Re: Disambiguation of arg ument reference
| From: | Josh Roth <fuscian@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, October 10, 2002, 2:11 |
|---|
In a message dated 10/9/02 9:53:59 PM, alwaysawake247@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
>> >sitting on?" (The parenthetical phrases are optional.) However,
>you
>> >can't
>> >say, *"I put the book (on the table)", or *"What are you putting on?"--if
>> >you
>> >said the latter, it could only refer to clothing (or music). So they
>> >are
>> >core arguments, even though it can vary (e.g., "on x", "over there",
>>"right
>> >here", etc.).
>>
>>Something doesn't seem right here. You can't say *"What are you putting
>>on?"
>>because you're leaving out an entire argument - the object placed. It
>is
>>perfectly all right to say "What are you putting the book on?" The place
>>argument, being core, cannot be dropped, but it can be questioned, dangling
>>preposition and all, just like any other argument.
>The reason you can't say *"What are you putting on?" is because a question
>asks for one specific datum, while you seem to be asking for two. You would
>either ask, "On what are you putting the book?" asking for the table, or
>"What are you putting on the table?" asking for the book. You cannot ask
>for
>both. That would sound something like *"What are you putting on the what?"
>invalid for obvious reasons.
>
>Jake
Multiple items can be questioned in one sentence ... imagine someone's being
told what 5 different people are reading, and gets confused - they may then
ask "Ok, who's reading what?" If I see someone with a dozen hamburgers and
hot dogs, and ketchup and mustard, I may ask, "What are you putting on what?"
It's not the most common thing, but it is acceptable for me.
I still would say the original sentence *"What are you putting on" is not
wrong because there are two things being questioned at once. We don't
question things by leaving them out all together, without any qeustion word,
so if there were two things being questioned, it would be "What are you
putting on what?" The problem would still be there if the original were made
into a declarative sentence: *"You are putting it on" or *"You are putting on
it" - a noun phrase is missing.
Josh Roth
http://members.aol.com/fuscian/home.html
Reply