Last modified 22 March 2011
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Total points: 100
1. For several days, the square had been full of crowds demanding an end to the rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
The most difficult of the 3 parses. 20 points. 2. The military establishment has long been the most powerful institution in the country.
The second most difficult. I gave it 18 points.
3. "You will shoot at us if you are given the order!"
Pretty straightforward. 15 points.
Part I total: 57
5 each, total 15 points.
1. Let me know that is true or not.
Possible fixes:
Let me know if that is true or not.
Let me know if it is true or not.
Let me know whether it is true or not.
2. I even saw there was a student brought a big and thick dictionary but kept by the exam invigilator and when the dictionary being returned to her, she felt embarrassed about it.
Possible fixes:
I even saw that a student (had) brought a big, thick dictionary, but
it was kept (or taken, or confiscated) by the exam invigilator, and
when the dictionary was returned to the student, she felt embarrassed
about it.
Last clause could be simplified: "she was embarrassed." But it is not ungrammatical.
3. I'm not sure whether everything supposed to be in such way in overseas universities because this is my first time having an exam out of my country.
Possible fixes:
I'm not sure whether everything is supposed to be like this in
overseas universities, because this is the first time I have had an
exam outside my country.
"this is my first time having an exam outside my country": this is grammatical, but in the U.S. probably the finite clause would be preferred, certainly in informal writing like this blog post. The gerund-participle clause may be a more British construction. But in the U.S. we use it in a more limited fashion: probably with action predicates rather than stative ones like with have.
"Is it/this your first time riding a motorcycle?"
This seems more natural to me than "Is this your first time having a sauna?".
12 questions, 12 points.
Passage:
These kids might as well be naked: they don't care who sees them, and they don't care what people think. They're in their own world, beyond the reach of adults. Which means that the adults in their lives have done something very wrong--and what adult wouldn't be threatened by that message?"Skins" is a remake of a British series, created by the father-son team of Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, which is now in its fifth season. (The title is British slang for cigarette rolling papers.) Unusually for such cases, the U.K. creative team is genuinely involved in the American remake and is using the same basic approach here as in England-- hiring mostly non-actors and employing teen-agers as writers and consultants. The original is set in the port city of Bristol; the American version takes place in an unnamed northern city and was filmed in Toronto. While Canada is not exactly what we think of as a foreign country, I did register the feeling that I was watching things happening elsewhere, outside the country I live in. Perhaps that's why, even though MTV touts the series as a frank look at teen-age life today, I had the over-all sense that the show was not entirely real. And, of course, it isn't--it's a scripted series. But if you've seen any of the British version, which is shown here on BBC America, the Stateside iteration feels a little soft around the edges. One tries to avoid overusing the word "gritty" in characterizing a certain kind of British show, but, even apart from subject matter, there is an unsparing quality to much British drama, and it requires viewers to tolerate a high level of discomfort. The American "Skins" doesn't really ask that of us.
Syntactic structures and categories to identify in above passage:
One example suffices; but I put in all the ones I saw in the passage.
1. a negative construction with an auxiliary.
they don't care who sees them
they don't care what people think
what adult wouldn't be threatened?
The American "Skins" doesn't really ask
The other negative constructions in the passage, with forms of be, are with copula be and not auxiliary uses of be.
2. a predicate complement that is an adjective.
naked - predicate complement of might (as well) be.
real - predicate complement of is
soft - predicate complement of feel
involved - predicate complement of is
set - predicate complement of is
The last two examples above are adjectives of the type: participial adjective. That means they are adjectives that are derived from a verb participle.
3. a long passive.
Long passives describe an action/process that the subject has undergone, and
the by phrase spells out the agent of that action.
What adult wouldn't be threatened by that message?
The following is what I term a 'truncated passive', a construction
having the form and function of a passive construction except that it
is missing the auxiliary verb:
created by the father-son team of...
This structure is not in a finite clause like full passive
constructions; it is functioning here not as a predicate or even
predicate complement, but as a modifier of the head noun remake.
