[net.nlang] structured nonsense

lew (12/21/82)

We can parse the ungrammatical phrase "One its legs are both the same."
(given as the answer to "What's the difference between a duck?") into two
overlapping phrases: "One of its legs ... " and " ... its legs are both
the same." , each of which is grammatical.

This corresponds to the "impossible triangle" which is drawn so that
any two of its vertices have a consistent perspective interpretation,
but all three together do not.

A more elaborate verbal version of this principle is in Alice in Wonderland.

"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to
others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what
you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."

This parses into the overlapping sentences:

"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to
others that [you are.] "

"It might appear to others that what you were or might
have been was not otherwise than what you had been."

"What you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."

Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew

leichter (12/23/82)

There is an interesting construction in Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat"
that is related to the overlapping sentences Lew Mammel mentions.  One
line reads:

	"She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
	 Like a watercolor in the rain..."

The word "running" appears to be part of two half-sentences with different
meanings ("running down the street" and "running colors in the wash") with
two different subjects ("she" and "silk dress").  It always struck me as a
particularly effective image because of the double meaning.

Question:  Are there any other examples of this odd construction?  (I
mean in well-known literature, etc.)  I can't think of any, but I haven't
looked too hard.  Given the penchant of descriptive grammarians to come
up with names for EVERYTHING:  Do they have a name for this?

(The closest grammatical catagories that I know of are the syllepsis
[sp?] and zeugma.  (Don't ask why I know these words...)  Both apply
to the use of a word in two different senses at the same time; the
classic example is:  "She left in a huff and a mink coat"  I've never
been able to determine for certain what the difference between to two
is; I THINK a syllepsis is a zeugma in which one of the two uses is
incorrect grammatically.  The use of "running" above is certainly a
zeugma, but describing it as just that seems to miss something of what
is going on in that odd sentence...
							-- Jerry
						decvax!yale-comix!leichter
							leichter@yale

dwl (12/26/82)

A recently-published song contains an English Language version of
the famous assignment-expression from some programming language:
	a = b = c;
is the syntactic model for the first sentence of "Triangle" by
Gordon Lightfoot, on the "Shadows" album.

	Oh the gist of it all is
	The first day of Fall is
	The day when my ship will set sail.
	
-Dave Levenson
-BTL Holmdel