to talk about the time you stayed at home. Maybe, I'm wrong)
5. I returned home for an hour. (?)
6. I travelled home for an hour. (?)
7. I drove home for an hour. (?)
8. I rode home for an hour. (?)
9. I ran home for an hour. (?)
10. I flew home for an hour. (?)
11. I swam home for an hour. (?)

 

[jutfrank]

I was told by a native English speaker (and a great teacher) that the difference between "for an hour" in the two,
1) "I went home for an hour" and
2) "I walked home for an hour",
is that in 1), "for an hour" is the time you stayed at home. You went to your house, you stayed there, and then you left.
While in 2) "for an hour" is the time you spent walking.

Yes, those are the natural interpretations of those sentences.

My first question is, can you use 2) in the other meaning (to talk about the time you stayed at home)?

I say it's very hard to imagine it meaning that.

1. I went home for an hour. (Here, "for an hour" is the time you stayed at home).

Right. The other interpretation would be very unlikely.

1. I walked home for an hour. (Here, "for an hour" is the time you spent walking. Could it be used to talk about the time you stayed at home as in 1?)

It's possible but extremely unlikely.

1. I came home for an hour. (?)

This is perhaps a tiny bit more ambiguous but the interpretation is still extremely likely to be that you stayed there for an hour.

1. I got home for an hour. (I assume in this one, "for an hour" is only to talk about the time you stayed at home. Maybe, I'm wrong)

This doesn't seem to make a lot of sense but it could possibly mean you stayed there. The other interpretation is not possible. It's not a good sentence.

I returned home for an hour. (?)

This is more ambiguous, but the 'staying there' interpretation is more likely, I think.

1. I travelled home for an hour. (?)
2. I drove home for an hour. (?)
3. I rode home for an hour. (?)
4. I ran home for an hour. (?)
5. I flew home for an hour. (?)
6. I swam home for an hour. (?)

These are all kind of similar as they use similar action verbs. They're all ambiguous. Any disambiguation would come from subtle prosodic markers.

Although I like nothing more than doing semantic analysis of sentences on a Thursday afternoon, I'd advise you not to make up your own examples.

Also bear in mind that others might analyse these sentences in different ways from me, so be prepared to get some conflicting answers with this. If you leave this thread feeling confused, that will be quite appropriate because ambiguity is confusing by nature.

 

[Piscean]

I'd advise you not to make up your own examples.

That's very good advice, which i think you have been given before @Marika33 . The problem with making up your own examples is that you may well produce some that are grammatically possible but would never be uttered by a native speaker, or would require a rather artificial context.

 

[jutfrank]

I agree strongly with what Piscean says above. Also, it's not very useful to analyse the meaning of sentences in a contextual vacuum. Your focus should really be on pragmatic analysis (what the speaker means when she utters a sentence in authentic use) rather than on semantic analysis (what the combination of words means uncontextualised). Don't study your own examples—the approach should be to study good, clear, authentic examples and then make inferences from them. Remember too that not every utterance from the mouth of a native speaker counts as a good model to study.

Another point I'd make is that we tend generally to avoid ambiguity when we talk. I believe this is why many of your examples wouldn't be uttered by a native speaker.

Finally, it should be understood that ambiguity is really a feature of semantics rather than pragmatics. That means that though it's fairly common for sentences to be ambiguous in the sense of sentence meaning, it's actually very rare for a sentence to be ambiguous in the sense of speaker meaning.

 

[Marika33]

I'd advise you not to make up your own examples.

That's very good advice, which i think you have been given before @Marika33 . The problem with making up your own examples is that you may well produce some that are grammatically possible but would never be uttered by a native speaker, or would require a rather artificial context.

It may be a good idea for those who want to understand a new language, but not for those who want to speak it and feel free while doing so. Sometimes, it's extremely important to know how to express the idea you want, and that's where your own examples are essential. Another important case in which you can't avoid creating your own example sentences is when you're trying to figure out how to properly translate a sentence from the other language. Imagine somebody in your native language (let it be Ukrainian) says its own version of "I walked home for an hour" meaning: "I walked home and stayed there for an hour" (not the time you spent walking), you just must know that "I walked home for an hour" wouldn't work! You just can't know that if you don't create your own example sentence and then learn that it doesn't work!

 

[Skrej]

I went home for an hour. (Here, "for an hour" is the time you stayed at home).

Or the time you spent away from the place you left (office, class, etc.). That time you went home for likely includes travel time to and from home, so the entire 60 minutes isn't necessarily all spent at your home.

I get an hour for a lunch break, but that's not all time spent eating. It includes the time needed to travel to my home/cafeteria/restaurant and back as well. Depending on where I go for lunch, I may spent 1/2 that hour in transit. I still say that I went to lunch for an hour.