syntactic analysis of " I see [the yawning cat] vs [the cat yawning]"

[zaba]

How are the two sentences above distinguished syntactically? My gut says that the word YAWNING in " I see [the yawning cat] " is a participle. Is this correct?

[Daniel]

They're similar in form but assumed to have very different structures.

"Participle" is a bit vague in common usage, sometimes just meaning "-ing form of the verb". But in more technical usage, yes, "yawning cat" is a participle in the sense that it is a deverbal adjective.

"Cat yawning" is a small clause, (roughly) equivalent to "I see that the cat is yawning". So "cat yawning" is a kind of predication and "yawning". It is either a real verb (some non-finite form) or maybe it's an adjective (that is, participle in the technical sense above) that is a description of the cat. However, this is not grammatical:
*I see the cat black.
*I see the cat happy.
*I see the cat friendly.

So it's probably not an adjective but a real form of the verb. I'm not sure exactly what we'd want to call that. But it's a non-finite non-matrix verb form, some kind of dependent form.

For some interesting discussion on non-finite forms of verbs, see:
Ylikoski, J. (2003). Defining non-finites: action nominals, converbs, and infinitives. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 16, 185–237.

I suppose here that could be considered a converb, under that terminology. (Although there might be an argument that in some cases it's a kind of infinitive, despite the common terminology for English.)

[Daniel]

What's the difference between (A) and (B)?
A) I saw the cat yawning.
B) I saw the cat yawn.

I don't have any strong intuition about this. I feel like (A) may be progressive aspect, but I don't see how that would matter very much in this case. The sentences feel different, but I don't know why, and their truth conditions seem to be identical.

My question is: is -ing (in this case) an infinitive? If not, why not? "yawn" is an infinitive, so what's "yawning"?


Edit:
A') That's a picture of the cat yawning.
B') *That's a picture of the cat yawn.

So "yawning" is a state. Actually, maybe that's an action nominal (see the reference above), not a verbal form. I think that may explain it.
Note that in English historically there are two -ing endings, one for participles (deverbal adjectives) and one for gerunds or "action nominals" (deverbal nouns)

[freknu]

A) I saw the cat yawning. — imperfective/participle? (many yawns, iterative, progressive, incomplete, state, adjectival)
B) I saw the cat yawn. — perfective? (a single yawn, a complete yawn)

cf.

I saw the cat yawning once. — a single instance of <to see>; <once> specifies temporal number
I saw the cat yawn once. — a single instace of <to yawn>; <once> specifies quantitative number

*I see the cat black.
*I see the cat happy.
*I see the cat friendly.

Those are not grammatical...!?

[Daniel]

You're right that something may be going on with aspect there. However, given the contrast with A' and B' above, I don't know that they're really the same structure.

Those are not grammatical...!?

No, absolutely not. So it seems that in (A) it's an NP with head "yawning" and in (B) it's a small clause (type of VP?). That might also be partly responsible for what appear to be "aspectual" differences (as well as probably the form of the words hinting at that too).

[freknu]

Those are not grammatical...!?

No, absolutely not.

...but what about "I saw him blue" or "I saw him sad"? "I saw him alone", "I saw him exhausted", and so on, and so on?

[Daniel]

Hmm...

"I saw him alone"

That one is grammatical. That's a depictive, and something about the semantics of "alone" fits while the other adjectives don't.
So it's possible that there is some (lexical) aspectual restriction on the verbs/adjectives that can appear in the construction, so maybe it's not a good comparison with the verbs that more easily fit there?

"I saw him exhausted" -- this might work, if it is already established that at some particular point he was exhausted. (But that's a verb maybe?)
"I saw him sad" -- very hard to think of a context for this. Maybe some intense moment of sadness in contrast to other times in his life.
"I saw him blue" -- maybe like "sad" in the emotional sense, but for the color, hard to imagine-- I guess this does work if someone is in a temporary blue state-- "He wasn't getting enough oxygen and then I saw him blue-- it was terrifying" -- that almost works (or some similar case of having temporary blue paint on one's skin), but it still seems awkward.

So maybe it's possible to have an adjective there. But for a verb:
"I saw him singing" it's just so natural. Maybe it's because it's specifically progressive/imperfect?
It feels categorically different to me than the adjective cases though.
"Alone" works as well as the -ing forms, but it doesn't feel like it has the same sense to me in terms of predication.


Edit:
Adding "once" helps a lot--
"I saw him exhausted once."

And you can use other parts of speech too, at least prepositions:
"I saw him in a movie once." (Where he is in the movie and I'm not.)
or
"I saw him in a state of depression."

But are these the same as what's going on with the verbs? I'm really not sure.

[freknu]

That is quite intriguing. Not in a million years would I have guessed that such constructs are not grammatical in English. I'm somewhat awestruct!

...and apparently I've been talking gibberish!

[Daniel]

Maybe it depends on the aspect of the matrix verb?
But it's hard for me to come up with contexts where it fits especially well.

Coming up with semantically plausible sentences is a little difficult. If you think you've been using it wrong, what are some examples? I can check whether I'm just not thinking of plausible contexts

[freknu]

Nothing special, really, e.g.

I saw him sad yesterday.
I saw him drunk the other day.
I saw him torn between going or not.

I saw him sick.
I heard him angry.
I felt him cold.
I knew him shy.

[Daniel]

Under exactly the right (very rare) pragmatic conditions those might be possible. But in general they sound (at best) very awkward.

Note that "drunk" and "torn" are ok because they're verb forms (even if being used as adjectives possibly).

[zaba]

Ok, great! I think I'm getting it, slowly but surely.

 How about the syntactic difference between (1) I see the cat yawning and (2) I see the yawning cat?

[Daniel]

That's the same as the original question, right?

The distinction is that "yawning cat" is an adjective (participle) modifying the cat, and that "cat yawning" is some kind of clausal structure with a non-finite (perhaps an action nominal or "gerund"?). So the difference between the two is pretty clear, but I'm not sure what to call the second one.