rob@ptsfa.UUCP (06/11/85)
In article <568@hwcs.UUCP> greg@hwcs.UUCP (Greg Michaelson) writes: > >One might expect 'because' to be followed by a reason, as in: > > He ate the cake because he was hungry. > >However, its often used to imply a preceding 'I know that', as in: > > He ate the cake because my aunt told me => > I know he ate the cake because my aunt told me > This sort of thing happens in English a lot but we are often blind to it. For example, a t.v. newscaster may end his telecast by saying: Until tomorrow, this is Joe Newsman. If you wanted to make literal sense out of the two parts of the sentence, you need to make explicit what the "until" phrase modifies, e.g.: Signing off until tomorrow, this is Joe Newsman. This was an important issue several years ago in a certain sub-field (and theory) of linguistics known as "generative grammar." In a nutshell (no flames from other linguists out there), the generative grammarians believed that two sentences with the same meaning had the same implicit (they called it "underlying" or "deep") structure. In this way they would say that the two sentences: He ate the cake. I know he ate the cake. have the same underlying structure but only the first sentence underwent a "deletion transformation" that removed to unneeded "I know [that]". In fact, they claim all statements have an implicit (or explicit) "I know [that]". (When someone tells you something they are telling you something that they claim to know. So goes the generative grammarian's argument.) The generative grammarians used this to show how you could have sentences like He ate the cake because my aunt told me. that APPEAR to be nonsense when taken very literally. This sort of example was used by generative grammarians in the 70's as evidence for their constructs of "underlying structures" and "transformations" (e.g. the operation of deleting "I know") in their theory of language. -- Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, California ihnp4!ptsfa!rob {nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob
greg@hwcs.UUCP (Greg Michaelson) (06/13/85)
One might expect 'because' to be followed by a reason, as in: He ate the cake because he was hungry. However, its often used to imply a preceding 'I know that', as in: He ate the cake because my aunt told me => I know he ate the cake because my aunt told me In such cases, the implied causality on an explicit interpretation is bogus. Any ideas as to how this use originated?
michael@brueer.UUCP (Michael Fourman) (06/19/85)
In article <568@hwcs.UUCP> greg@hwcs.UUCP (Greg Michaelson) writes: > >One might expect 'because' to be followed by a reason, as in: > > He ate the cake because he was hungry. > >However, its often used to imply a preceding 'I know that', as in: > > He ate the cake because my aunt told me => > I know he ate the cake because my aunt told me > >In such cases, the implied causality on an explicit interpretation is bogus. > >Any ideas as to how this use originated? Don't know how it originated but over here its not a current usage. -It used to bug me a lot when I lived in the US (that's another phrase unused here). mike
greg@hwcs.UUCP (Greg Michaelson) (06/28/85)
> Don't know how it originated but over here its not a current usage. -It used > to bug me a lot when I lived in the US (that's another phrase unused here). > > mike I'm amused that 'over here' viewed from England doesn't include Scotland! Greg