Interesting Linguistics – June 15

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Here are some example sentences we looked at in class the other day:

A) Dog and Hare made an agreement.
B) It was Dog and Hare who made an agreement.
C) Once there were a dog and a hare who made an agreement.
D) An agreement was made between Dog and Hare.
E) Once there was an agreement made between a dog and a hare.

Do they all mean the same thing? Yeah, they kind of do, right?  All of them are about a dog and a hare, and they made an agreement about something.

But can they be used in the same context?  I’ll leave that one up to you to figure out, but I’ll give you a hint.  Below I’ll give you four contexts, followed by blanks:

1) Let me tell you a story.  _________.
2) They couldn’t agree, but after a long time everyone breathed a sigh of relief – _________.
3) No one had known who would take the first steps towards peace, but as soon as they saw them all step out of the meeting tent they all knew.  _________.
4) And the next day _________.

Here’s your job.  Try to see which sentences above (A-E) could fit in which blanks below (1-4).  Can they all fit in any of the slots?  Can certain ones only fit in certain slots?  Is there one sentence that could fit into more slots than others?  Can you think of other good contexts where certain sentences would fit and others wouldn’t fit?  And the big question – why do you think that certain contexts “work” for certain ways of expressing the same information, while other ones don’t?

Try it out and leave your answers below in the comments.  It will be interesting to see whether or not people generally agree!

Comments

  1. Thanks for the great comments and thoughts, everyone! Isn’t it crazy how they all mean the same thing, but can’t fit in the same place? And if someone learning English asked you what the difference was and why only certain ones can fit in certain places, it would hard to explain.

    That’s the problem with discourse analysis – it’s a study of what people do usually on the subconscious level, so you can’t ask your language helper for help. Every once in a while you might get someone like Stephen who can work on figuring out some of the differences, but usually you just have to sit there, look at it, and think in all sorts of weird and backward ways, trying to figure out WHY they do WHAT they do so that you can make your speech sound more like theirs.

    And even more important than making your speech sound like theirs is making the Bible that you help translate sound more natural to them. Because just as it’s hard for a native speaker to think about these kinds of things, a native speaker who’s working on a Bible translation team will often get them “wrong” when translating, too, since they’ve never thought about them consciously before! I’ve even noticed it myself – when I’m translating from French to English or Jula to English, for example, I know that my English isn’t good English, but I don’t worry too much about it since I know that it’s “good enough” for my purposes. But if that was what your Bible sounded like – yikes! It’s a good reason to pay attention in Discourse Analysis classes!

  3. The “why” is certainly interesting. I’d say that the “Once”-based sentences are only appropriate in storytelling contexts because that is the only context in which Americans use that type of language. Although, if taken as a sentence fragment, E could be used in “The alliance of animals could finally move on once there was an agreement made between a dog and a hare, which set a precedence for future agreements.” But I digress.

    B is also particularly restrictive since the focus of the sentence is on who did it, not what they did… maybe just because they’re the object now?

    A and D are the most basic and, at least in your 4 example contexts, seem to work anywhere. They’re not the best fit in some places (especially the story one), but they still work. I suppose that’s because they’re simple sentences with a subject, verb and object, and not much else to flavor it.

  4. Okay, I think the best answers would be 1-C, 2-D, 3-B, and 4-A. But I also think one or two more could fit in each sentence, just not as well – 1E, 2A, 3A or 3D and 4D. Interesting since when I first read them they all meant the same thing!

  5. 1) C, E
    2) A, D
    3) A (B) D
    4) A (B) D I ended up not really liking B for any of them, but it sort of fit #3 and #4. I could also possibly argue more answers for some, but I settled on these.