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Post by Dave M on Jun 10, 2008 11:55:12 GMT
I agree with all of what you say, there, Sue ... but.
You're following a grammatical analysis, and what you say is true. However, we might recognise that when people speak, they do really mean the one thing, but use the words of another. If people say "it only cost me five dollars", they MEAN "it cost me only five dollars" - but the former is the normal way to express it.
If one of your students saw the phrase "Do you mind me smoking?" and asked what it meant - how would you reply? If you follow the "grammatical analysis" route, you'll have given the wrong answer!
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Post by Geoff on Jun 10, 2008 12:08:03 GMT
Vadim,
I hope your (or rather, goofy's) I enjoy you dancing vs I enjoy your dancing is not trying to justify However, there is an inevitable delay between you sending your email and it being uploaded and However, there is an inevitable delay between your sending your email and its being uploaded both being correct.
I do believe there will be times when either the possessive + gerund or object + participle construction of the 'same' sentence might be possible, but I have to wonder if I enjoy you/your dancing. is one of those occasions. Consider I enjoy you dancing and ask yourself, is it 'you' you enjoy? If it is, then 'you' is the object of the verb 'enjoy' and 'dancing' is a participle used as an adjective. However, I would suggest it's not 'you' that you enjoy, rather, I think it is 'watching you' that you enjoy, where 'watching' is understood. We might possibly say I enjoy you dancing, but I don't believe it's an example that, in any way, justifies However, there is an inevitable delay between you sending your email and it being uploaded, which is where the discussion started.
Sorry, Sue, if I've gone over some things you've just said, but I had trouble getting my argument clear in my head so it took me a bit longer than expected to post.
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Post by Geoff on Jun 10, 2008 12:12:04 GMT
If you follow the "grammatical analysis" route, you'll have given the wrong answer! Please explain, Dave.
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Post by Dave M on Jun 10, 2008 13:12:45 GMT
Hi, Geoff
My explanation:
Consider the situation where a foreign student comes across the phrase "Do you mind me smoking?" and asks Sue what it means.
Now, we all know that the answer is something like "would you object if I smoked?", but if Sue follows the route she has stated (and which I've called the "grammatical analysis" route), then she'll tell the student that the speaker meant something rather different from that.
Since Sue's answer is different from our recognised meaning, it's "wrong". If Sue's answer were the same as our recognised meaning, then there'd be no basis to Sue's argument that there IS a difference between the "you" and "your" versions!
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Post by Vadim on Jun 10, 2008 13:26:55 GMT
I think there has to be a distinction between the two, as in both my own, and goofy's comments. There is definitely a distinction in the spoken terms, as many people will joke -- I don't mind you smoking as long as he doesn't -- Now I know that this is between you and he but I use those just to highlight the point.
I'm now confusing myself, as the clear distinction that there once was in my head, is slowly evaporating, a long with my brain due to a lack of caffeine!
I still don't understand your explanation, Dave. sorry If I am being dim, but what will "Sue tell the student"?
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Post by Sue M-V on Jun 10, 2008 13:33:30 GMT
If one of your students saw the phrase "Do you mind me smoking?" and asked what it meant - how would you reply? If you follow the "grammatical analysis" route, you'll have given the wrong answer! In real life, if a student asked me that, I'd explain what I think the speaker intended, since my main object is to teach the student successful communication. If this was an advanced student, I might say that I wouldn't have asked the question myself in those terms, and give him the lesson (see above)! If it was a young student who asked, I would further explain that in my case, the question is entirely hypothetical, since I don't smoke, and I would hope that he didn't either! Then I would ask him to repeat my explanation back to me to check whether he'd misunderstood anything. If it was an advanced student, we might then have the discussion about appropriateness being more important than "correctness". Sue
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Post by Dave M on Jun 10, 2008 13:50:42 GMT
> "I might say that I wouldn't have asked the question myself in those terms, and give him the lesson (see above)! If it was a young student who asked, I would further explain that in my case, the question is entirely hypothetical, since I don't smoke, and I would hope that he didn't either!
Then I would ask him to repeat my explanation back to me to check whether he'd misunderstood anything. If it was an advanced student, we might then have the discussion about appropriateness being more important than "correctness"." <
Ah, now then: follow your "grammatical analysis" route, Sue, and you'll see that that ENTIRE response did not answer the asked question! The student did not ask to be taught the wider issues, but asked what the speaker meant. ;D
(As you show) sometimes, we really do need to use a wider interpretation than that given by the analysis of grammar.
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Post by goofy on Jun 10, 2008 13:54:26 GMT
Vadim, I hope your (or rather, goofy's) I enjoy you dancing vs I enjoy your dancing is not trying to justify However, there is an inevitable delay between you sending your email and it being uploaded and However, there is an inevitable delay between your sending your email and its being uploaded both being correct. I think both are fine. Geoff says that this is wrong However, there is an inevitable delay between you sending your email and it being uploaded but I don't see why. As others have said, the focus is different, but both versions are acceptable.
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Post by Dave on Jun 10, 2008 14:13:16 GMT
I don't smoke but have been known to fume!
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Post by Geoff on Jun 10, 2008 14:17:53 GMT
I think both are fine. Geoff says that this is wrong. In However, there is an inevitable delay between your sending your email and its being uploaded. the delay is between the sending of the e-mail and the e-mail's being uploaded. In However, there is an inevitable delay between you sending your email and it being uploaded. the delay is between you and it, a bit of a nonsense, really.
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Post by goofy on Jun 10, 2008 14:19:46 GMT
If it's nonsense, why can I understand it? It seems to me that the delay is between you sending and it being uploaded. In other words the arguments of between are two clauses.
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Post by Dave M on Jun 10, 2008 14:26:04 GMT
I'm with you on that, goofy, but I think it was recently (Paul who?) untangled why we accept the meaning of that: it's ellipsis.
We understand the sentence to be about the delay between (the act carried out by) you (in) sending and (the action suffered by) it (in) being uploaded.
If we accept that the ellipsis "just happens", then we're OK to use the "you" version, I reckon!
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Post by Geoff on Jun 10, 2008 14:33:13 GMT
If it's nonsense, why can I understand it? It seems to me that the delay is between you sending and it being uploaded. In other words the arguments of between are two clauses. I recall my arguing your case at quite some length on the APS Forum. Throughout the discussion I always felt I was skating on thin ice. Here I'm taking the opposite stance and don't know that I will be able to convince you that I think you are grammatically wrong. Best if we agree that we have reached a stalemate, just as happened with the discussion on the APS.
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Post by Geoff on Jun 10, 2008 14:35:33 GMT
Dave, I should have re-read Sue's post. Your comment was quite clear when I did.
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Post by goofy on Jun 10, 2008 14:40:50 GMT
I don't see why we need to invoke ellipsis, tho. Usually ellipsis occurs when we omit something that would have been repeated, for instance in this contrived example I like cake, and she chocolates. Here like is elided. If we start arguing that words that would not have been repeated have been elided, it seems like we could prove anything.
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