It can count as a passive here, although it's a non-prototypical or non-canonical passive. It is truncated from a long passive, and still has the semantic characteristics of a long passive: the verb is processual, not stative, and the by phrase spells out the agent.
4. a noun with a clausal complement.
what we think of as a foreign country (head noun is
in bold)
feeling that I was watching things happening elsewhere
sense that the show was not entirely real
5. a predicate complement that is a noun phrase.
a remake of a British series - predicate complement of is.
British slang for cigarette rolling papers - predicate complement of is.
not exactly what we think of as a foreign country -
predicate complement of is (Head noun what is in bold;
it is of subtype: pronoun.)
a scripted series - complement of is, contracted in it's
6. an infinitival (clause) with a gerund-participle complement.
to avoid overusing
7. an existential construction.
there is an unsparing quality
8. an adjectival passive.
The past participle element here does not describe the end result of
an action, but just a state. (We might be able to infer a preceding
action, but it is not actually described by the BE + Participle. The
participle really just describes the state (including location, as in
this case) of the subject.
is genuinely involved
is set in the port city of Bristol
9. a compound noun functioning as a modifier.
cigarette rolling papers
We analyze cigarette rolling as a gerund-participle designating
a type of action. Then the whole compound means
'papers for cigarette rolling'.
Arguable example:
teen-age life
To analyze teen-age as a noun, we have to assume an abstract nominal concept teen-age, as in "they are in their teen-age" (the age of their teens). Seems a bit of a stretch. Only this abstract temporal noun would work as a noun I think: We would not refer to "a teen-age", or be able to pluralize it, etc.
The analysis most linguists would give is that teen-age is an adjective, although we don't have many compound adjectives ending in the word age. There is stone-age people, and, in Briish English, old-age pensioner. The original form of the modifier was teen-aged, with a past participle used as an adjective, like buck-toothed or long-nosed. The participle ending was dropped and English teachers used to correct it to teen-aged, but I think they gave up. I have seen teen-age more often than teen-aged in the last 10 years. Try googling both and see what you get.
NOTE:
This question turned out to be tricky, and I now realize that is
because I had certain assumptions, as a working professional linguist,
that you as students had no access to. I didn't take anything off for
other answers to this question than the above.
One assumption linguists generally share: a compound noun isn't the same thing as a noun-noun compound. A noun-noun compound is just a compound word composed of two nouns. Fireplace, fireside, fire fighter, fire hose, and fire station are all noun-noun compoounds. The result of putting together two nouns is generally a noun. But such nouns can sometimes be creatively turned into zero-derived verbs, as in I got fire-hosed with information.
A compound noun, on the other hand, is a NOUN composed of two root morphemes (with or without affixes added to these). So a compound noun will not only have the structure of a compound, but will also be of the syntactic category NOUN. A second assumption I had is that we should consider what the word usually is. Many words that are normally nouns in English occur before other words to modify these other words. For example, sister city. We could simply say that sister is a zero-derived adjective, going by its pre-nominal position and its modifier function, which is characteristic of prototypical adjectives. The problem with this analysis is that adjectives can often be reversed with one another: dry, dull hair or dull, dry hair. The "usually noun" modifiers can't be switched in position with adjectives: new sister city is possible, but never sister new city. Similar considerations hold for fire hose: heavy brown fire hose can't ever have its first element put into a different position before the head noun.
The question asked for a compound noun, specifically one that appeared in the passage as a modifier of another word. Cigarette-rolling is clearly a compound, and it is clearly a modifer, and thirdly, albeit perhaps not so clear, it is used as a noun in sentences like I don't want to do any cigarette-rolling, I'd rather just buy mine. Unfortunately, since almost all gerund-participle forms can be used as adjectives before nouns, we can also find an adjectival use: Cigarette-rolling teens. So I think that it IS possible to give an alternative analysis: cigarette-rolling papers is a possible case of a compound ADJECTIVE functioning as a modifier.
