Thank you for another interesting post. Regarding the case of 'her' in 'I considered her a friend', I've always found the argument that we should expect a nominative case pronoun here very odd! Isn't it the case that (1) accusative case is the unmarked case in English and (2) you can't have a nominative case pronoun without a tensed verb in English? Consider two sutdents, one of whom is pointing at her prof: A: 'She's my supervisor'. B: 'Who?' A: 'Her!' We can't have 'she' as A's reply there, because there's no tensed verb. But A could say 'SHE is', for example. So back to 'I consider her a friend', there's no tensed verb and so no possibility of a nomivative pronoun as Subject (assuming it is a Subject)
In sentences like "Henderson was born poor," I think I'm clear on "poor" being a subject-related predicative complement modifying "Henderson," but how would you describe "was born"?
Is "was born" acting as a copular/linking verb, meaning that "poor" is a subject complement?
Or is it impossible for forms of "born" to act as linking verbs, meaning that “poor” is (I am guessing here) a resultative complement, which I believe are rare in English but not so in Mandarin?
I can’t quite figure the best way to describe the nature of the verb and don’t know much about resultative complements.
Great question. 'Poor' in 'Henderson was born poor' is definitely a predicative unit. However, the sentence is actually passive, so I would not regard 'was born' as a linking verb.
The two main analyses we find in the literature are as follows:
Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 262-3) would call 'poor' an 'optional depictive predicative adjunct', but say that 'they are of course more like the complements, especially in cases where they occur very frequently with a particular verb, as with ... 'bear' in the passive 'He was born rich', and so on'.
Another analysis, which can be found in e.g. Chomskyan grammar, is to say that 'poor' is a predicative unit in a verbless clause: 'Henderson was born [PRO poor]' where the element 'PRO' stands for an unexpressed abstract pronominal element, and the clause [PRO poor] functions as Adjunct.
Thank you for this. I am not learned enough to understand every detail in your explanation with perfect clarity, but you have made me understand things far, far better than I did.
I think I process the sentence on an everyday basis in a way better described with Chomskyan grammar (verbless), but Huddleston and Pullum, and you in explaining the passive, disentangle the sentence in a way that reveals the meaning "Henderson was endowed by means of his birth with the state of being poor," which is how I process the sentence when I think about it a little more. I very much appreciate your response.
Another peiece of evidence for 'her' being Direct Object of 'consider' and not Subject of a small clause here relates to reflexive pronouns. A reflexive pronoun is normally required when an NP occurs lower down in the structure from another coreferential NP: 'Bob rates himself'. However, if that second NP is sequestered in an emedded subordinate clause no reflexive pronoun is needed. In the following sentence 'Bob' and 'he' can refer to the same person: 'Bob thinks he is the best'. And 'Bob' and 'him' can corefer here too: 'Bob arranged for him to be at the top of the list'. However, if we adjust the NPs in 'I consider her a friend' we observe that a reflexive is required: 'Beth consider her an expert' <-- 'Beth and 'her' cannot corefer there. Of coure, 'Beth considers herself an expert' is fine. So this suggets that 'her an expert' is not a subordinate clause. Unfortunately the evidence is not entirely neat and clean. It is possible to find the odd counter-example such as 'I consier me an expert', which can be found online a few times. But 'We conside us experts' is surely ungrammatical in standard Englishes!
Yes, you're quite right, reflexives are important. Indeed, as you no doubt know, they played a big role in the early 1970s, when Paul Postal in his book On Raising (1974, MIT Press) proposed a rule of Subject-Raising-to-Object. He argued that reflexive pronouns need to be in the same clause as the noun they are coreferential with ('clause mates'). At Deep Structure the reflexive was in the subordinate clause, and then 'raised' to the Object position in the higher clause.
I know of On Raising and some of the arguments for and against, but didn't know about the reflexives. Thanks (and I really should get round to reading it).
God this is hard!
