Re: It is + adjective + gerund

Eutychia wrote:
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > johngutglueck@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > >
> > > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > Eutychia wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Thanks, Peter. Please help me understand something else. What is the
> > > > > function of "driving" in "I find it very hard to talk on a cellphone
> > > > > while driving"?
> > > >
> > > > Its function is to tell the listener what the speaker is doing while
> > > > finding it hard to talk on a cell phone.
> > > >
> > > > It's gapped from "while I am driving," so it would appear to be part of
> > > > a verb phrase, no?
> > > > --
> > > > Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
> > >
> > > That seems reasonable to me. And what would you say is the function of
> > > "riding" in "I find it very hard to talk on a cellphone while driving,
> > > but it's easy riding a bicycle"?
> >
> > I would say I'm not going to play this game any more, gutglueck, and you
> > should have read Arnold's posting carefully.
> >
> > As I already said, he is one of the world's leading syntacticians, and
> > he has taken up the burden of explaining this to you.
> >
> > But why would you suppose "riding" is doing anything different from
> > "driving" in that sentence?
> > --
> > Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
>
> Sorry if I've annoyed you, Peter. That wasn't my intention. Sorry,
> too, for the name confusion (identity crisis). I look forward to
> reading Arnold Zwicky's most recent post--just haven't found the time
> yet, and it looks like I'll need some. In my last post I was trying
> to bring my discussion with you back to the point from which it
> digressed with your second posting on this thread.
>
> You'll recall that I initiated this thread with a question about the
> use of what I was calling the gerund (and am now calling either a
> verbal noun ending in -ing or an -ing form that functions as a verbal
> noun) after a phrase like "It is easy". I tentatively suggested that
> this usage might be ungrammatical or, at any rate, substandard. In
> your first post you responded by citing a sentence:
>
> "I find it very hard to talk on a cellphone while driving, but it's
> easy riding a bicycle."
>
> You provided no commentary on the sentence, but I assumed you intended
> it as a counterexample to the hypothesis that the construction in
> question is ungrammatical or substandard. If I misinterpreted your
> intention in citing this sentence, I'm sorry--I couldn't (and still
> can't) see what other intention you might have had. Assuming, then,

It's obvious that my example uses the same string of words in a
_different construction_ from that which appeared in the original
example.

My small exposure to syntax (more than 30 years ago) was in the point of
view that Arnold was instrumental in creating (Generative Semantics),
and while the leaders of that school have gone on to other things, I
never took much interest in the area and have not kept up. But if I have
to do something syntaxy, it's where I'm coming from.

That is, find and deal with _alternative readings_ of what appear to be
straightforward utterances. What can't you say, and why not?

> that you'd offered the cellphone sentence as a counterexample, I
> tentatively suggested that it was not a true counterexample because the
> -ing form "riding" that follows "it's easy" does not function as a
> verbal noun (though, of course, I used the term "gerund" to convey this
> point). I thought this was a substantive response to your post that
> would elicit from you either a substantive argument showing that your
> sentence is indeed a legitimate counterexample or an acknowledgement
> that your sentence is not a legitimate counterexample. In your
> response you did not address the substantive issue but instead
> questioned the appropriateness of the terms in which I had raised the
> issue. That led to the digression that has now, I hope, come to an
> end. In your last post you seem to indicate that in your cellphone
> sentence "riding" does NOT function as verbal noun. You thus seem
> implicitly to acknowledge that the cellphone sentence is not a true
> counterexample to the hypothesis that I sought to examine when I began
> this thread.
>
> Thank you for the discussion, Peter. I've learned a great deal from
> it.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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