truncation possibly this but not that

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Anonymous

#486899 Mon, 10 Mar 08 08:56 AM

Hi,

In a tread named 'Please name this grammatical part' an Anon asked what grammatical parts the underlined parts int these two sentences in addition to one other were. The two sentences were:

There is Super Man, up in the air.

I see a house, near a school.

Mr. M answered those are adverbial phrases of location and the Anon seemed to have accepted the answer but later asked if the sentences could be like this:

There is superman, flying up in the air.

I see a house, located near a school.

To that, I think Mr. M said they are OK but are not necessarily truncated; and if they were, they could be this:

There is Superman, hovering up in the air.

I see a house, built near a house.

Why the anon's version of two sentences are not OK and Mr. M's version are OK? What makes the difference?

Anonymous

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Avangi

#488239 Thu, 13 Mar 08 02:38 AM

Hi Anon, I was intrigued by this issue, as I too could see no substantial difference between the examples.

I think it comes down to a simple misunderstanding. The Anon said, "The dilemma how to know what and how much to truncate, Mr.M."

When we say,"There is Superman, up in the air," there may be two stages of truncation:

"There is Superman, (1)~~who is~~ (2)~~flying / hovering~~ up in the air."

You added, "There is Superman, flying up in the air.

Mr. M. said, "Those are OK too-- but they're not necessarily truncated. If they were they could be: There is superman, hovering up in the air."

What is meant by "they're" and "they"?

Mr. M. goes on to compare Anon's original up in the air to I have a hole in my pocket, saying they're just phrases (no evidence they were once clauses and have been truncated.)

When you truncate "who is" (relative pronoun and linking verb) it's fairly obvious what you've truncated. It sounds to me like Mr. M. is saying that if flying had been truncated you would have no way of knowing the word had been "flying," and it could just as well have been "hovering."

I believe you're taking Mr. M.'s words to mean that Anon's "flying" addition is not a correct example of a word that might have been truncated, while "hovering" is.

So to answer your question, there is no grammatical difference between "flying" and "hovering."

Regards, - A.

Avangi