Re: R: Re: Degreesofvolitioninactivelanguages(wasRe:Chevraqis: asketch)

Nik Taylor wrote:

> J Matthew Pearson wrote:
> > Perhaps what makes the sentence jarring to modern ears is that, because we
> > expect do-support, there's a temptation to interpret "what" as questioning
> > the subject of the sentence
>
> Partly, but, for me at least, it still sounds bizarre even if you add
> do-support, "What did you hear him say else".  That else just feels like
> it doesn't belong when it's there.
>
> > A classic example of a garden
> > path sentence is "The horse raced past the barn fell down".
>
> IS that grammatical?  I can't think of any situation where "raced past
> the barn" could be used as a relative phrase, at least in my dialect.
Why not?

  "We raced the horse past the barn"
  "The horse was raced past the barn"
  "The horse [raced past the barn] fell down"

If you don't like using "race" as a transitive verb, try "walk":

  "We walked the dog through the park"
  "The dog was walked through the park"
  "The dog [walked through the park] is friendly"

Matt.