What of the alternatives? Given all the above considerations, teen-age doesn't qualify as a compound noun. It can certainly be analyzed as a noun-noun compound, to be a noun-noun compound (if you analyze teen as 'usually' a noun, as in 4 teens were arrested. I couldn't think of any adjective uses that were not also arguably noun-noun compounds like teen angel.
Likewise, father-son is another noun-noun compound, but here it
seems to me impossible to talk about father-son as a noun.
10. a past progressive construction.
was watching things happening
11. a short passive. Exactly like a long passive (see above) except
that the by-phrase is omitted.
was filmed in Toronto
is shown on BBC America
12. a preposition introducing a non-finite clause.
in characterizing a certain kind of British show
Note: I often refer to historical developments in talking about grammatical structures. You (obviously) don't need to refer to the history, just the present day usage, which unlike the history, is part of the speaker's knowledge of his or her language.
Arguments for ought as a quasi-modal.
20 points.
Modal verbs are, in terms of form or structure, verbs of the subtype 'auxiliaries'. As verbs, they function as predicators. They are followed by a bare infinitival clause whose head is a verb in what our texts calls a "plain form", or form that has no overt endings. (Traditional grammarians would say that the verb itself is an infinitive, or an infinitival form.)
Semantic properties of ought: Ought fits very well into the semantic field of modals, since it can be used to add deontic modality and sometimes epistemic modality to the semantics of its following verb.
For example, You ought to do that is very similar in meaning to deontic should in You should do that. Ought also has an epistemic use: They ought to be there by now is semantically similar to the epistemic use of should in They should be there by now, and the epistemic adverb probably in They are probably there by now.
A. Syntactic properties showing that ought is formally like a modal auxiliary, with examples:
1. Modals only occur in two-verb structures. They can't be the main verb in a single-verb clause. Ordinary verbs, which we call lexical verbs because they are part of the content-word lexicon rather than grammatical elements, can generally occur as predicators in clauses with a single verb (examples a. and b. below). Like the modals, ought does not occur in this simple, one-verb structure (example c.).
a. I like it.
b. I want that.
c. *I ought it.
Historical note: Historically the English modals were all lexical verbs, with full lexical meanings, that could appear in simple transitive clauses. Ought, for example, was a preterite form of owe. Now the modals are quite separate in form, syntactic behavior, syntactic function, and meaning from their cognate lexical verbs, most of which did not survive; only will and owe still exist as lexical verbs (as in I willed it to happen, I owed it to her). But we do not view will, would, or ought as forms of their etymologically related lexical verbs, since the meanings are quite different and the surviving main verbs are like all other lexical verbs. These modals/quasi-modals are now just different lexemes from their cognate lexical verbs.
So, the English modals only occur in two-verb structures like the following, and they specifically occur as the first verb.
a. He should leave now.
b. I might go swimming tomorrow.
c. It can be very dangerous.
A subset of lexical verbs, called complement-taking verbs, also occur as the first verb in two-verb structures in which only the first verb is finite, as seen in a. and b.
a. She likes to swim.
b. I want to go swimming tomorrow.
c. We need to eat more vegetables.
The second verb in all these cases is a plain form verb, a verb with no inflection possible (traditional grammar would say these forms are infinitives.)
Like the complement-taking lexical verbs, ought also introduces an infinitival complement clause containing a plain form verb:
a. He ought to leave.
b. I ought to write a chapter tomorrow.
So the modals and ought pattern like the infinitival complement-taking lexical verbs like want, in that they can introduce infinitival complement clauses. But they are different from the lexical verbs because they are limited to that structure. (The modal verbs became limited to two-verb structures in the last thousand years or so, since Old English times.)
Our textbook doesn't explicity discuss the fact that English modals don't occur by themselves (with no verbal complement) and are therefore different from lexical verbs. The authors do say that "the prototypical modals take a single complement with the form of a bare infinitival clause." Their purpose is to point out the preference of modals for bare infinitival clauses rather than to-infinitivals; but the sentence shows that the authors are implicitly thinking of the modals as always occurring in two-verb structures, and they don't seem to think about this in contrast to lexical verbs, all of which can occur in one-verb clauses.
