Tópicos de Semântica – Noturno – Prof.ª Dr.ª Elizabeth Harkot 2018.

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Douglas Mattos Moraes – nº 8977807
Final exam – KREIDLER’s chapter 8, “Sentences as arguments”. In: Introducing English
Semantics.

Summary
The author begins the chapter relating its content to some previous – arguments of
predicates. He states that they can be expressed as a clause, “that is, a sentence that is
embedded in another sentence” (p. 156), and its form depends on the verb or adjective
(the predicate) that it accompanies. That said, he gives us some examples of what kind of
information they can express: knowledge/ignorance, attitude toward a fact,
causing/allowing/preventing an event, perception, saying something about a (possible) fact
and the beginning/continuing/termination of an event.
The first kind of clause he approaches are those composed by a full statement. In
this case the theme of the predicate is a sentence, and it can have a subject pronoun as
the subject and have its verb modified to any aspect. It can also accompany adjectives
such as aware-of/disappointed-in/sorry-for/etc., but they drop out their preposition. For
example:
I said (that) my friend goes/went/is going/has been going/will go/etc. to college.
I am uncertain (that) my sister is going to come along.
Coming to reduced clauses, in second place, there are the question clauses, which
expresses a question – the sentence may be either interrogative or affirmative. If the
sentence requires an information, as in “I don’t know what day is today”, there are no
prepositions or conjunctions required to intermediate the main and the embedded clause.
But if it is a yes-no question, it must contain if, as in “I doubt if the strike is about to end”. If
the yes-no question has two or more alternatives, it is marked by the presence of whether,
as in “Gabriela wonders whether Eduardo will be angry about it (or not)”.
We then reach infinitive clauses. In this case, the verb in the clause may suffer
some modifications, but not all – as the distinction between present and past cannot be put
in terms of infinitive. Modal verbs are also not an option. It can either have an overt subject
(which, if replaced, is represented by objective pronoun). The subject may be tacit as well,
in which case we cannot substitute any pronoun for it. For example:
I don’t expect my brother/him to wake up early tomorrow.
My cats like (themselves) to sleep on the couch.
Some adjectives can also have an infinitive clause as complement. If the clause has
an overt subject, though, the adjective must be follow by the proposition for. E.g., I am
eager for the party to take place soon. In this case, there are also some exceptions: the
verbs have, let and help. When one of the first are the predicate, the clause infinitive verb
drops the preposition to (e.g., I had my children go to bed very early). If help is the
predicate, to is optional (e.g., They helped me (to) clean the house).
 The next type Kreidler presents us are the gerund clauses. Some verbs, as he
says, may have an infinitive clause without to or a gerund clause as object. Such verbs are
perceptual verbs, as see, hear, notice, feel, smell, etc. (e.g., The teacher heard the student
talk/talking about the exam). If the clause subject is tacit, it is the same of the predicate,
and only gerund can be used (e.g., Mary denied going out last Friday). Some adjectives
may take gerund clauses as complements, once there is a preposition between them, as
ashamed (e.g., I am ashamed of doing this, but it feels necessary).
The verb insist may be complemented with a non-factual clause. It can only have
two structures: predicate + object + infinitive verb without to; predicate + object + should +
infinitive verb (also without to, of course). It may go as in “The coach insisted that my sister
(should) run 10 miles every weekend”. It differs from a factual clause, in which case it would
be “The coach insisted that my sister runs 10 miles…”. In the first examples, he is asking
something of my sister, so it is not a fact (yet). In the second, he is stating making an
affirmation about her physical prowess. However, if the clause subject is other than
he/she/it, only should can tell the difference between a factual and non-factual clause.
The clause argument may also be composed by verbal nouns. Some of them, as
Kriedler explains, may have the same structure of the gerund (as win – [the] winning),
others may differ (as discover – discovering – the discovery). In both cases, though, the
verbal noun must have a genitive subject (e.g., The teacher liked our presentation [We
presented]) or be accompanied by the (e.g., The teacher liked the presentation [Someone
presented]).
Finished with the presentation of the clauses, the author briefly review them and
give two last topics of discussion: “Comparing types of clauses” and “Syntactic ambiguity”.
