The English-Learning and Languages Review Ć HOMEPAGE
A critical examination of the
account of
some and any
in
The
by
Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K
Pullum et al. (2002)
(The false trail of grammatical categorising 3)
Amorey Gethin
The
material discussed in this article comes mainly from chapters 5 and 9, by John Payne
and Rodney Huddleston, and by Geoffrey K. Pullum and Rodney Huddleston,
respectively.
Contents
Failure to distinguish the meanings
of some and any: the snare of grammatical categorising
False correlation between any and negation
Doubtful distinction between two
sorts of any
More misguided insistence on
grammatical categorising
False distinction
between proportional and non-proportional some
and any
Vague use of some
Replacement of a with some and any
'Alternation with verbal negation
constructions'
'Bare infinitival why interrogatives'
The authors of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) claim that readers
need no training in linguistics. It is true that the huge number of technical
terms used are explained somewhere or other in this massive volume of 1,859
pages. But it is very doubtful whether there is anything here that would be
useful for the learner of English as a foreign language, at whatever level. And
a vast amount of the book is occupied by a minute analysis of sentences.
Page 423 begins like this:
9.6 Compound determinatives
Compound determinatives such as somebody occur as determiner-head with the syntactic fusion of the
two functions marked by the morphological compounding of a determinative base
with a nominal one.
On page 360 under the heading Count NPs the authors write:
[6] a. He had eaten [all of the pies]. b. He had eaten [some of
the pies.]
Example [a] entails that
there were none of the pies that he hadn’t eaten, while existential [b] entails
that not all the pies had the property that he hadn’t eaten them. There is a
complication in the existential case, however, in that some in [b] indicates not just a number greater than zero but a
number no less than two ……
Failure to distinguish the
meanings of some and any: the snare of grammatical
categorising
The CGEL devotes,
partly or wholly, more than fifty pages to some
and any and their compounds. It introduces the subject in Chapter 5 “Nouns and noun
phrases” under the heading “5 Quantification”. In § 5.1 “Existential
quantification, universal quantification, and negation” (pp.358-59) it says
[2] EXISTENTIAL QUANTIFICATION ………….
a. [Some of the meat] was
fresh. ………….
Existential quantification indicates a quantity or
number greater than zero, and has some
as its most straightforward expression. The term ‘existential’ reflects the
fact that elementary examples like [a] assert the existence of a quantity of
meat that was fresh, i.e. a quantity having the predication property.
.........................................................................................
and
Non-affirmative
any
The examples
so far have had the quantified NP located before the verb, in subject function.
When we turn to postverbal NPs we find a third possible expression of
existential quantification, any.
…………………………….
There is probably nothing untrue in these
statements, but they tell one nothing useful. One can equally
call a or the expressions of existential quantification, since they too
indicate a quantity or number greater than zero. And it is questionable whether
any can really be described as a
‘quantifier’. With one exception, it is never
absolutely necessary to use it with plural nouns, although we very often do,
simply because we are often thinking in plural contexts. The exception, of
course, is with the phrase any of.
But the any in any of the books is no more a quantifier than best in the best of the
books. Some complete sentences with any
may seem to have a quantifying aspect, such as
Have
we any milk?
but others, such as
If you find any solution, let
me know.
do not at all.
The CGEL
continues (from now on I use bold type
to replace the double underlining that the original CGEL text uses to indicate the item
that has “scope over” the item with single underlining):
[5] i a. He hadn’t
eaten [all of the meat].
= b. He hadn’t eaten [some of the meat].
ii
a. He hadn’t eaten [all of the meat].
= b. He had eaten [none of the meat.]
b’. He hadn’t eaten [any of
the meat].
In [ia] the negative has
scope over all (“It is not the case
that he had eaten all of the meat”). This is equivalent to [ib], where some has scope over the negation: “There
was some of the meat that he hadn’t eaten”. Version [ib] is much less likely
than [ia], though the construction is certainly admissible (cf. I didn’t agree with some
of the things he said). Construction [iia], with the meaning “all of the
meat had the property that he hadn’t eaten it”, is somewhat marginal and
contrived: He hadn’t eaten all of the
meat would generally be interpreted with the negative having wide scope, as
in [ia]. Much more likely than [iia],
then, is a version where negation has scope over existential
quantification. And this can take either of two forms, one with the negative
existential quantifier none, and one
with a negative having scope over any.
In the context of a wide scope negative, any
is normally used instead of some to
express existential quantification; we will use the asterisk notation for *He hadn’t
eaten [some of the meat],
with the proviso that it could be used in the special context of denying a
previous utterance of He had eaten some
of the meat or the like.