2. Turning to the second verb in the two-verb structures, we can make this generalization: modals do not occur as the second verb in such structures. Lexical verbs in general can fit into the second verb slot in these constructions, by simply appearing in their plain form (keeping whatever arguments the verb normally has). The verbs like and want, for example, can appear in their plain form in an infinitival complement (a. below).
Contrast the lexical verbs and the modals in second-verb position in the sentences below. Lexical verbs, as in a., f, and i, are fine. But the modals are all ruled out in this position and function.
a. I really want to like her.
b. *I want to can/could/shall/should/may/might/must/would go.
c. *I don't like to must swim in the morning.
d. I don't like to have to swim every morning.
e. *I would like can write a whole bunch of novels.
f. I would like to be able to swim every morning.
g. *I would like to can refuse to leave.
h. I would like to be able to refuse to leave.
(Similar patterns hold for other lexical verbs in first position that pattern like want, need, wish, and desire.)
Having a modal as the second verb, regardless of the structure of the infinitival complement, simply doesn't work in Standard English and almost all other varieties of English.
Note: our textbook doesn't discuss this syntactic restriction on the English modals directly; it refers to it only as a consequence of the limitations on their morphology. See discussion under 3.
Ought once again patterns with the modals, as shown in a.-c.
a. *She wants to ought it.
b. *She wants ought it.
c. *He wanted them to ought to do it.
3. "Defective" inflection. Like the modal auxiliaries, ought lacks inflections in particular categories where lexical verbs have them.
First, the modals and ought have no 3rd person singular -s inflection, which all lexical verbs have in the present tense; contrast a. and b.
a. She likes it.
b. *She musts go.
Secondly, the modals and ought all lack forms that our textbook terms secondary forms: forms that lack tense and can't be a predicator in a canonical clause. These forms are the plain form (traditional grammar: infinitive form), the gerund-participle and the past participle, as shown in a-c.
a. They want to be able to come.
b. *They want to can come.
a. They want (us) to have to do it.
b. *They want (us) to must do it.
a. I went to see her.
b. *I went to can see her.
a. *They want (us) to can do it.
b. *She was musting (to) go. (to mean something like 'she was
being required to go', or 'she was having to go'.
c. I have musted to call her for a long time
Compare ought:
a. *They want to ought come
b. *I was oughting to go.
c. *I have oughted to call my elderly aunt for a long time.
(meaning 'I have
been or felt obligated to call my elderly aunt for a long time.')
d. I have wanted to do that for a long time.
e. *I have mighted/coulded/willed/woulded do that for a long time.
f. *I have oughted to do that for a long time.
I want to generalize over all these cases and say that modals and ought just don't have any inflectional forms at all--they always appear in the same form.
Our textbook doesn't want to draw this generalization for a couple of reasons. First, they treat could, would, should, and might as preterite forms of the modals can, will, shall, and may. This connection indeed is a historical fact: should comes from shall + PRET etc. Huddleston and Pullum grant that the present and preterite forms are rather different in usage. To me, they are so different that they are now different verbs, even though there are some cases where the modals ending in -d or -t do function as preterites of the others. The number of cases is few in my opinion. So, I don't think the old preterite forms should be considered modern preterites of the other verbs. If these pairs are different verbs, we can say that preterite inflection is missing too, as shown for ought and the modals below.
Trying to put a modern-day preterite ending on any of these verbs shows the contrast with lexical verbs like want, which do have a clear preterite inflectional form.
a. I wanted to go.
b. *I canned go.
c. *I mayed go.
d. *I mighted go.
e. *I oughted to go.
Another reason the textbook doesn't mention the lack of modals in the second position of two-verb structures (what I gave as property 2 above), is that they take this syntactic restriction as a simple consequence of not having secondary forms, particularly a distinct form for an infinitive and a gerund-participle.
