So we have identified the thing.
Now the question is what Popper or
Grice would say.
Grice would be perhaps interested in
distinguishing why a ‘split infinitive’ does not compare (yet does compare) to
a dangling modifier. Popper might not.
Grice might also wonder if there can be
a general theory of the dangling modifier. Consider the cancellation of the
implicature generated by the dangling modifier in
i.
Born in Japan, Ishiguro’s family moved to the UK when he
was five.
from “The Guardian”.
ii.
Born in Japan, Ishiguro’s family moved to the UK when he
was five, leaving him under the care of his grandmother, who stayed.
A dangling modifier is an ambiguously interpretable
utterance part (as Grice would have it), whereby, as the term of art has it, a
“modifier” could be misinterpreted as being associated with an expression
OTHER THAN the one m-intended (as Grice would have it – “m” stands for
‘meaning’), or with no particular expression at all.
For example, an utterer may have meant
to modify the subject, but the syntax makes the modifier seem to modify the object instead.
Such ambiguities can lead to
unintentional humour or difficulty in understanding the utterance in some
conversational contexts (One of Grice’s conversational maxims is ‘avoid
ambiguity’, under the super-maxim, ‘Be perspicuous.’)
A typical example of a dangling
modifier is illustrated by:
iii.
A: Turning the corner, a
handsome building appeared.
B: Amazing.
The modifying clause “turning the corner” is clearly
supposed to describe the behaviour of the utterer (or other observer), but syntactically
it appears to apply to nothing in particular or to the building! (Hence the
‘Amazing,’ in B’s cooperative reply).
Similarly, in:
iv.
A: At the age of eight, my
family finally bought a dog.
B: About time.
where the modifier “at the age of eight” “dangles,” as
the term of art has it, not attaching to the subject of the main clause (and
possibly implying or as Grice would prefer IMPLICATING) that the family was eight years old when
it bought the dog, or even that the dog was eight when it was bought, rather
than the intended meaning of giving the narrator's age at the time). The “About time” possibly
dangles, too.
As an adjunct, a modifier clause is
normally at the beginning (as in “The Guardian” example, (i) above), or the end
of a sentence, and usually attached to the subject of the main clause, as in:
v.
Walking down the street, the man saw the beautiful
streets.
vi.
Walking down the
street (clause), the man (subject) saw the beautiful trees (object).
However, when the subject is missing, or
the clause attaches itself to another object in a sentence, the clause is
seemingly "hanging" on nothing or on an entirely inappropriate noun.
The clause thus "dangles", as
in:
vii.
A: Walking down Main Street, the trees were beautiful.
Reaching the station, the sun came out.
B: Amazing.
In the first utterance, the adjunct
clause may at first appear to modify "the trees", the subject of the
sentence.
However, it actually modifies the utterer
of the utterance, who is not explicitly mentioned (It might have been Grice –
or Popper).
In the second utterance, the adjunct
may at first appear to modify "the sun", the subject of the sentence.
Presumably, there is another, human
subject that did reach the station and observed the sun coming out.
But since this subject is not mentioned
in the utterance, the intended meaning is obscured, and therefore this kind of utterance
has been dubbed “incorrect” in standard Oxonian (cfr. Spooner).
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style (White lived on a New-England
coastal town between Nova Scotia and Cuba) provides another kind of example, a
misplaced modifier (another participle):
viii.
A: I saw the trailer peeking through the window.
B: Amazing.
Presumably, this means the utterer was
peeking through the window.
But the placement of the clause
"peeking through the window" makes it sound as though the trailer
were doing so.
The utterance can be recast as:
ix.
Peeking through the window, I saw the trailer.
Similarly, in
x.
A: She left the room fuming.
B: Amazing.
it is conceivably the room, rather than
"she", that was fuming, though it is unlikely that anybody – other
than Grice in one of his wicked days -- would interpret it this way, and only
to tease Sir Peter Strawson, mind.
Strunk and White describe as
"ludicrous" another of their examples:
xi.
A: Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy
the house very cheap.
B: Not amazing.
The utterer obviously means the house
was dilapidated, but the construction suggests that he (the utterer, identified as
"I" – vide Grice, “Peresonal Identity”) was dilapidated.
