As phrase

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Hi,“There were no heroes, no villains,” Mr. Maltin said in an interview. “Instead, there were a lot of human beings trying to do their best in the situation as they saw it.” The title of his new book, “Titanic: A Very Deciving Night," being published this week as an e-book, alludes to how mirages could have wrought havoc with human observations.As phrases functioning as adjunct of comparison is normally incomplete in that there is a missing element that can be recovered from the main clause.As we'd expected, he refused to compromise.Stated differently, we have a comparison of equality between two variables "we expected X; Y(he refused to compromise); X=YBut the original example in question doesn't seem to lend itself to that kind of analysis.Here is what my grammar book has to say about this type of comparative construction:Computer technology may make the car, as we know it, a Smithsonian antique."This construction differs semantically somewhat from the others we have been considering, and doesn't lend itself to an analysis of the familiar kind involving variables X and Y.  Rather, the as phrase specifies some property or aspect of what is denoted by the head noun or the anchor NP: in the above example, we are concerned with how we know (conceive of) the car."I'm kind of lost here.  Could someone explain this type of as phrase?I'd appreciate your help.

Dimsumexpress · Accepted Answer

jooneyAs we'd expected, he refused to compromise.Stated differently, we have a comparison of equality between two variables "we expected X; Y(he refused to compromise); X=Y

I don't follow you. As expected - is a straightforward adverbial phrase. There are many such phrases in English but the meaning is relatively the same.

As seen on TV,
As shown in picture.
As planned, the show was a success.
As designed/ built, the stadium can hold 50,000 people.

So the meaning of "as" is not the same "as X as", as in " as much as I enjoy your company, I must go now."; if that is what your question is.

BillJ · Answer

As we'd expected _ , he refused to compromise.

There is a clear semantic meaning of comparison of equality here. The comparison is between what we expected to happen (x), and what actually did happen (y). The variables are equal, hence x=y. The comparative clause is structurally incomplete because the complement of “expected” is missing; I’ve inserted a _ gap to represent the missing complement, which is recoverable from the matrix, i.e. what we’d expected was his refusal to compromise.

Computer technology may make the car, as we know it _ , a Smithsonian antique.

It is a different construction, though syntactically the clausal complement of “as” is still a comparative clause of equality, as marked by the prep “as”. But semantically it can’t be seen as a comparison of variables x and y. To appreciate this, you have to focus on the comparative phrase “as we know it”. You can’t assign x to it, (as you could with "As we'd expected"), and y to the “Computer technology... clause”. There’s no x:y comparison of that kind being made here. Instead, the as phrase simply refers to “the car” (called the anchor), not as a modifier of it, but as a ‘supplement’ to it. When we say that the as phrase 'specifies some property or aspect of the head noun, or anchor...', we mean that it provides additional (non-essential) information about it. In this instance, the information given is simply "as we know it", which is why we have to interpret that to mean "We know it in such-and-such a form". Supplements are very common in English. They are easily recognisable by the fact that they are set apart in writing by commas (or dashes or parentheses), and they are always optional, even when they form comparatives

Again, I’ve gapped the comparative clause to indicate the missing element "We know it in such-and-such a form".

BillJ

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