Re: English grammar help

From: James D. Ernest (ernest@mv.mv.com)
Date: Sat Dec 16 1995 - 08:25:35 EST


On Fri, 15 Dec 1995, Carlton Winbery wrote:

> Carl Conrad said;
> >If the infinitive is referring back to the subject of the main sentence,
> >then its subject will be nominative:
> >
> >Socrates says, somewhere early in the _Apology_ of Plato:
> >
> > DIKAIOS OUN EINAI MOI DOKW, "I think then that I am within my
> >rights ..."
>
> It seems to me (pun) that the "subject" of this infinitive is in the dative
> (reference). Like Paul in Phil.1:21 EMOI GAR TO ZHN XRISTOS . . . "For me
> to live is Christ."
...
It seems to me (sorry) that C.C.'s point is that DIKAIOS is
nominative. I don't see how MOI could be seen as the "subject"
of the infinitive; and if it were, it would have a dative complement,
would it not, rather than nominative?. A crib trans. will show how I
construe:

         I seem to myself to be DIKAIOS.

--Not to shut off further discussion by other interested parties,
but I will at this point express my thanks to all who so
generously stepped in to help my out of my apoplexity on this
question. Since it was my own avowed ignorance that started
things off, I will not now presume to give a final determinatio,
but if anyone cares, the case seems to me settled in favor of
"who." With regard to the question of the English grammar
involved, Stephen Carlson's post (drawing on Quick's grammar)
seems definitive.

As for the practical question of what to do at this point in
the ms. I am editing, a "quasi-professional linguist" on the list
(whom I will not name, since the "quasi" indicates to me that
Philip prefers to obscure his credentials, he having in fact
been precisely a professional linguist before redescending into
the mire of graduate studies) offered the advice that where the
grammar is doubtful, the course of wisdom is to circumlocute.
I heartily agree. Whether I put "who" or "whom" in the ms.
some readers will think it is wrong. So I put "that," which
is every copy editor's favorite relative pronoun anyway. The
touch of impersonality is acceptable since the referent could
be seen as an office rather than a person per se.

One parting remark, which I hope will not give anyone the final
evidence they need to conclude that I am an idiot: although I
have used the term myself as a teaching tool and will no doubt
continue to do so whenever I teach a language course again, I
have serious abiding doubts about the existence of such a
creature as a "subject of the infinitive"; hence I have doubts
about absolute rules as to what case such a creature would have
to be in. I should say at once, in case it isn't already
perfectly obvious, that I claim no expertise in theoretical
grammar, having been interested (apart from fascinating but
brief forays into Cartesian grammar and transformational
grammar in a college linguistics course) only in the discovery of
such "rules" as facilitate language learning and teaching and
explication de textes; and I have used to great advantage
a number of grammar books that DO use this term, including
Prof. W.'s co-authored work. But even if we are to use the
term, I see no example of such in the problem sentence I
quoted in my first post. It appears to me that the disagreement
on the whole question boils down to the question whether we
must either find or mentally add such a "subject"--which then
has to be accusative, so that "whom" is then required as its
complement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
James D. Ernest Joint Doctoral Program
Manchester, New Hampshire, USA Andover-Newton/Boston College
Internet: ernest@mv.mv.com Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts



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