Bernstein offers another ludicrous
example:
xii.
A: Roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour, the
stalled car was smashed by the train.
B: Amazing.
The adjunct is meant to modify “train.”
It is the train that is roaring down the track.
But the subject of the main clause is
"the stalled car".
The utterer is suggesting (or
implicating) that the stalled car, which really is not moving at all, is
roaring down the track.
The utterance could be re-uttered more
felicitously (‘felicity’ was one of Austin’s favourite concepts):
xiii.
A: Roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour, the train
smashed the stalled car.
Or:
xiv.
The stalled car was smashed by the train, roaring down
the track at seventy miles an hour."
Follett provides yet another ludicrous
example:
xv.
A: Leaping to the saddle, his horse bolted.
B: Amazing.
But who leaped? Presumably the horseman
– certainly not the horse, which was wearing the saddle.
In this example, the noun or pronoun
intended to be modified is not even in the utterance. Unproblematic:
xvi.
Leaping to the saddle, he made his horse bolt forward.
or
xvii.
As he leaped into the saddle, his horse bolted.
In the latter, the non-finite adjunct
clause is replaced by a finite subordinate clause.
Cheers,
Speranza
These examples illustrate a Griceian
principle that dangling participles violate.
Follett states the principle:
"A participle at the head of an
utterance automatically affixes itself to the subject of the following verb –
in effect a requirement that the utterer either make his [syntactic] subject
consistent with the participle or discard the participle for some other
construction."
Strunk and White put it this way:
"A participle phrase at the
beginning of an utterance must refer to the syntactic subject."
Dangling participles should not be
confused with clauses in absolute
constructions, which are
considered _okay_.
Because the participle phrase in an
absolute construction is NOT semantically attached to any single element in the
sentence, it is easily confused with a dangling participle, though.
The difference is that a participle
phrase is intended to modify a particular noun or pronoun, but is instead
erroneously attached to a different noun, whereas as an absolute clause is not
intended to modify any noun at all. An example of an absolute construction is:
xviii.
The weather being beautiful, we plan to go to the beach
today.
Non-participial modifiers that dangle can
also be troublesome:
xix.
A: After years of being lost under a pile of dust, Walter
P. Stanley, III, left, found all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club.
B: Amazing.
The above utterance, from a newspaper
article, suggests that it is the subject of the sentence, Walter Stanley, who
was buried under a pile of dust, and not the records. And while this is not
impossible, it is not ‘conversationally expectable,’ as Grice has it.
It is the prepositional phrase
"after years of being lost under a pile of dust" which ‘dangles,’ to
use Grice’s slang.
This example has been cited in at least
one usage manual as an example of the kind of Griceian ambiguity (in
terms of the implicatures the utterance invites) that can result from a
dangling modifier.
xx.
A: I know a man with a wooden leg called Smith.
B: What was the
name of his other leg?
A: Jones.
In the case of this joke, the placement
of the phrase "called Smith" implicates that it is the leg that is
named Smith, rather than the man.
Another famous example of this humorous
effect is by Groucho Marx as Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding
in the film, Animal Crackers:
xxi.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got
into my pajamas I'll never know.
Though under the most plausible
interpretation of the first sentence, Captain Spaulding would have been wearing
the pajamas, the line plays on the physical possibility that, instead, it was
the elephant who was wearing Captain Spaulding’s pajamas. (“Odd, but not phsyically
impossible,” as Grice would have it).
Strunk and White offer this example:
xxii.
A: As a mother of five, and with another on the way, my
ironing board is always up.
B: Amazing.
Is the ironing board (syntactic subject)
really the mother of five? Less ambiguous:
xxiii.
As the mother of five, and with another on the way, I
always keep my ironing board up.
Or:
xxiv.
My ironing board is always up, because I am the mother of
five, with another on the way.
Cheers,
Speranza
Participial modifiers can sometimes be m-intended
to describe the attitude or mood of the utterer, even when the utterer is not
part of the sentence.
Some such modifiers are standard and
are NOT considered, by Grice, dangling modifiers:
xxv.
