87 faces of the English clause

Transcription

1 Work Papers of the Summer nsttute of Lngustcs, Unversty of North Dakota Sesson Volume 11 Artcle faces of the Englsh clause Rchard Pttman SL-UND Davd Thomas SL-UND Follow ths and addtonal works at: Recommended Ctaton Pttman, Rchard and Thomas, Davd (1967) "87 faces of the Englsh clause," Work Papers of the Summer nsttute of Lngustcs, Unversty of North Dakota Sesson: Vol. 11, Artcle 9. Avalable at: Ths Artcle s brought to you for free and open access by UND Scholarly Commons. t has been accepted for ncluson n Work Papers of the Summer nsttute of Lngustcs, Unversty of North Dakota Sesson by an authorzed edtor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more nformaton, please contact zeneb.yousf@lbrary.und.edu.

2 Rough draft. For prvate crculaton only. 87 Faces of the Eng.Lsh Clause Rchard Pttman and 2)avd Thomas Nguyen Dang Lem, n hs Contrastve Analyss of Englsh and Vetnamese, Vol. 1 (Canberra, 1966), gves a very u;3eful table (page 47) of 87 Englsh clause types. Ths s a revew and comrnen tary on that chart, wth two proposals: 1) that all of the types be derved from one sentence -- Tpey gave hm the presdency -- rather than from several, as n Lem's orgnal formulaton; and 2) that the relatonshps between the major types be descrbed by means of a twobranched tree. The frst proposal s b:r Pttman, the second by Thomas. By way of explanaton of the orgnal chart, t s mportant to pont out a detal whch Lem dd not menton--that the horzontal dmenson represents the nternal structure of the clauses, whle the vertcal dmenson represents relatons between these and otter clauses n dscourse. Descrptons on the left and top of the chart label the types by trangulaton. Formulas on the rght and bottom should be combned (lke those on the top and left) to gve the clause for each box. An occasonal morphophonemc or permutaton rule wll complete the pcture. The two branches 01 the tree, and thus all the clause types n both branches, can n ths case be related by a few transformatons. For example, the orgnal sentence They gave.hm the presdency wll generate all the clause types on Chart. '.rhs double transtve (3) s transformed nto a sngle transtve (2) by deleton of hm, and nto an ntranstve (1) by the further deleton of the presdency. To those who may be troubled by the fact that (1) s a transtve wth ellptcal object rather than an ntranstve, the answer s, as ponted out n 11Chrau Clause Batteres", 1 that snce the ntranstve patterns n all respects lke the zeroed-object transtve, the selectonal dfference between them ("transtve verbs take an object") may be handled n the lexcon and need not be ncluded n ths knd of chart. To get from the double transtve (3) to the attrbutve transtve (4) requres gong from They gave hm the presdency to They elected hm ; t s makng the jump from one branch of the tree (Chart ) to the other. Ths s accomplshed by the followng transforrraton: A Vtt N1 Nwhat~A Vncomp N1 N2 n whch A represents the actor; Vtt represents a double transtve verb (gve, buy, make ); Nwhat? s a noun whch may be replaced by what? n ths formula; Vncomp s a noun-complement verb (make, name, elect ) as n "name hm kng", n contrast to a verb""'.complement verb as n "help hm run", an"aajectvecomplement verb as n "shoot hm dead"~ and a preposton-complement verb as n "blow me down"; and N2 s a noun whose lexcal referent s the same as Nwhat? whle ts dentfcatonal referent s the same as Nl. Though ths transformaton may seem complcated, ts approprateness s at least partly attested by the fact that They elected hm s a specfc paraphrase of the more generc They gave hm the presdency. t s further strengthened by the fact thst all but the whom transforms of the -137-

3 SLUND 1967 WORKPAPERS attrbutve transtve (4) branch of the tree parallel exactly the transforms of the double transtve (3) branch. The above rule shows how n some cases t s possble to jump from the end of one branch to the end of the other branch of the tree (Chart ). There are other smple prncples that show how any clause that fts somewhere on one branch of the tree can take all of the transforms below t on the same branch or on the trunk of the tree. Each type (groupng) on the tree represents a set (battery) of transforms whch are mutually transformable nto each other.2 A clause that takes a certan battery of transformatons can also take all the batteres n the path below t on the tree., and, many of the lower batteres wll represent or be dentcal n surface structure wth, ellptcal forms of the orgnal clause. Thus ht hm enters nto the varous forms of the Transtve battery, cannot enter nto the Double Transtve (3) or Double Transtve Passve (6) batteres whch are hgher than t on the tree, but can enter nto the Transtve Passve (5) battery as He was ht by me, etc., nto the ntranstve (1) battery as ht., etc., and nto the t-statve (10) battery as t was, etc. t can smlarly be demonstrated for the other branch of the tree that a clause enterng at a certan battery can take all the forms n that battery and the batteres below t but cannot take the forms n the batteres above t or the batteres n the other branch except n the cases descrbed above where branch jumpng s possble. And t s here suggested that ths tree and ts rules may hold for all normal clauses and clause transforms n Englsh. Termnologcally t s proposcdthat the term clause battery be restrcted to those forms all of whch are mutually transformable; the term clause root be used for the underlyng structure (such as -as-actor, hm-as-goal, htas-acton) whch s manfested n the varous forms n the battery; the term battery tree be used for a tree showng the transformatonal and ellptcal relatons between batteres; and the term clause paradgm for the total set of transforms, full and ellptcal, that a partcular clause root can take