Any can also be used in interrogative
contexts, as in Had he eaten any of the
meat? Here Had he eaten some of the
meat? Is also possible, but it suggests the questioner is disposed to think
the answer may well be positive, whereas any
is neutral, giving no indication of the speaker’s attitude to the possible
answers (see Ch. 10, §4.7.4). However, any cannot substitute for some
in He had eaten some of the meat: in
the sense we are concerned with here, any
is restricted to non-affirmative
contexts (negatives, interrogatives, and various others, as described in Ch. 9,
§4.4). This gives us three expressions of existential quantification: basic some, non-affirmative any, and negative no.
Here we come straightaway to a fundamental weakness in the method of
most grammarians. They find – quite correctly – that they cannot describe
satisfactorily the meaning of words
(in this case some and any). So instead they try to explain
them by pushing them into grammatical categories. In the present case they are
probably also making the common basic mistake of attaching the meaning of the
whole to the meaning of the part; confusing the meaning of an individual word
(here any) with the meaning of the
sentence it forms part of.
The authors appear so engrossed with their category of ‘non-affirmative’
any, and their (perfectly sound)
principle of ‘scope’, that they fail to notice that they have themselves illustrated,
with their examples ib and iib’, the really important point, i.e. that some and any have completely different meanings.
He hadn’t eaten some of the
meat.
He hadn’t eaten any of the
meat.
They again fail to note the distinction on page 360 under [7], where
they offer the examples
He hadn’t eaten some of the
pies.
He hadn’t eaten any of the
pies.
Indeed, the CGEL’s authors tell us, by implication above, and explicitly
on pages 381 and 383, that any has “the same sense as some…”! This failure to distinguish
between the meanings of some and any may seem strange, but it is an
example of what can go fundamentally wrong when one treats all pieces of
language as, first and foremost, grammatical categories. The CGEL appears to regard some and any simply as functions of grammar, rather than two separate unique
meanings, meanings just about as different from each other as it is possible to
be. Native English-speakers naturally understand perfectly what some and any mean. But when academics start on their grammatical analyses,
they seem, in a very real sense, to stop understanding them. (At the top of page 383 the CGEL declares:
Free choice anyf is best treated as having the same sense as some in its basic proportional use, …….
I find this a very puzzling statement. What does treated mean? Best treated
from what point of view? Best with
what purpose in mind? The authors talk as if there were no objective truth to
be conveyed. For the CGEL’s
‘free choice anyf’ see below.)
The CGEL in fact started making the mistake of ascribing to syntax what
are purely semantic phenomena way back in “Chapter 2 Syntactic overview”
(p.60).
A number of words or larger
expressions are sensitive to polarity in that they favour negative over
positive contexts or vice versa. Compare:
[3] i a.
She doesn’t live here any longer. b. *She
lives here any longer.
But b. is nonsense simply because it is nonsense to say something like
* She lives here whatever length
of time you like to think of longer.
or
* She lives here
indiscriminately longer.
One has to ask why anybody should ever dream of saying such a thing as
b. It seems to me that one can only make a point like the CGEL’s here if an
obsession with syntax makes one blind to the reality of meaning.
False
correlation between some and
‘positive orientation’, and between any and
negation
On page 829 the CGEL
insists that ‘positively-oriented’ some
is ‘inadmissible’ in the negative sentence
They didn’t make some mistakes
but that, in contrast,
in changed ‘scope’ conditions,
I didn’t understand some of the points she was trying to make
is an ‘admissible’ sentence,
which they paraphrase as “some of the points…had the property that I didn’t
understand them”.
In fact the two
sentences are in principle exactly the same. The
‘scope’ relationships can be interpreted as identical in the two sentences (the
first sentence as “some mistakes had the property that they didn’t make them”).
It is an example of how unusual or unnatural situations in real life can
deceive analysts into thinking that the language expressing such situations is
prohibited by some grammatical law. We can make the first sentence a bit more
realistic by expanding it a little. For instance:
This time they didn’t make some of the old mistakes –
or by
stressing some. But the CGEL seems to
have been led astray by the rather peculiar idea expressed into thinking in
advance that the sentence is ‘inadmissible’, and so believing that the ‘scope’
is such as to make it so.
The fact that any is often
found in negative clauses seems to have led to a conviction among generations
of grammarians of English that there is something essentially negative – or at
least ‘non-affirmative’, as the CGEL puts it - about the word (see above). But affirmative declarative
statements using any are perfectly
normal:
He could have eaten any of the
meat or
He can eat any of the meat or
He eats any meat.
