Re: Terminology

At 9:38 am +0100 23/11/98, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>At 20:53 22/11/98 -0800, you wrote:
[.....]
>>What I'm wondering is whether there's a name for this entire *type* of
>>construction.
>>
>
>        In French, we call them "propositions subordonn=E9es compl=E9tives"
>('completive subclauses'?) but I don't know if it's a linguistic term or
>only a grammarian term.
=2E.. then at 9:45 am +0100 23/11/98, Christophe also wrote in reply to my:
"It's a 'noun clause' (or 'nominal clause').  Here it is the direct object o=
f
'thelo'.  Such clauses can also be used as subject of a sentence, e.g....."
>
>        So I didn't have the right name. Yours is more logical, and more
>'linguistic-like'. 'Completive' must be a grammarian term.
=2E.. and at 11:57 am +0000 24/11/98, Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:
=2E...
>My French grammar calls them 'proposition subordonnie' and 'proposition
>subordonnie infinitive'.
I guess it's not so much 'linguistic-like' versus grammarian, as partly
different national traditions that, e.g. means that I would call sounds
such as /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/ "plosives" while I suspect Christophe
& Mathias are more likely to call them "occlusives".  (If I've been reading
a lot of phonological stuff in French, then "occlusive" is likely to come
across into my English until "plosive" re-establishes itself  :-)

'Subordinate' the clauses certainly are.  Indeed, I'd call them
'subordinate noun clauses' in full.  I guess from both Christophe & Mathias
that French is here using "proposition" to mean what I know as a 'noun
clause'.  In English 'proposition' is now confined mostly to the realms of
logic (and hookers).

The third word in the French - 'completive' & 'infinitive' respectively are
clearly adjectives defining their function.  "Completive" is in my
experience not a very common adj. in English & 'infinitival' is, I think,
more likely as the adjective.  But certainly the tradition I have been used
to labels the function of noun clause according to their relation with
sentence (or clause) they are subordinate to, thus, 'subject', 'object',
'governed by preposition' etc.

[snip]
>>In Greek such clauses may even be preceeded by the definite article, as
>>nouns are and as the infinitive often was in ancient Greek, and the clause
>>may then be governed by a preposition, e.g.
>>
>>einai kourasmenos ap to min koimatai   ['min' =3D mu eta nu]
>>He is tired from not sleeping.
>>
>
>        Very interesting! A little bit like my Azak where noun clauses use
>verbs with suffixes that are the same as case endings (even the ergative
>when the noun clause is the subject of a transitive verb).
Indeed, it seems to me very much the same idea as Azak  :)

Ray.