Linguist Forum
Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: zaba on June 10, 2014, 07:06:36 AM
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Hello! I'm thinking about French sentence types and am trying to group a bunch of sentences into categories of syntactic strategy. So, here are three sentences below that obstensibly refer to the "same" thing.
1. avion qui décolle
2. avion au décollage
3. un avion décolle
While (3) is obviously a noun phrase, it is unclear how to classify (1) and (2).
Can someone help out? My French c'est rusty.
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Just adding glosses helps:
1. avion qui décolle
plane which takes.off
2. avion au décollage
plane on.the takeoff
3. un avion décolle
a plane takes.off
(1) and (2) are noun phrases. The first has a relative clause and the other has a prepositional phrase modifier. (3) is a normal subject-verb sentence (not a noun phrase).
Beyond that, I don't understand the question, because these are not sentence types. Maybe you are asking more in general about how the same idea (proposition) can be expressed in different ways in a language? For example, we might have a noun phrase or a sentence that has the same things doing the same things. The distinction is whether one is being claimed-- whether it is a declarative sentence (or question = interrogative, etc.).
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Thanks for your insightful and articulate reply. You're remarkable.
Maybe you are asking more in general about how the same idea (proposition) can be expressed in different ways in a language? For example, we might have a noun phrase or a sentence that has the same things doing the same things. The distinction is whether one is being claimed-- whether it is a declarative sentence (or question = interrogative, etc.).
Yes, this is what I'm asking. I'm trying to see if I can learn something about the subtle differences in meaning expressed by different syntactic/morphological constructions.
For example, how does "décollage avion" fit in with the above examples? If I am correct and this is a kind of noun compound, it belongs to a different group than 1-3 above, no?
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I'm trying to see if I can learn something about the subtle differences in meaning expressed by different syntactic/morphological constructions.
It's not strictly a "meaning" difference-- they all refer to an entity that is an airplane, and they all give that airplane the property of being in a state/process of taking off.
The difference is in presentation. The first two present it as a thing, while the last one presents it as an event. (Of course I use these terms loosely and am basically referring to the noun/sentence distinction above.) The difference in the first two is based on whether the noun is seen as doing something or being in a state of doing something-- almost exactly equivalent, but at that level of modification it's the same thing/event distinction as for 1-2 vs 3.
For example, how does "décollage avion" fit in with the above examples? If I am correct and this is a kind of noun compound, it belongs to a different group than 1-3 above, no?
My French is very limited. I'm confident about the explanations for 1-3, but I don't know what "décollage avion" would mean. Can you translate it? It does appear to be a noun phrase rather than a sentence, so it goes (in some sense) with 1-2, not 3.
Does this mean "airplane takeoff" as in "the takeoff of the airplane"? If so, then this is a difference in focus-- it's about the takeoff, which is related to the plane. (Rather than being about the plane, which is related to taking off.) The same general situation is discussed overall, but the focus is different. It would be like these sentences:
Taking off is what the plane is doing.
Takeoff was accomplished by the plane.
etc.