Speaking of [topic]
and
xxvi.
Trusting that this will put things into perspective
for example, are commonly used to
transition from one topic to a related one or for adding a conclusion to a
speech.
Controversy has arisen over the proper usage of the
adverb hopefully.
Some object to constructions such as
xxvii. Hopefully, the sun will be shining
tomorrow.
Their complaint is that the term
"hopefully" ‘dangles,’ and can be understood to describe either the
utterer’s state of mind or the manner in which the sun will shine.
It no longer modifies just a verb, an
adjective or another adverb, but instead modifies the whole sentence to convey
the attitude of the utterer.
Disjuncts (also called sentence
adverbs) are useful in colloquial conversation for the concision they permit.
No other word expresses that thought.
In a single word we can say it is
regrettable that (regrettably)
or it is fortunate that (fortunately)
or it is lucky that (luckily),
and it would be comforting if there were such a word as “hopably” or, as suggested by
Follett, “hopingly,” but,
alas, there is not – cfr. Grice, “How unclever language can get!”)
In this instance nothing is to be lost
– the word would not be destroyed in its primary meaning – and a useful, nay
necessary term is to be gained.
What had been expressed in lengthy
adverbial constructions, such as "it is regrettable that ..." or
"it is fortunate that ...", had of course always been shortened to
the adverbs "regrettably" or "fortunately".
Bill Bryson says, "those utterers who scrupulously avoid
'hopefully' in such constructions do not hesitate to use at least a dozen other
words – 'apparently', 'presumably', 'happily', 'sadly', 'mercifully', 'thankfully',
and so on – in precisely the same way."
What has changed, however, in the
controversy over "hopefully" being used for "he was hoping that
..." or "she was full of hope that ..." is that the original
clause was transferred from the utterer, as a kind of shorthand to the subject
itself, as though "it" had expressed the hope. ("Hopefully, the
sun will be shining.")
Although this still expressed the utterer’s
hope "that the sun will be shining", it may have caused a certain
disorientation as to who was expressing what when it first appeared.
As time passes, this controversy may
fade as the usage becomes increasingly accepted, especially since adverbs such
as "mercifully", "gratefully", and "thankfully"
are similarly used.
Merriam-Webster gives a usage note on its entry for “hopefully.”
The editors point out that the disjunct
sense of the word dates to the early 18th century and has been in widespread
use since at least the 1930s.
Objection to this sense of the word,
they state, only became widespread in the 1960s.
The editors maintain that this usage is
"entirely standard".
Yet the choice of
"regrettably" above as a counterexample points out an additional
problem. At the time that objection to "hopefully" became publicized,
grammar books relentlessly pointed out the distinction between
"regrettably" and "regretfully".
The latter is not to be used as a
sentence adverb, they state. It must refer to the subject of the sentence. The
misuse of "regretfully" produces worse undesired results than
"hopefully", possibly contributing to disdain for the latter. The
counterpart “hopably” was
never added to the language – although Grice used it thrice.
1. McArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion
to the English Language. Oxford University Press. The dangling modifier or
participle
4. Theodore M. Bernstein, The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to
English Usage (New York: Atheneum), 128.
5. Wilson Follett, Modern American Usage: A Guide (New
York: Hill and Wang), 117.
6. The American Heritage Book of
English Usage: A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt. p. 1.
7. Bangor Daily
News 20 Jan
1978. Reprinted with discussion in Merriam-Webster's
Dictionary of English Usage p. 315.
8. Encarta Book of Quotations. St.
Martin's Press, New York. p. 616.
9. Kahn, John Ellison and Robert Ilson,
Eds. The Right Word at the Right
Time: A Guide to the English Language and How to Use It, pp. 27–29.
London: The Reader's Digest Association Limited. http://www.emory.edu/marketing/docs/creative_group/Style%20Manual.pdf
10. Bernstein, Theodore M. Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, p. 51.
The Noonday Press, New York.
11. Bryson's Dictionary
of Troublesome Words, Bill Bryson, p. 99, Broadway Books, New York.
12. "hopefully." Merriam-Webster
Dictionary.
15.
Categories: Disputes in syntax, syntactic entities.
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