Thank you for another interesting post. Regarding the case of 'her' in 'I considered her a friend', I've always found the argument that we should expect a nominative case pronoun here very odd! Isn't it the case that (1) accusative case is the unmarked case in English and (2) you can't have a nominative case pronoun without a tensed verb in English? Consider two sutdents, one of whom is pointing at her prof: A: 'She's my supervisor'. B: 'Who?' A: 'Her!' We can't have 'she' as A's reply there, because there's no tensed verb. But A could say 'SHE is', for example. So back to 'I consider her a friend', there's no tensed verb and so no possibility of a nomivative pronoun as Subject (assuming it is a Subject)
In sentences like "Henderson was born poor," I think I'm clear on "poor" being a subject-related predicative complement modifying "Henderson," but how would you describe "was born"?
Is "was born" acting as a copular/linking verb, meaning that "poor" is a subject complement?
Or is it impossible for forms of "born" to act as linking verbs, meaning that “poor” is (I am guessing here) a resultative complement, which I believe are rare in English but not so in Mandarin?
I can’t quite figure the best way to describe the nature of the verb and don’t know much about resultative complements.
Great question. 'Poor' in 'Henderson was born poor' is definitely a predicative unit. However, the sentence is actually passive, so I would not regard 'was born' as a linking verb.
The two main analyses we find in the literature are as follows:
Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 262-3) would call 'poor' an 'optional depictive predicative adjunct', but say that 'they are of course more like the complements, especially in cases where they occur very frequently with a particular verb, as with ... 'bear' in the passive 'He was born rich', and so on'.
Another analysis, which can be found in e.g. Chomskyan grammar, is to say that 'poor' is a predicative unit in a verbless clause: 'Henderson was born [PRO poor]' where the element 'PRO' stands for an unexpressed abstract pronominal element, and the clause [PRO poor] functions as Adjunct.
Take your pick!
Thank you for this. I am not learned enough to understand every detail in your explanation with perfect clarity, but you have made me understand things far, far better than I did.
I think I process the sentence on an everyday basis in a way better described with Chomskyan grammar (verbless), but Huddleston and Pullum, and you in explaining the passive, disentangle the sentence in a way that reveals the meaning "Henderson was endowed by means of his birth with the state of being poor," which is how I process the sentence when I think about it a little more. I very much appreciate your response.
Another peiece of evidence for 'her' being Direct Object of 'consider' and not Subject of a small clause here relates to reflexive pronouns. A reflexive pronoun is normally required when an NP occurs lower down in the structure from another coreferential NP: 'Bob rates himself'. However, if that second NP is sequestered in an emedded subordinate clause no reflexive pronoun is needed. In the following sentence 'Bob' and 'he' can refer to the same person: 'Bob thinks he is the best'. And 'Bob' and 'him' can corefer here too: 'Bob arranged for him to be at the top of the list'. However, if we adjust the NPs in 'I consider her a friend' we observe that a reflexive is required: 'Beth consider her an expert' <-- 'Beth and 'her' cannot corefer there. Of coure, 'Beth considers herself an expert' is fine. So this suggets that 'her an expert' is not a subordinate clause. Unfortunately the evidence is not entirely neat and clean. It is possible to find the odd counter-example such as 'I consier me an expert', which can be found online a few times. But 'We conside us experts' is surely ungrammatical in standard Englishes!
Yes, you're quite right, reflexives are important. Indeed, as you no doubt know, they played a big role in the early 1970s, when Paul Postal in his book On Raising (1974, MIT Press) proposed a rule of Subject-Raising-to-Object. He argued that reflexive pronouns need to be in the same clause as the noun they are coreferential with ('clause mates'). At Deep Structure the reflexive was in the subordinate clause, and then 'raised' to the Object position in the higher clause.
I know of On Raising and some of the arguments for and against, but didn't know about the reflexives. Thanks (and I really should get round to reading it).