Help parsing expressions of this pattern
Gnarlodious
english, handling expressions of this form:
skipping of the close
longing of the short
breaking of the ties
Is it a known linguistic or poetic device? What form is it? Can it be
considered a hendiadys?
The expression can start with any verb ending with "-ing", Is
"speaking" in this case a gerund? Infinitive? It always seems to be a
present-tense ongoing activity.
Ant insight is appreciated.
-- Gnarlie
http://Gnarlodious.com/Gnarlodious
Eric Walker
> Sorry I am a programmer not a grammarian. Writing a program to parse
> english, handling expressions of this form:
>
> skipping of the close
> longing of the short
> breaking of the ties
>
> Is it a known linguistic or poetic device? What form is it? Can it be
> considered a hendiadys?
>
> The expression can start with any verb ending with "-ing", Is "speaking"
> in this case a gerund? Infinitive? It always seems to be a present-tense
> ongoing activity.
It's unclear what you want to know. The -ing forms are gerunds, which
pretty much act as nouns, and the "of" phrase are prepositional phrase
acting as adjectives to modify the gerund/noun. It is a quite common
form in ordinary English: the running of the race, and on and on, as your
examples show.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Odysseus
<f8829fae-5ac4-4cba...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
Gnarlodious <gnarl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry I am a programmer not a grammarian. Writing a program to parse
> english, handling expressions of this form:
>
> skipping of the close
> longing of the short
> breaking of the ties
>
> Is it a known linguistic or poetic device? What form is it? Can it be
> considered a hendiadys?
I'm not sure what the first two examples mean: context would be
required. The last is more or less equivalent to -- or a paraphrasing of
-- a possessive, "the ties' breaking"; the others could probably be
interpreted the same way.
I believe hendiadys uses a conjunction, as in "The ties were good and
broken," meaning well (i.e. completely) broken, likely beyond repair.
--
Odysseus
Don Phillipson
news:f8829fae-5ac4-4cba...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> Sorry I am a programmer not a grammarian. Writing a program to parse
> english, handling expressions of this form:
>
> skipping of the close
> longing of the short
> breaking of the ties
>
> Is it a known linguistic or poetic device? What form is it? Can it be
> considered a hendiadys?
>
> The expression can start with any verb ending with "-ing", Is
> "speaking" in this case a gerund? Infinitive? It always seems to be a
> present-tense ongoing activity.
>
Your problem is that parsing concerns only grammar. Figures
of speech are not topics of grammar but of syntax, which is
(mostly) a different species of analysis.
Secondly, all these rules of English are generalizations (with
reasons, many copied from Latin or other languages) from sentences
that really got said or used. Thus it is impossible to specify a rule
that tells us by itself whether "speaking" is a gerund or not: this can
come only from its function (as a noun) in a grammatical sentence.
Speaking for myself, you see the problem.
Your generalization that something "always seems to be a
present-tense ongoing activity" may indeed be factually true
of the selection of prose you are processing. But this is not
a concept of grammar (or syntax, or symbolic logic) so you
may find it impossible to develop this true character into an
analytical rule.
Would it help us to know the purpose of this linguistic program?
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa Canada)
Gnarlodious
> Would it help us to know the purpose of this linguistic program?
Probably not. I am trying to linguistically analyze my dreams to
systemize the neurology of image generation. You can view a dream from
this morning at:
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.dreams/browse_thread/thread/
07e737cb985ffdeb#>
As you can imagine, this is proving to be a dreadfully opaque process.
One clue I am getting however, is a recurrence of the form [verb]ing
of the [pseudo]noun. The [verb]ing part can be either a "present
progressive tense" or an object with an specific action. In the dream
I mention, good example:
"Grabbing a large stuffed lounge chair ..."
"Grabbing" in this case is an action I am doing, but could just as
well be an object specifically for grabbing (like a handle). In that
case, the word "grabment" would be more accurate (but somewhat
archaic). I constantly resort to forms like:
"winding" (can either be the activity of winding through space or the
winding of an object "a winding")
So is there a syntactical label to describe a verb used (or abused) in
this way? Any suggesting how to tackle such ambiguous language?
-- Gnarlie