The acceptability or otherwise of sentences is determined by two things:
one, the particular combination of meanings in them, by whether the meanings
are compatible with each other; and two, by whether it is the convention of
contemporary native speakers to use a given formulation – sometimes a
combination of meanings may be perfectly sensible, but is simply not used. (I like her much makes perfect sense, but
breaks the current convention; while on the other hand I grew up thinking that
one ‘can’t’ say It will likely rain –
that it has to be It will very likely
rain – but have discovered that –
particularly in America? – the very
is often absent in today’s English. See also
www.lingua.org.uk/aintnogram.html
).
*He had eaten any of the meat
is nonsense, because it means something more or less like
*He had eaten whichever of the
meat you like to think of.
But
He could have eaten whichever
of the meat you like to think of
makes perfect sense.
Doubtful
distinction between two sorts of any
The CGEL’s authors might argue that the any in He could have eaten
any of the meat is a ‘free choice’ any,
a different sort of any from any in *He had eaten any of the meat. I do not accept that any here is an example of their ‘free
choice’ any, but let us examine their
argument.
CGEL pp.361-62:
Free choice any and either
Besides their use as an
existential quantifier in non-affirmative contexts, any and either can be
used with what is called a free choice
sense:
[11] a. Any of these computers will do.
b. Either of these computers
will do.
Again, any here implicates a set of three or
more computers while either ……… The
interpretation is that if you choose arbitrarily from among the set of
computers – i.e. make a free choice – the one you choose will have the
predication property, i.e. in this case it will do (“satisfy the
requirements”). In the free choice case
the quantifier is always stressed. Where relevant, we will distinguish the two
senses with subscripts: anyn and eithern represent occurrences of these items with the non-affirmative
existential sense, while anyf and eitherf represent occurrences
of them with the free choice sense.
Anyf and eitherf are not
excluded from non-affirmative contexts, so that there may be ambiguity between
the two senses, as in:
[12] Were [any/either of the students] allowed to take part?
In the non-affirmative
existential sense, this asks if there was at least one of the students who was
allowed to take part. In the free choice sense (with stressed quantifier) it
asks whether permission to take part was available generally, i.e. whether a
student chosen arbitrarily from the set could take part. What is at issue in
this second interpretation is whether or not restrictions applied as to which or
how many students were allowed to take part.
And on page 382:
[34]
i Any computers with defective keyboards should be returned. [plural]
ii Any
policeman will be able to tell you.
[count singular]
iii Any
remaining dirt will have to be removed.
[non-count]
Anyf
occurs with all three of the main kinds of head: plural, count singular,
and non-count. It indicates that there is a free choice: an arbitrary member
(or subquantity) can be selected from the set (or quantity) denoted by the head
and the predication property will be apply to it. In [ii], for example, there
is a free choice as to which policeman can be selected, but no matter which
policeman it is, that policeman will be able to tell you. Anyf implicates that the free choice
will only have to be made once, but this implicature can be cancelled. In [ii],
since the first policeman selected will normally provide the required
information, it will not be necessary to ask another one. ……….
(Note how the above illustrates how impossible it is to describe words
with other words. ‘Free choice’ is a particularly unsatisfactory way of
describing any – of whatever kind.
There is no choice involved in the
meaning of their ‘free choice’ any.
One does not wander around looking at various policemen and then select one. This is very clear in an
example like Any fool could have told you
that.)
And on page 383:
There are several
differences between the two any’s. We
noted that anyn is usually
unstressed; anyf, by contrast, is always stressed. Secondly, while anyn is
restricted to non-affirmative contexts, anyf is not polarity-sensitive. The anyf examples given above are all in
affirmative contexts, but in a negative context we can have a contrast between
the two senses:
[35] i [We don’t publish anyn letters:] we only accept commissioned articles.
ii
[We don’t publish just anyf letters:] we reject more than half of those submitted.
Example [i] is
equivalent to We publish no letters.
In [ii] the free choice is negated: we ourselves are making a selection,
accepting some letters, rejecting others. Thirdly, anyf, unlike anyn, permits modification, for example
by the adverb almost. Compare:
[36] i Jan will read [almost anyf computer magazines].
ii *Jan couldn’t find [almost
anyn computer magazines] in the shop.
The CGEL is convinced that any has a ‘non-affirmative’ meaning. But
it has to recognise that any is often
used affirmatively. So its authors are forced to postulate this second distinct
meaning. This distinguishing of two senses of any may be valid up to a point. It would seem to be confirmed by
examples like [12]
above.
Were
any of the students allowed to take part?
