On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 10:11 PM Elliot Temple <
cu...@curi.us> wrote:
> On Feb 25, 2020, at 7:05 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <
petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 03:22:13PM -0800, Elliot Temple wrote:
>>> On Feb 25, 2020, at 3:17 PM, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum <
petrogradp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
http://fallibleideas.com/grammar (part 4):
>>>>> For these practice sentences, first mark clauses and phrases (using curly and angle brackets), then make a short outline, then write and answer a question for each word.
>>>>>
>>>>> John pet his dog and cat with vigor.
>>>> Note: According to Webster's 1913, [the past tense of "pet" is "petted"](
http://www.websters1913.com/words/Pet):
>>>>
>>>>> Pet, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Petted; p. pr. & vb. n. Petting.] To treat as a pet; to fondle; to indulge; as, she was petted and spoiled.
>>>> I'll analyze a version of the sentence with "pet" replaced by "petted": John petted his dog and cat with vigor.
>>>>
>>>> There's only one clause here, namely, the entire sentence. I've marked the clauses: {John petted <<his dog> and cat> <with vigor>.}
>>> What do you think of this alternative view of the phrase groupings: John petted <his <dog and cat>> <with vigor>.
>> I don't know. Your alternative links John's dog and cat more closely than mine does. Here are some thoughts:
>>
>> The original sentence has an implied word before "cat": "his". Including it yields: *John petted his dog and his cat with vigor.* I would mark that up similar to how I marked up the original: *John petted <<his dog> and <his cat>> <with vigor>*.
>>
>> On the other hand, a version of the sentence with "dog and cat" replaced with "furry friends" would be: *John petted his furry friends with vigor*. I would mark that up like your alternative: *John petted <his <furry friends>> <with vigor>.*
>>
>> What do you think?
> I think “his” applies to the group “dog and cat”. If you don’t view it that way, you *need* an implied word (another “his” before “cat”).
>
> I prefer interpretations that don’t require adding implied words, especially implied words that we know about because we need to add them to retain the same meaning as the version without the implied word.
Makes sense. Now that you've stated it, I share that preference.
I now think that my original way of marking up the sentence doesn't work. That becomes especially clear to me when I try to mark up a variant of the sentence like *John petted his dog, cat, frog, and mouse*, because then it would look something like *John petted <<<<his dog>, cat>, frog>, and mouse>*. Marking up the sentence that way doesn't preserve the structure of the original sentence. Your way does: *John petted his <dog, cat, frog, and mouse>*.
> ... consider (removing the modifier for simplicity):
I agree. Before, I thought adding implied words never changed the meaning of a sentence at all. But now I think it can, because grouping is part of what a sentence conveys, and adding implied words can affect the grouping.