Timeline for What is and isn't a constituent, and how (whether?) can one argue that something is or isn't grammatical
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 10, 2016 at 6:50 | comment | added | deadrat | @linguisticturn You're welcome. I wish I'd been able to clarify things more. | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 6:07 | comment | added | deadrat | @linguisticturn I've read that passage a dozen times, and I'll have to admit defeat. Here's the best I can do. As well as can be a syntactic unit (a coordinator) when it does comparison: They live as well as love. That is, they're as good at living as they are as loving. But it can also act an an adjunct when other clues in the sentence preclude coordination: Beauty as well as love is redemptive. Here the clue is the singular verb. If we replace as well as with the coordinator and to produce an equivalent sentence, as well can appear on its own as a unit unlike as well as. | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 3:39 | comment | added | linguisticturn | But now watch what CGEL does next: it says that the difference between the 'as well's in [1] and [A] is that 'as well as' is a constituent in [A] but not in [1]. And CGEL's evidence for this assertion is that 'as well' appears alone in [2]. Thus, CGEL's argument assumes, rather than proves, that the 'as well' in [1] is the same as the one in [2]. So: how do we know that this assumption of CGEL's is true? To repeat, all we know is that 'as well' in [1] is not like the 'as well' in [A]; but why does this imply that therefore the 'as well' in [1] must be like the 'as well' in [2]? | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 3:39 | comment | added | linguisticturn | Yes, but how do we know in the first place that the 'as well' in [2] is "the same" as the 'as well' in [1] (i.e. that it is 'the same group with the smae meaning')? All we really know is that there is something different about the 'as well's in [1] and in 'Abstraction as well as impressionism were Russian inventions' (let's call this latter sentence [A]): after all, if they were the same, we'd need a plural verb in [1]. | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 0:49 | comment | added | deadrat | @linguisticturn is it legitimate to use [4] to analyze what is and what isn't a constituent of [3]? Yes, but I don't think this as anything to do with the fact that [4] is a rephrasing of [3]. If you're unsure of whether a group of words forms a coherent syntactic unit, you may look for guidance from any other sentence using that same group for the same meaning. | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 0:45 | comment | added | deadrat | @linguisticturn is [3] grammatical as written, without the commas? It depends on what you mean by "grammatical"? It uses syllepsis, which is commonly found to excuse technical violation of grammatical rules. | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 0:41 | comment | added | deadrat | @linguisticturn I should insert here the warning that I'm not a grammarian or a linguist. I only pretend to be on ELU, so forewarned is forearmed. I don't think [2] is closely syntactically related to [1], so I don't think [2] can help to syntactically analyze [1], except insofar as it [2] uses constituents in the same way as [1]. [2] uses its verbs differently, so it's not much help on the verb front. [2] has the same use for as well though. | |
| Apr 10, 2016 at 0:34 | comment | added | deadrat | @linguisticturn why is it legitimate to use [2] to analyze what is and what isn't a constituent of [1]? The claim is that as well as in [1] isn't a constituent, i.e., a coherent syntactic unit, and the evidence for this is that in [2] as well stands alone as a constituent. In fact, it has the same meaning in both [1] and [2], i.e. and additionally. | |
| Apr 9, 2016 at 23:38 | comment | added | linguisticturn | Let me try to make the question in my first comment at least a bit more specific---I know it's awfully broad at the moment: assuming [3] is grammatical, is it legitimate to use [4] to analyze what is and what isn't a constituent of [3]? Apparently, the sudden appearance of are does not make such analysis illegitimate. But what sorts of things would make it illegitimate? What is it that really matters? | |
| Apr 9, 2016 at 23:29 | comment | added | linguisticturn | Finally (for now): is [3] gramamtical as written, without the commas? | |
| Apr 9, 2016 at 23:27 | comment | added | linguisticturn | Also, how should one describe the relation between [1] and [2]? You say that 'syntactic equivalence' is too strong. But 'semantic equivalence' is too weak, because I can construct semantically equivalent sentences whose syntax is so different that they cannot be used to analyze one another syntactically. So [2] is not only semantically equivalent to [1]; it is also somehow closely syntactically related in just the right way. Is there a term for such a relation? | |
| Apr 9, 2016 at 23:27 | comment | added | linguisticturn | Thanks for the answer. I have several questions, but I'll start with this one: why is it legitimate to use [2] to analyze what is and what isn't a constituent of [1]? | |
| Apr 9, 2016 at 23:07 | history | answered | deadrat | CC BY-SA 3.0 |