English grammar

Question

Is 'I eat much cereal for breakfast' grammatically wrong?

Fivejedjon · Accepted Answer

No, but I doubt if any native speaker would say it.

RandomGuy · Answer

Yes. You could say I eat a lot of cereal for breakfast.

But

I usually don’t eat much / a lot for breakfast.

Fivejedjon · Answer

Aspara GusYes

So what makes it grammatically incorrect?

RandomGuy · Answer

fivejedjonSo what makes it grammatically incorrect?

Much in a negatively-oriented polarity-sensitive item (NPI)*. See pages 826 and 827 of CGEL.

*I’m actually not trying to show off (this time!

)..NPI occurs frequently on those pages but is introduced earlier in the chapter.

Fivejedjon · Answer

Well, I have gone through pages 826-7 several times.

I have been impressed by H & P's "It is extraordinarily difficult to separate the constructions out in a rigorous way" and even more impressed by the hedging nature of much of what they say on those two pages. I note their use of the asterisk for utterances that they deem to be ungrammatical, without any attempt to explain why or how they are ungrammatical,

I note their tendency to say such thing as as " "X is clearly an NPI" without saying why or how X is clearly an NPI. In short, H & P are asserting, not proving. As I said in my original response, "I doubt if any native speaker would say it.". That's what I believe, but I am not claiming that it's 'grammatically incorrect'. I am still waiting to be shown that it is .

RandomGuy · Answer

fivejedjonI have been impressed by H & P's "It is extraordinarily difficult to separate the constructions out in a rigorous way"

Keyword: rigorous. Their three sets of examples nevertheless illustrate noticeably different uses of the word, ...

fivejedjonI note their use of the asterisk for utterances that they deem to be ungrammatical, without any attempt to explain why or how they are ungrammatical,

...one of which can’t naturally occur in affirmative contexts, at least not without drastically changing the register in some contexts. Maybe you didn’t notice that.

fivejedjonI note their tendency to say such thing as as " "X is clearly an NPI" without saying why or how X is clearly an NPI.

Maybe you didn’t notice either the sharp contrast between I don’t enjoy sailing much and ^?I enjoy sailing much; We don’t have much time and ^?We have much time; and Kim isn’t much of a dancer and ^?Kim is much of a dancer. Much seems pretty sensitive to me!

fivejedjon In short, H & P are … not proving.

I didn’t say they were proving anything. I do think they make a plausible argument, though. You obviously don’t, and originally gave your opinion in your first reply, and so did I when I cross-posted with you. I wouldn’t have said anything after that, but apparently you were in the mood for an argument.

Fivejedjon · Answer

Aspara Gus . Maybe you didn’t notice that.
.Maybe you didn’t notice either ...
... apparently you were in the mood for an argument.

Now I remember why I need to take a break from the forum at times.

RandomGuy · Answer

fivejedjon:
I have been impressed by...
and even more impressed by...

Me too.

But out of curiosity, do you hesitate to call these grammatically incorrect too?

I have any objections to make.
She sees him anymore.
You need go.
He complained at all.

Ozzourti · Answer

Aspara GusBut out of curiosity, do you hesitate to call these grammatically incorrect too?

I would hesitate to call them ungrammatical, but they may be hard to interpret. Here are a few examples of sentences that I would call grammatically incorrect:

I eaten two slices of pizza yesterday.
Ashley is going to bought a new car.
We should have tell her about it.
I saw they in the park two days ago.

Aspara GusYou need go.

What if I added "no further"? Would it suddenly become grammatical?

RandomGuy · Answer

ozzourti: Here are a few examples of sentences that I would call grammatically incorrect:

I eaten two slices of pizza yesterday.
Ashley is going to bought a new car.
We should have tell her about it.
I saw they in the park two days ago.

There are explanations for the ungrammaticality of those examples: non-imperative main clauses require a finite verb, the subordinator to only introduces infinitival constructions, and so on. I am proposing that there is also an explanation for the ungrammaticality of such examples as *I eat much and *You need go, namely that they are affirmative contexts, i.e., positive declaratives rather than negative or interrogative constructions, containing non-affirmative items. Some words are non-affirmative only in certain uses or senses. As an auxiliary verb, need, for example, is restricted to non-affirmative contexts. That’s why we can say You need go no further but not *You need go. The addition of a negative element such as no further or not changes the clause from positive to negative. *You need go can also be corrected by inverting the subject and verb, thereby changing the clause from declarative to interrogative: Need you go so soon? By contrast, the lexical use (I need to go home soon) is not subject to any such constraint.

Even elsewhere in English grammar it’s quite common for different uses of words to occur in or with different constructions. Take the verb answer, which can license an NP or an infinitival complement depending on whether it’s used in the sense “to give an answer to (a question)” or “to be responsible or report to (someone)”. If a learner asked if *He answered to my question was grammatically incorrect, one might be hesitant to answer yes, but there is no need to be. In the intended reading it certainly is grammatically incorrect, since answer in this sense doesn’t take infinitival complements.

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