ing participle

[navi]

1-You have to talk to the man running that machine.
2-You have to talk to the man working behind that desk.

Would these sentences work if at the time when they are spoken "the
man" is not there "running that machine" or "working behind that
desk"?

In other words, could they be used instead of:
1a-You have to talk to the man WHO RUNS that machine.
2a-You have to talk to the man WHO WORKS behind that desk.

Obviously, in "1a" and "2a", the man in question might be at home
asleep when the sentences are uttered.

[John Lawler]

Yes. Both.

These are generic clauses, like "Bill drives to work" or "That dog
bites".
In this case, the NP "the man" with its relative clauses

> the man WHO RUNS that machine

> the man WHO WORKS behind that desk

can be reduced to participial clauses

the man running that machine
the man who works behind that desk.

with the same meaning and function.

Participial clauses with -ing do not necessarily (or even
often, depending on the construction) use the common
"progressive" sense of -ing. It's just another thing we can
do with verbs in English.

-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler
Happy Hogswatch All and May Gods Bless Us, Every One.
(Atheists may request the vegetarian alternative.)

[Marius Hancu]

> 1-You have to talk to the man running that machine.
> 2-You have to talk to the man working behind that desk.
>
> Would these sentences work if at the time when they are spoken "the
> man" is not there "running that machine" or "working behind that
> desk"?

The ing-forms are atemporal, which helps to have an "yes" answer.

With the same lack of constraint/linkage, one may say:

You'll have to talk to the man running that machine. [future time
You had to talk to the man running that machine. [past time
You'd have to talk to the man running that machine. [past/future time

For stricter temporal pointing, one should say, inserting adverbials,
eg:

You have to talk _now_ to the man running that machine.
or:
You have to talk to the man running that machine _now_.

Marius Hancu

[Eric Walker]

I am surprised by the answers that say, in essence, Yes, they could be so
used.

I take them to be elliptical for:

1a-You have to talk to the man [who is] running that machine.
2a-You have to talk to the man [who is] working behind that desk.

That puts them in the progressive aspect, which signifies something as in
process, going on at the moment. "John is running the machine" means
that as of the moment of speech, John is engaged in the act; otherwise,
we would say "John runs the machine," signifying that his act is usual or
customary.

Indeed, that is one of the fruits of the evolved distinction between the
terminate and progressive aspects: that the terminate can now be used to
mark something as usual or customary. (As in "John runs that machine.")

--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2011-11-08 08:17:48 +0100, Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> said:

> On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:58:18 -0800, navi wrote:
>
>> 1-You have to talk to the man running that machine.
>> 2-You have to talk to the man working behind that desk.
>>
>> Would these sentences work if at the time when they are spoken "the man"
>> is not there "running that machine" or "working behind that desk"?
>>
>> In other words, could they be used instead of: 1a-You have to talk to
>> the man WHO RUNS that machine. 2a-You have to talk to the man WHO WORKS
>> behind that desk.
>>
>> Obviously, in "1a" and "2a", the man in question might be at home asleep
>> when the sentences are uttered.
>
> I am surprised by the answers that say, in essence, Yes, they could be so
> used.

Me too. I hesitate to disagree with John Lawler, who knows much more
about this sort of thing than I do, but I would understand these
sentences the same way as you.


--
athel

[Glenn Knickerbocker]

On 11/08/2011 02:17 AM, Eric Walker wrote:
> I take them to be elliptical for:
>
> 1a-You have to talk to the man [who is] running that machine.
> 2a-You have to talk to the man [who is] working behind that desk.
>
> That puts them in the progressive aspect, which signifies something as in
> process, going on at the moment.

But that moment isn't the moment of utterance. It's the moment of the
action in the main clause. Consider:

If you want a machine stopped,
you have to talk to the man running that machine.

It doesn't matter who is or isn't there right now. What matters is who
is running the machine when you want it stopped.

You'd use the simple form for someone who does the action habitually:

If you want to know why a machine didn't log any activity,
you have to talk to the man who runs that machine.

In that case, it doesn't matter whether he's running it now, whether he
was running it when it was idle, whether he's running it when you want
to know why, or whether he's running it when you finally talk to him.
He's the one that normally runs it.

