Re: OT: THEORY Fusion Grammar

--- René Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...> wrote:

> On 7/15/06, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
> > Gary Shannon wrote:
> >
> > Or how about Dutch?
> >
<snip>

>
> Even more can go inside the "er .. mee" construct:
>
> Steek er  de niet-brandende fakkel  vandaag nog
> met beide handen
> Light it [the non-burning   torch] [today still]
> [with both  hands]
>
> binnenshuis mee aan  om        de deur te openen.
> indoors    with up  [in-order the door to open].
>
I really having trtouble understanding the function of
"er...mee" in this sentence. What, exactly, is the
"er...mee" telling us? It's not what the torch was lit
"with", so what is it?

>From the gloss it looks like the whole sentence could
do quite nicely without it:

Light it [the non-burning torch] [today still] [with
both hands] indoors up [in-order the door to open].

That being the case, perhaps "er...mee" is some
grammatical convention that is actually empty of
content, and could be simply dropped by the parse as
being merely "decorative"?? (Not proposing that this
is true, but just asking.)

--gary

<snip>
>
> René
>

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