Re: Evolution of Applicatives

From:    John Cowan <cowan@...>
> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>
> > > > (2) a.  David was writing on Tuesday, but not Thursday.
> > > >     b.  **Tuesday was being written on.
> > >
> > > But 2b is perfectly perspicuous if Tuesday is the topic rather
> > > than the date,
> >
> > Whether something is "perspicuous" is rather beside the point; the
> > question is whether it is sensed to be grammatical.  And I'm
> > pretty sure I can't get your topic reading. :)
>
> Eh?  Are you confused by my use of "topic"?  I don't mean it in the
> linguistic sense, but rather as a synonym for "subject matter".
Ah, well, we *were* talking about linguistics on a rather formal
level, so I just assumed... but I still can't get any reading other
with Tuesday as the patient, and not as the day.  I'm pretty sure
that most English speakers will agree with me in this respect.

> IOW, I don't think 2b is ungrammatical at all, simply that it cannot
> accept the reading you are trying to assign to it, because "David was
> writing on X" is three-ways ambiguous (X is the date, X is the subject
> matter, X is the writing surface) whereas "X was written on" can only
> accept the reading in which X refers to the writing surface.
I think I realize where the confusion lies.  Your argument implicitly
assumes that there is a sense in which a surface string can be grammatical
separate from the mapping of syntactic structure to semantic.  You see,
there are many, many sentences about which linguists argue which might
be grammatical in one sense, but are ungrammatical in some other relevant
sense under discussion -- binding theoretic problems are a perfect example
of this.  The fact that one can come up with a grammatical reading of the
sentence is not thus sufficient to prove that a theory is right or wrong:
it has to be grammatical for the relevant reason.  Thus, the fact that
someone or something named 'Tuesday' might exist in the world does not
change the fact that the day of the week by that name cannot be passivized
for any reason from an adjunct.

> > Ah, but you'll remember that the problem with this famous sentence
> > (perhaps tied for second with "Tabs are being kept on Jane Fonda")
> > is not that there are differing contexts, but that "conjecture"
> > requires a phrasal complement, and "Ex-lax" is allowed only in the
> > marked case of elision, which has a different structure. Thus
> > (2b) is bad because the structure semantic mapping being imposed
> > onto it is bad.
>
> Yes, but just how is that s.s.m. being imposed?  Solely through the
> context of grammaticality-judgment examples.
I have to disagree... what you say here is tantamount to denying
formal structure any role in providing grammaticality judgements.
(I respect you, John, but you must admit that this is a rather
extreme functionalist position you're taking.)

> >   (1) a. Liberal activists gave the NEA money.
> >       b. The NEA was given money.
> >       c. *The money was given the NEA (where "the NEA" is still the
> >         recipient)
>
> But "to the NEA" is grammatical, which means that we do have a
> passivization of the patient, simply with different constraints on
> what happens to the goal.
Again, this isn't relevant. *"The NEA was given money to by
liberal activists" is grossly ungrammatical, and that's the analogous
structure you're invoking.  Again, I repeat, we must agree to discuss
*relevant* grammatical examples.  One cannot just say anything.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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