4 CHART 1. ntranstve 2. Sngle Transtve -1--D-e_c_l_ar_a_t v_e-----,---t-he_y_g_a_v_e T;ey g~;e the ~re~de:cy - J mperatve Gve! Gve the presdency! 3. Yes-No nterrogatve Dd.they gve? -~ nterrogatve Subject ' Who gave? 5. nterrogatve Object -P'""" Extra nterrogatve Why dd they gve? Dependent Subject j_ who gave 8. Dependent Non-subject 9. D ependent R elatve. t h at they gave Extra Dependent why they gave. ' -- _.. Dd they gve the Who gave the What dd they gve? Why dd they gve the who gave the what they gave.h tat th ey ga V et h e presdency why they gave the presdency S V(tt) S gve S Vt(t)Na S gve presdency UND SL

5 3. Double Transtve They gave hm the presdency. They elected h~. The presnency was gven. 2. Gve hm the presdency1 3. Dd they gve hm the 4. Who gave hm the pr.es d ency? 5. What dd they gve hm? 4. Attrbutve Transtve 5. Sngle Transtve-Passve Elect hm! Dd they elect hm? Who elected hm? What dd they elect hm? Who(m) dd they elect? Let the presdency be even! 6. Why dd they gve Why dd they elect hm Why was the presdency hm tbe. ;p_r_e_s d_en_t_?.: e_:_v_e_n_? j who gave hm the 6. what they gave hm 9 that they gave hm the presdency 10. ~hy they gave hm the presdency who elected hm what they elected hm whom they elected that they elected hm why they elected hm ~-th: presdency gven?, What was gven? whch was gven that the presdency was ; gven... why the ~resdency was ; gven SVtt N~a S gve B presdency Select B Na bevt(t) Presdency be gven UND SL

6 6. Double Transtve-Passve 7. Attrbutve Trans-Pass. 8. Noun-complement Equatonal , He was gven the, He was elected. He was. presdency. ---t ' 2. Let hm be gven the presdency! Let hm be elected! Let hm be! J. Was he p.ven the L. Who was gven the Was he elected? Who was elected? Was he?, "Who was? 5. \'1hat was he gven? \rlhy was he even the What was he elected? l'1hy was he elected? What was he? Why was he? 1. who was gven the who was elected! who was presdency! -+. to whom the pres-! denc:v was gven -r that whch was j what he was.,. :::nh::as gven l... that.. he wa; elected : : : t~~t h~ was ;:;~~~- the presdency! -.-w-h~-h-e ~a; ;~ven '----~-:-.w~ ;-~;~~~-~lected.. why he was presdeht the presdency : B be gven presdency B be elected B be SL UND

7 9. There statve 10. t Statve Symbol for component relatng clause to context 1. There was a. t was he Let there be a t perod 1 Exclamaton pont r Was there a. Was t he? Yes/No queston mark 3 S ~ Hho? L 5. What was there? What was t? rv There was what? rv t was what? 0 ==} What? ~y ::s~~~~~- _-_j Why ~t:~?--=--~--~:~ ) wa-s -~~~~~:-~ = :_... wno j! 0 / relatve j 1 j nr0?1",1;.:1 what; _P_r_o_no_u_n_w_h_om ~ J 9. that there was a that t was he relatve pronoun that 9... ~r~s_d_ent t' 1 1:u ~ r1::1atve why there was a why t wash~ ~elat;e pronoun why 10 t be N1 there be t be B UND SL

8 SLUND WORKPAPERS C7ART &3, ~, Trans, Att. fr.)/~ Pass. 8 Norr.. Equat. There l?p <o'. Tr. Pass.@. ~ans. ~Tr.Pass. J,<Sq o/rn~r. 10. t Stat. Where there are approprate morphologcal or lexemc transforms there may be crossng over between branches of the tree

9 FOOTNOTES 1. Davd Thomas 11Chrau Clause Batteres", chapter 11 of Chrau Grammar, Unversty of Pennsylvana dssertaton 1967 (unpublshed). See also n Part (Semnar summares) of ths Work Papers volume. 2. See John Banker, 11Bahnar Clause Paradgms", n Mon-Khmer Studes (SL Sagon 1964), for a carefully worked out set of clause batteres wth ther constants and multplers