In the first he talks about verbs that can take both full and infinitive clauses, such as agree,
decide, expect, hope, and resolve. Their meaning, however, is changed by the clause:
I agreed to come back later/I agreed that I would come back later [expressing
commitment].
She agreed that her decision hasn’t been the best [expressing accordance about a
fact, common recognition].
Convince, on its turn, demands an infinitive clause to present an overt subject – after
all, one convinces another to take an action (to do something), or about a fact (e.g., The
boy convinced his grandpa that he wasn’t feeling well, so they didn’t go fishing). Remind
has equal syntax to convince, but it carries the same sense no matter what the clause is –
either infinitive or a full statement. Verbs as admit, confess, consider, deny, etc. can take
gerund and full clauses, but the later case differs: it can express a putative fact. Finally,
allow is a verb that can take both infinitive and gerund clauses, but the first case demands
the identification of who is (not) allowed, and the later applies to everyone.
To end the chapter, the author approaches the possibility of syntactically ambiguous
sentences, which may be caused by the coordinators and and or; a coordinate head with
one modifier; a head with a coordinate modifier; a head with an inner and an outer modifier;
a complement and modifier or two complements; and certain function words, including not.
Those are cases of surface ambiguity. Deep structure ambiguity encompasses
gerund+object or participle modifying a noun; adjective+infinitive tied to subject or to
complement; ellipsis in comparative constructions. Despite all that, he stresses that they
are quite uncommon to be perceived or significant in day-to-day contexts.
Review concerning English learning
When choosing the chapter I wanted to talk about in this exam, I first read their
names and content in the summary of the book. Chapter 9 was the one I decided for mostly
because clauses can be a tricky subject when learning English. I admit I was specifically
thinking of conditional clauses, which were not encompassed by the author however.
Despite that, I decided to stick to my decision.
Having read the preface and first chapter of the book, I believe Kreidler really
managed to be didactic and simple, so someone learning about semantics would not be
overwhelmed by theories, statements and lexicon. However, I am not sure – as it is not
his intention – chapter 8 could help someone learning English.
When learning a language, what one mostly needs are prescriptions: the language
works like this, you should do that, not that. Of course, that is not so extreme. Deeper
analysis can be very welcome. The problem is that what is proposed in chapter 8 is not
really explained. The author talks about how clauses work as arguments to a predicate,
bot not why. For instance:
The over and tacit object case in infinitive clauses. Why is that the rule? We do not
necessarily need to learn why in order to learn English, but if that is the case, the direct
proposition of the rule should suffice the learning purpose. Kreidler is not always careful to
state: we have these examples and possibilities, and that must be like this always. Or there
is this exception that has to be taken in count. Sometimes such information is there, some
it is not. His analysis is too immersed. It is assumed that writer and reader both know and
agree about the rule, and from that point of view, which I am calling immersed, the analysis
is carried out.
For an intermediary to advanced learner of English, it may be an interesting text and
even aid in the process of learning, mostly when it comes to some points as whether a
preposition or conjunction must be present or not. But if the learner is not really interested,
fond or even accustomed to linguistic studies of academic set, this may hinder more than
help the language acquisition. I believe so for parts that are too exemplified and little stated,
some that may be even confusing, as in:
“The subject of the gerund is the same as the subject of the main verb”, page 163,
Gerund clauses. In the same section, “Deborah gave advice/permission/encouragement/a
suggestion/a warning to someone about waiting” (p. 164) is not what I would call a very
good example or construction to illustrate what he meant at the part. The syntactic tree at
the end of the section helped me better understand his propositions – but I study linguistics
and I have a great notion of how syntactic trees work.
Ambiguous situations are quite interesting and maybe even funny to study, but they
do not really help (mainly if the reader is not really fluent in the language – although Kreidler
shows the possible interpretations with [ ], which is a great merit of his explanation). As the
author said himself, though, they are not that relevant to have in mind so we can avoid:
context usually clarifies the intended meaning.
A teacher may benefit from using this chapter to bear some points and rules in mind
when teaching English. An autodidact, mostly if an enthusiast of linguistics, may benefit
from it too. In other instances, though, I do not really think it could be much of a help.