What's the logic behind this?/2nd opinions please!

Hi Komountain,

perhaps this helps, my English-German dictionary says among other things:

as [...] 2. rel. adv. or conj. in subord. clause [...] b) (though) ... as he etc. is/was [German for "although he etc. is/was ...]; intelligent as she is/was, ... [...] safe as it might be, ... [...] 4. rel. pron. (which) fool as he was he did not notice the obvious dangers [...]

though 1. (conj.) a) (despite the fact) [...] late though it was [...]


to MrP: You wrote, "Did you mean to write for #2: 'Child though he was'? -- This would fit the context better." I don't think a child is expected to outwit a robber and "as" used as conjunction seems to be identical to "though" and therefore right. While it somewhat reverses its meaning if used as relative pronoun. I am not clear how to distinguish between those two uses in this example. It seems you have the same difficulties:

4. ?Hero as he was, he shuddered at the sight. (Is the comma needed?)

"as" as conj. means "Though he was a Hero, he shuddered at the sight"
"as" as rel. pron. means "(As) Hero, which he was, he shuddered at the sight" which I agree makes no sense.

5. Hero as he was, he didn't shudder at the sight. (Again is the comma needed?)

"as" as conj. means "Though he was a Hero, he didn't shudder at the sight" which makes no sense
"as" as rel. pron. means "(As) Hero, which he was, he didn't shudder at the sight"

Now how would I decide between those two uses of "as" if preceeded by a noun? (From my dictionary I would assume, that I can only distinguish the in writing, because "as" as conj. requires a comma and "as" as rel. pron. does not.)

cu

Hello People

One of my English grammar books (written in Japanese) says about "as"-including concessive adverbial clauses as follows;

Construction: [ad/adv/v+as] they are all literal expressions and rarely used in speech.
(1) Old as he is, his step is as steady as ever.
(2) Big as the boy was, he couldn't lift the stone.
(3) Much as they resemble each other, none of us are exactly alike.
(4) Try as we would, we could not get him to cheer up.
Sometimes a noun without any determiner could precede "as".
(4) Child as he is, he can think clearly and act wisely.
(5) Egoist as she was, she was loved by her parents.

The book says this type of construct [noun+as]is seldom used in modern English. As for your original question (why no article?) any of my grammar books including this gives no key. But probably you know, even in current spoken English, people often put a bare noun at the head as seen in some below. I feel the old construct of [noun+as] might be related to this common linguistic phenomenon : prosiopesis.
(7) How old is he? - (The) Same age as me.
(8) (The) Fact is he knows nothing.
(9) (It's) Pity that she could get no sleep.
(10) (The) Matter of fact, she looked years older.
(11) (I) Thank you.
(12) (I'll) See you again.

[PS] To Komountain
Koyama is so common a surname in Japan. It is "small mountain" but has not any negative sense.


paco

To MrP: Thank you so much.
To Paco: Arigato gozaimas.
To Eagle: Vielen Dank. Einaml habe ich Deutsch gelernt und sehr gut gesprachen, aber
jetzt habe ich alles vergessen.


With the the help of you guys, the picture has now become a lot clearer. 'N as S V' structure in which 'as' means 'though' is no longer aceptable in modern English. Touche! I have kept the archaic structure in my bean. Archaic, or obsolete, or at least rarely used! All this proved that as I hinted earlier, I am linguistically behind the times, and no wonder MrP and JTT, as native speakers of modern English, initially showed reactions of surprise.

Now, in the 'Child though he was' structure, neither 'a' nor 'the' before "Child' is used.
Though Paco touched a little on the absence of the articles, there could be some other explanations. Or simply, "That's the way it is used; no reason for that," you may say.

Thanks, Eagle, Paco, and MisterM for all your painstaking posts! Much to chew on.

1.

It's odd that both your and K's dictionaries give this structure, which I seldom if ever hear. Maybe it's more common elsewhere.

Sorry, all: I should have been clearer. I meant the ‘Child as he was…’ construction seemed unusual to me. (‘Child though…’ and ‘Child that…’ don’t seem strange.)

2.

'N as S V' structure in which 'as' means 'though' is no longer acceptable in modern English.

Your bean isn’t necessarily antique, K. It may be that my experience is limited.

In my first post, I was flummoxed by the sense:

‘Child as he was, he could outwit the robber.’

I took ‘Child as…’ to mean not ‘Child though…’ but ‘Being a child…’. So my reading was in conflict with the intended sense: ‘Child though…’ is concessive, but ‘child as…’ (I thought) was simply complementary.

This interpretation was supported by the quote from Dickens:

'Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery.'

Here, ‘as’ can’t mean ‘though’: children are not immune to hunger and misery. So it must mean ‘since he was a child’.

However, this example from Paco’s post:

‘Child as he is, he can think clearly and act wisely’

(where ‘as’ must = ‘though’) shows that my original interpretation was wrong. The sense here is clearly concessive. So I can only assume that either Dickens got his idiom slightly wrong, or ‘Child as…’ had a simple complementary sense in his day.

3.

'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.'

Now this caught my eye in MisterM’s post. There does indeed seem to be a difference here between AmE and BrE:

a) AmE - 'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.'
= ‘Fool though he was…’ – OK in AmE, as MisterM says.

b) BrE - 'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.'
= ‘Being the fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers’, which is nonsensical.

So I would have to make the 2nd clause negative, to understand it:

'Fool that he was, he nonetheless managed to evade his pursuers.'

Interestingly, as JTT points out, this does add a slightly disparaging note; and the same form can also be used metaphorically:

‘Child that he was, he would not accept my conclusions’ – i.e. he was behaving childishly.

(MisterM's second example has this non-concessive sense of 'as' too: 'Clumsy idiot that he was, Michael completely ruined the dinner.')

4.

The noun has the role of a characterizing attribute [cf. 'he turned traitor' -- MM]."

That sounds much better than my ‘ellipsis’ suggestion – especially as I can find no examples in earlier literature of a common, fuller version.

Also, it occurs to me that ‘fronting’ of the noun is common in e.g. early alliterative poetry in Germanic languages. So we would have to go a long way back to find evidence of ellipses. And I suppose you couldn't 'front', if you included the article...and there's nowhere else to put it...

(That does still leave the question of why we omit the indefinite article with a ‘characterizing attribute’; but for another day.)

MrP