On page 382, though, the CGEL
says:
Anyn
is usually but by no means always unstressed. It can be stressed, for example,
when it is the focus of negation: I don’t
think ANY people left early. The negative orientation of anyn
can be reinforced by the polarity-sensitive at all or whatever : We
hadn’t made any progress at all / whatever.
However, I suggest that for native English-speakers any always
contains the idea which the CGEL tries to describe by talking about ‘free
choice’. This is the ‘whichever, whatever, it doesn’t matter which, whichever
you like to think of’ idea. Whatever can also be used together with what the CGEL
calls the free choice any. For
instance, we could add it to the CGEL’s
example [34] ii on page
382:
Any policeman whatever will be able to tell you.
And we can add it to the ‘ambiguous’
[12] sentence quoted above:
Were any of the students whatever allowed to take part?
Even if we assume, as I do, that the any here is just one and the same
undifferentiated any, that there are
not two distinct any’s with different
senses lurking here, the sentence is still ambiguous. It is not a
double-meaning any that causes the
ambiguity. The ambiguity is caused by the particular combination of meanings in
the sentence. For example,
Can any of the students take part?
is ambiguous too; but
Do any of the students take part?
is not – only one interpretation is
possible. Yet again,
Do any of the students satisfy the requirements for taking part?
is ambiguous.
The same reasoning applies to examples [35] as applies to example [12] above. Moreover, anyn in
[35] i could well be stressed. Yet in practice, even then,
the any’s in i and ii would not sound
the same. Most speakers would indeed add the just in a sentence like ii; but with or without just, the intonations of any in i and ii, even if both are
stressed, are different.
As for almost, here again is
an example of the failure to understand the decisive part played by particular
combinations of meaning. It is not any supposed difference in meaning between anyf and anyn that makes [36]
ii nonsense. It is the combination of the negative with almost any that makes it nonsense. [36] i would equally be nonsense
(except as a rebuttal of a previous statement that Jan will etc.) if one turned Jan
will into Jan won’t:
*Jan won’t read almost any computer magazines.
And in fact the
distinction between two meanings of any is unclear, imprecise, and ultimately
questionable. There are several examples in the CGEL that show how fuzzy and
uncertain it is.
Take the case of
conditional sentences. These, such as (CGEL pp.745 and 838)
If anyone has a solution to this problem, please let
me know,
and
If I’d ever seen anything like that, I’d have reported it,
are
supposedly part of the justification for categorising any as ‘non-affirmative’. But they can often be paraphrased to
provide examples of what the CGEL would call presumably ‘free choice’ any:
Anyone with a solution to this problem should kindly
let me know,
and
I’d have reported anything I saw like that.
Similarly
(p.836) in
It would be foolish to
take any unnecessary risks,
the CGEL
maintains the any is the
‘non-affirmative’ sort. But the sentence can be paraphrased as
Any unnecessary risk-taking would be foolish,
where the any would clearly be called ‘free
choice’ by the CGEL. And in another of their examples of supposedly
‘non-affirmative’ any’s on page 836,
Any more pudding would be quite excessive,
it is very
unclear what sort the any is. To me
it looks much more like one of their ‘free choice’ any’s.
And what should one make of sentences like
You have to press hard to have any effect.
Anyone with any sense would have stayed at home. ?
The any’s look more like the CGEL’s
‘non-affirmative’ any’s than their
‘free choice’ any’s. Yet according to
the CGEL they must be ‘free choice’ any’s,
because ‘non-affirmative’ any’s are
not, they say, allowed in affirmative declarative sentences.
In any
case, the CGEL fails once more to convey anything of the essential meaning of any. It is much more accurate,
practical, and psychologically real – in the sense that it is the way native
English-speakers normally experience any -
to regard all any’s as one and the
same. They all carry the ‘whatever, whichever’ idea.
More misguided insistence on grammatical categorising
The CGEL tries to fit
everything, including of course the any
series, into its huge, elaborate system of grammatical categories. In the
process it has to resort to what sometimes seem to be rather desperate measures
to get out of difficulties this approach lands it in. It claims that
‘non-affirmative’ contexts ‘admit’ ‘negatively-oriented polarity-sensitive
items (NPIs)’, of which the ‘non-affirmative’ any series of words, but not
‘free choice’ any’s (pp.823,826),
are an example; while ‘affirmative’ contexts ‘exclude NPIs’ (pp.822-38). But
awkward facts get in the way of the CGEL’s construct. For instance, the last
two CGEL sentences quoted above
come from a series of examples of ‘NPI’s in what appear to be affirmative
contexts. But they are not really affirmative
contexts, say the CGEL’s authors (p.835):
Covertly negative lexical items with clausal or clause-like
complements
Many verbs
and adjectives that take clauses as
complements are covertly negative in
that they trigger entailments or implicatures involving the negation of
the subordinate clause, and this is sufficient to sanction NPIs in those
clauses. …………………..................