English has a general rule that prohibits inflected forms from occurring in second position after an inflected verb (with or without to in between). We don't have serial inflected verbs, unlike some other languages:
a. *She likes swims. (where swim is a verb)
b. She likes to swim.
c. *She liked swam.
d. She liked to swim
Similarly with past and present participles: they never inflect in English. In constructions that require them, the tense inflection, if any, is in the first verb. (She is/was swimming; He has/had left; An earthquake would have destroyed it. The first verb is what changes its form for person, number and tense, not the verbs that follow. left).
The idea is that the reason we don't find modals in any verb position but the first in a series is simply because there are no forms of the modals that would be appropriate for the constructions that secondary forms occur in: specifically, infinitival complement clauses (*I want to can, *I want to have canned), progressive constructions (*I am musting, I have been musting), and constructions with past participles (*I have/had musted).
An analysis is generally preferred if, other things being equal, it allows you to state a generalization as broadly as possible, and let consequences follow from it without special case statements about them. So instead of stating a generalization that specifically restricts modals from occurring in other than first verbal position, we could let the generalization that there are no secondary forms it as the reason for the constraint.
However, I'm not sure if the restriction to first position in a two-verb structure is really a direct consequence of not having any non-finite forms. It seems to me modals could have lost their plain form, at least, without thereby ceasing to occur in the position --and function--of infinitival clauses. Sometimes distinct forms are lost but the construction they occur in hangs around. I leave the causal question open. (Feel free to tell me reasons one way or the other, if you see them.)
A final reason why our authors don't want to draw the generalization that modals do not have inflected forms is that they consider the negative contractions of modals like won't, can't, and wouldn't--and the form oughtn't which some varieties of English have-- to actually be negative inflections. This is a rather different (and more radical) analysis than most grammarians would accept, but there are some good reasons for it offered by Geoffrey Pullum and a co-author in a paper written in the 1980s. These reasons need not concern us here, but if valid it would create a problem or an exception for my generalization that modals don't have inflected forms. (I don't relate that generalization causally to the position of modals with respect to other verbs discussed earlier, at least for now.)
4. Auxiliaries, including modals, show subject-auxiliary inversion. Like the modal auxiliaries, ought can be inverted in questions in Standard English.
What ought I to do?
Although inversion with ought is not always possible in everyone's individual grammar, it is possible in Standard British English and formal written American English. The above example, which I pulled from the web, shows inverted ought in the title of a philosophy book, presumably written in formal style.
Chalier, Catherine. What Ought I to Do? Morality in Kant and Levinas translated by Jane Marie Todd, Cornell University Press, 2002, 208pp, $17.95 (pbk).
Many similar examples turn up in google searches of ought with the various pronouns. This inversion structure is (or was?) also possible with lexical nouns (Ought public servants...? but it is very difficult to find real examples.
Historical note. Traditionally, ought was regularlyl inverted in questions, and the the standard varieties preserve this structure. However, inversion with ought appears to be receding and is being replaced by its corresponding non-modal structure, see under B. below.
5. Negative placement: In negative statements, auxiliaries, including modals, have the negative immediately following them: Children do not/don't see...
Children should not/shouldn't see...
But the negative immediately follows the auxiliary in questions with contracted negatives:
Shouldn't I go? I should not go.
These patterns are found with Standard English ought:
You oughtn't (to) leave.
I ought not leave.
You ought not leave.
These difficulties ought not to be a problem.
Oughtn't I do that?
When negated, lexical verbs require the auxiliary do, as we can see with the verb like below, which occurs with do in the negative statement and negative question versions of an ordinary statement using that verb:
You like it.
You don't like it.
You do not like it.
Don't you like it?
Do you not like it?
Notice that the auxiliary do follows the same inversion and negative placement rules as ought in auxiliary use.
B. Syntactic properties showing that ought is like an ordinary lexical verb, with examples.
Despite the similarities described above between the modals and ought, there is at least one difference that all varieties of English share. A second potential difference is variable.
1. ought patterns with the lexical verbs as far as what form of infinitival clause follows, that is, one with or without to.
Ought usually requires to introducing its infinitival complement, as a google search will quickly show.
This chart ought to settle the immigration debate.
You ought to do it, you know.
