Re: THEORY: Re : THEORY: Connolly: Interpreting ergative sentences

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:
> > I have no trouble with "the fabric tears". How is it ungrammatical?
> > "I caught my sleeve on a nail, and it tore".
>
> I have no problem with that either.  But, I think it's
> prescriptivistically incorrect.  I remember having a debate with my
> English teacher about a similar situation, "my pencil broke" - I said it
> made perfect sense, no problem, she said it made no sense, and that it
> should be "I broke my pencil".  I'd consider "my pencil broke" to be
> acceptable if it were accident, like "I sat on my pencil, and it
> broke".  "I broke my pencil" sounds deliberate, or at least snapping it
> in anger.
Boy, am I happy that my highschool teachers were all either
linguisticly trained or linguisticly minded!  That sounds like someone
trying to impose restrictions on the language that simply have never
existed, a la split infinitives.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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