[Gllug] LinuxDoc / DocBook Documentation Writting

[John G Walker]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:56:23 +0100 Dylan <dylan at dylan.me.uk> wrote:

> On Thursday 14 September 2006 14:13, John G Walker wrote:
> > On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:47:00 +0100 Tom Schutzer-Weissmann
> >
> > <trmsw at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > > "I'm going to London and talk on global warming."
> > >
> > > No passing resemblance to the imperative "go and do something",
> > > or the entirely normal "I'm going to London to talk on global
> > > warming" is going to hide the fact that this is nonsense.
> >
> > It's meaningful to me. Possibly the difference between us is how we
> > imagine the context.
> 
> I don't usually wade in to this sort of language discussion - being a 
> theoretical linguist they tend to bore me because usually everyone is
> right. In this case, however, Tom is right and John is wrong.
> Although it is possible to extrapolate the intended meaning from the
> sentence, said sentence is ungrammatical. In co-ordinated structures,
> the two 'co-ordinands' must match syntactically and semantically in
> various ways. In the example, there are four possible co-ordinate
> structures:
> 
> 1 - I ['m going to London] and [talk on global warming]
> 2 - I'm [going to London] and [talk on global warming]
> 3 - I'm going [to London] and [talk on global warming]
> 4 - I'm going to [London] and [talk on global warming]
> 
> In 1, the co-ordinands are semantically incompatible - one is an
> action currently occurring or soon to be initiated; the other is a
> habitual activity. In 2 the aspectual auxiliary (BE) cannot co-occur
> with 'bare infinitive' TALK. Similarly, in 3, the modal
> auxiliary /going/ cannot co-occur with a bare infinitive. In 4, the
> first co-ordinand requiteres TO to function as a preposition, whereas
> the second requires it to be the 'infinitive particle'.
> 
> This construction has absolutely nothing to do with GO and <VERB>,
> which is actually not even a case of co-ordination.
> 
> Dylan

This is an extremely prescriptive view of grammar. I prefer a
descriptive approach, based on the usages of native speakers of the
language in question (which in this case is English, but the arguments
can apply to any language).

If you take a prescriptive approach to grammar then it is, of course,
possible to handle its construction using software. All you do is
prescribe the appropriate grammar.

How people speak is, on the other hand, somewhat more anarchic, and is,
at present, less amenable to hundred percent parsing on your PC,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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