¬R

[John Lawler]

That is indeed always a possible interpretation here.
But not the only one. Otherwise we wouldn't see
and hear and respond to questions like the following:

Who's running that liquor store
out by the freeway these days?

which speaks to a succession of generic "runners",
none of whom have to be behind the counter at the time
the question is asked for it to be interpreted correctly,
and answered correctly. It's got some "current"
running through it, but it's not nearly as simple as
"what's going on right this instant".

As I said, the -ing suffix features in a number of constructions
in English, and it is not always safe to intrepret it as a
progressive,
even though it's often possible to do so.

-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/dissertation
English grammar is not taught in primary or secondary
schools in the United States. Sometimes some mythology
is taught under that rubric, but luckily it's usually ignored,
except by the credulous.

[Marius Hancu]

IMO, this example demonstrates what I said up thread:
adverbials are necessary to clarify the aspect:
"these days" indicates the regular/habitual.

> which speaks to a succession of generic "runners",
> none of whom have to be behind the counter at the time
> the question is asked for it to be interpreted correctly,
> and answered correctly. It's got some "current"
> running through it, but it's not nearly as simple as
> "what's going on right this instant".
>
> As I said, the -ing suffix features in a number of constructions
> in English, and it is not always safe to intrepret it as a
> progressive,
> even though it's often possible to do so.

Marius Hancu

[Marius Hancu]

On Nov 8, 2:17 am, Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:58:18 -0800, navi wrote:
> > 1-You have to talk to the man running that machine.
> > 2-You have to talk to the man working behind that desk.
>
> > Would these sentences work if at the time when they are spoken "the man"
> > is not there "running that machine" or "working behind that desk"?
>
> > In other words, could they be used instead of: 1a-You have to talk to
> > the man WHO RUNS that machine. 2a-You have to talk to the man WHO WORKS
> > behind that desk.
>
> > Obviously, in "1a" and "2a", the man in question might be at home asleep
> > when the sentences are uttered.
>
> I am surprised by the answers that say, in essence, Yes, they could be so
> used.
>
> I take them to be elliptical for:
>
> 1a-You have to talk to the man [who is] running that machine.
> 2a-You have to talk to the man [who is] working behind that desk.

Interesting.

FWIW, I take the first as having at least two interpretations/
readings:

You have to talk to the man [who _does/performs_ the running of] that
machine.
[the habitual]

You have to talk to the man [who _is doing/performing_ the running of]
that machine.
[at the current current time, reflected in the continuous form of the
auxiliary "do"]

The advantages of these readings are that they are using the same
derived form for the main verb "to run," which is the action "the
running."

In fact, the point is about the man performing "the action of
running," either on a habitual basis, or instantaneously/at the
current time.

I would say that adverbials are necessary in order to separate the two
aspects.

> That puts them in the progressive aspect, which signifies something as in
> process, going on at the moment. "John is running the machine" means
> that as of the moment of speech, John is engaged in the act; otherwise,
> we would say "John runs the machine," signifying that his act is usual or
> customary.
>
> Indeed, that is one of the fruits of the evolved distinction between the
> terminate and progressive aspects: that the terminate can now be used to
> mark something as usual or customary. (As in "John runs that machine.")

Marius Hancu

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <412824c1-227d-48a2...@s32g2000prj.googlegroups.com>,

John Lawler <johnm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/dissertation
> English grammar is not taught in primary or secondary
> schools in the United States. Sometimes some mythology
> is taught under that rubric, but luckily it's usually ignored,
> except by the credulous.

It's not usually my practice to comment on .signatures, but this makes
me want to ask: what can we do about this? Is there some sort of
linguists' campaign organization advocating inclusion of sensible and
relevant (non-Thistlebottom) grammar instruction in state proficiency
standards at any level? If not, how can we start one? Otherwise,
where do I send my contribution?

I learned a great deal of obsolete grammar in middle school and later
in high school, which has helped me become a better self-editor, if
not a good writer. If you were making a modern grammar curriculum,
and it had to be teachable by fourth-quintile teachers to
fourth-quintile kids in the sixth grade, what would it look like? How
do you bootstrap what kids already know intuitively about how grammar
works?

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993