The book title cited above also shows this.
Sometimes in questions and negative sentences, the to goes away. (This seems to be particularly in British varieties.)
Which of these machete/prybar tools ought I get? Greg Palast. September 11: What You "Ought Not to Know".
But to is there in many cases of questions and/or negative uses, as a search of ought I and ought with other pronouns will show.
Ought I to be able to start from a USB attached drive on this machine? Or perhaps my attempt to clone the operating system did not work ... (from an Apple discussion group message.)
2. Modals, and auxiliaries in general, allow the negative not to be contracted to them (wouldn't, shouldn't, etc.) These contractions, which appeared in written English in Shakespeare's day, and probably in spoken language somewhat earlier, now occur in all but very formal or archaic varieties. (The recent movie True Grit, set in the 19th century, has a character who never uses contractions.)
Lexical verbs don't contract with the negative (*known't, seesn't); instead they occur with a "supporting" auxiliary verb do (do not know, does not see), thus forming a complex negative construction. Do, like other auxiliaries, can contract with the negative, yielding don't know, doesn't see, etc.
If ought is an auxiliary it should follow this pattern. In our class, and probably outside it, Some speakers don't use or don't even recognize the existence of oughtn't. For such speakers, ought is less auxiliary-like than for those who have oughtn't as part of the grammatical system.
But many speakers report the possible use of ought not, whether or not oughtn't exists for these speakers, and the absence of do not ought or don't ought. Thus auxiliary-like negative placement occurs, even thought the contracted form is sometimes missing from people's usage (making ought even more defective than seen under 3. above.)
Is ought more like a modal auxiliary, or more like a lexical verb (one that can occur with a second verb)?
As shown above, the modals, ought, and some lexical verbs can occur in the first slot in a two-verb construction. The modals and ought cannot occur in the second slot. The modals and ought also share their 'defective' form: there is only one form. No 3rd person present ending, and no non-finite forms. And ought shares most of the syntax of auxiliaries (of which the modals, of course, are a subclass): subject-verb inversion in questions, and negative placement in declarative clauses and questions.
On the other side, ought takes the to-infinitival, unlike the modals and like the lexical verbs that can take complements. Further, some speakers lack the usual auxiliary contraction for ought, meaning it is a little less auxiliary-like--but not more lexical-like in this respect (since lexical verbs don't form contractions).
On balance, it seems like ought is a modal auxiliary with the peculiarity of often occurring with to before the infinitival, usually impossible with modal or other auxiliaries, and, variably, the further peculiarity for some speakers of lacking contracted forms.
As some of you noted, ought is not that common these days, particularly in speech. For expressing moral obligations in general, should is now the preferred verb. But ought and the following to appear to be coalescing into a single unit, pronounced and spelled oughta, to express some kind of deontic modality that seems to have a weaker force of obligation, that is, the speaker thinks the subject has some obligation to carry out the action in the second verb, but they wouldn't care that much if the subject doesn't do it.
a. You should do that.
b. You oughta do that.
In my judgment, should is better in contexts in which the speaker is urging the addressee to do something; but b. is best for cases in which the speaker is just expressing an opinion.
This emerging form oughta is a very peculiar sort of modal, or auxiliary in general, as it is used in declarative sentences only:
We oughta get out of here.
You really oughta say something.
%We oughta not do this. (% here means variable among
speakers)
*Oughta we get out of here?
*Oughta we not get out of here?
*Oughta I say something?
I am not sure how I'd analyze oughta. It is so restricted it is practically its own category of word. I think it has specialized to have the distinctive meaning above when occurring in the present tense, but ought the verb is falling out of use. Perhaps someday oughta will be understood as an adverb rather than a verb and start spreading into other adverbial contexts. This is just a conjecture, as I don't see any sign of such spread so far. But if this were to happen it would be parallel to what happened to maybe, originally a modal followed by plain form of be, and now a very general adverb with a wide syntactic range of occurrence, far beyond its original range.
© 2011 Suzanne Kemmer
Last modified 22 March 2011