Grammatical function

Question

"[[They] [[shot] [him] [in [what appears to be] a gangland killing.]]]". What is the grammatical function of the clause "what appears to be"?

Avangi · Accepted Answer

AnonymousThey shot him in what appears to be a gangland killing.

It modifies "a gangland killing."

They shot him in a [******] gangland killing.

They shot him in a [possible] gangland killing.

This is for all intents and purposes a dead issue.

It might be clear here. The "expression" qualifies the complement of the copular verb.

This is what looks like a homicide.

This is potentially a homicide.

Edit. Woops! "Potentially" would be adverbial here. The others are (I believe) adjectival.

Ouch! Now that I think about it, "for all intents and purposes" is probably adverbial.

I probably shouldn't have jumped into this.

"What appears to be a gangland killing" is of course a clause, but "what" has no antecedent.

CalifJim · Answer

Anonymous[...[in [what appears to be] a gangland killing.]]]

"what appears to be" is not a constituent of the sentence.

~ [ in [that [which appears to be a gangland killing] ] ]

~ [ in [something [that appears to be a gangland killing] ] ]

Compare:

in what I consider a gangland killing

in what people call a gangland killing

what is a "fused relative". It stands for that which or something that.

CJ

Avangi · Answer

Thanks, Jim. I knew there'd be a logical name for it!

Hmmm, If I say, "This is something that has been happening too frequently,"

"something that" is surely a constituent of the sentence, is it not?

- A.

Okay, you're saying that the entire "what" clause is not a constituent of the sentence, right?

CalifJim · Answer

You can think of "constituent" as "meaningful unit of grammar". [Constituents] [are bracketed].

[The] [brackets in this] [sentence show the] [constutents incorrectly].

Misidentification of the constituent structure of sentences is one of the more common reasons learners ask "What does this mean?* I couldn't find it in the dictionary." Example: What is a "lady stand"?

The old lady fell down and no one helped the lady stand up.

CJ

Check my bracketing in the sentences in previous posts in this thread to see what I consider the relevant constituents in the OP's sentence.

*Or, almost as frequently, "What does this means?"

Avangi · Answer

Sorry. I know you've used the brackets before (as did the OP) to point up correct and incorrect word groupings.

I hadn't heard "constituent" used in this way. I gather in this case it's a technical grammatical/linguistic term.

CalifJim"what appears to be" is not a constituent of the sentence.

My understanding now is (1) that you're saying the grouping is incorrect; and (2) that no word in a correct sentence would not belong to some constituent thereof.

I suspect there may be arguments about exactly how much constitutes a constituent.

Or is it defined as the "shortest possible" meaningful element?

- A.

Edit.Okay, I note the double and tripple brackets.

CalifJimYou can think of "constituent" as "meaningful unit of grammar". [Constituents] [are bracketed].

So the simple subject of a clause is a meaningful unit of grammar? Well, okay.

I can see that the OP is way ahead of me on this.

How would you correctly place the brackets in Anon's original example sentence?

CalifJim · Answer

Yes, I believe you've got it. Constituents can be embedded in other constituents. At the lowest level, each word is a constituent, but hardly anyone uses the concept of 'constituent' to go that far down the chain. The highest level is, of course, the whole sentence. And yes, it's a term from linguistics, specifically, transformational grammar.

Radford (Transformational Grammar) introduces the concept from the point of view of 'the structural intuitions which native speakers have about the Syntax of their languages' and uses the following as his first example:

[ [This boy] [must] [ [seem] [incredibly stupid] [ to [that girl] ] ] ].

He then goes on to talk about how each constituent belongs to a category: noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.

The methodology and the terminology is a bit more rigorous than in traditional grammar, but in the end, it all amounts to about the same thing.

CJ

AvangiHow would you correctly place the brackets in Anon's original example sentence?

I don't know. I never got that far in the book! More specifically, I don't know how to analyze a fused relative in that system. I think they do something called 'reanalysis', but I'm not sure. It goes something like this:

[[They] [[shot] [him] [in [what appears to be a gangland killing]]].

[[They] [[shot] [him] [in [that [which [appears [to be [a gangland killing]]]]]]]].

The 'what' is both the antecedent and the relative word all in one, so it has to be split into its parts to show how it works. That's how you can see the relative clause 'which appears ... killing' more clearly. I think the splitting is what they call 'reanalysis'.

CJ

Avangi · Answer

Millon de gracias.

CalifJim · Answer

Diez millones de 'de nadas'.

CJ

Grammatical function

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