……………….
We group these covertly negative items into six classes: (a)
failure, avoidance, and omission; (b) prevention and prohibition; (c) denial;
(d) doubt; (e) counter-expectation; and (f) unfavourable evaluation.
I list below the CGEL’s examples of sentences with these
supposedly ‘covertly negative items’ which contain one of the any series:
[31] iv We managed to avoid any further delays.
[32] i We kept
him from telephoning anyone
before the police arrived.
ii I am prohibited from so much as naming any of the principals in
this case.
[33] i My client denies that he ever said any such thing.
ii
My client denies any involvement in the matter.
iii
My client completely rejects the notion that he ever
said any such thing.
[34]
iii I’m
doubtful about the value of pursuing
the matter any further.
iv
She expressed scepticism about there being any point in continuing.
(e)
Expressions of counter-expectation
A statement like I’m
surprised the car started asserts that I have experienced a reaction to the
discovery that the car started because that is counter to expectation: it
implies that I had a prior expectation that could be expressed as The car won’t start.
[35] i It astounds
me that they took any notice of him.
iii
We were all amazed that he had been able to write anything during that
time.
[36] i It would be foolish to take any unnecessary risks.
ii
Any more pudding would be
quite excessive.
I don’t
think languages work in the way the CGEL proposes: grammatical categories
admitting or excluding other grammatical categories. We use any etc. in these sentences, not because
they are ‘negatively-oriented polarity-sensitive items’ triggered by ‘covertly negative lexical items’, but simply
because any is the word we have to
use in these contexts if that is the meaning we intend. What else could we say
if that is what we want to say? In all the above sentences except [32] i, [34]
iii, and [35] iii, we could use - perfectly acceptably from the linguistic
point of view - some instead of any. In [32] i we could say someone instead of anyone; in [34] iii we could say much instead of any; in
[35] iii we could use something
instead of anything. These changes
would give the sentences quite different meanings. In most cases they would be
odd things to say; in most cases it is very unlikely that many people – or any
people – would ever say them. But they are excellent examples of the danger of
confusing the rare or unlikely in life
with unacceptability in language.
Any (etc.) is the natural word to
use in these contexts, because a speaker of them will normally need an extreme,
an emphatic word, and this is precisely what any is. See www.lingua.org.uk/saquirk.htm.
The argument under (e) seems to me an example of how
desperately the CGEL has to
strain in order to justify its assertions; in order to fit together pieces that
don’t want to be fitted together. The fact remains that in the examples the
authors offer, their supposedly “negatively-oriented polarity-sensitive items”
are being used in positive contexts. Categorisation of any etc. as negatively-oriented polarity-sensitive items is, I
believe, the sort of fantasy that grammarians impose on themselves.
Fundamentally,
creating language is not a negative process of ‘admitting’, or ‘excluding’, or
‘sanctioning’ categories, but a positive one of combining different meanings to
make the sense one wants. Actually, at this point in the CGEL the authors are
not very far from saying precisely this; but unfortunately their whole approach
prevents them admitting any such thing.
We do not say things
like
*I have any books.
That is not because
the any is a ‘non-affirmative
quantifier’ in an ‘affirmative declarative’ sentence, but because it is
nonsense. On the other hand,
I read any books
makes sense.
Returning to Chapter 5 (p.362) we find the CGEL continuing to
misunderstand what determines the acceptability or otherwise of sentences:
*I had been for a long walk
and was feeling hungry, so I ate any/either of the pies excludes not only
the non-affirmative reading (by virtue of being a positive declarative main
clause) but also the free choice one.
But one can say:
I’ll eat any of the
pies or
I can eat any of the
pies or
I always eat any pies.
It is the meaning of a particular occasion in the past in the
CGEL’s example – once more, a particular combination of meanings - that makes any nonsensical there. Even the use of any in a past context, though, can be
perfectly normal:
I was ready to eat any
of the pies or
When I was a boy I ate
any pies or
I could have eaten any
pies.
And is it clear what sort of any
the any’s are in these
sentences? Are they all unquestionably
the CGEL’s ‘free choice’ any’s?
False
distinction between proportional and non-proportional some and any
On pages 364-65 the CGEL introduces
a distinction between
Proportional and non-proportional quantification
The “not all” implicature is not found with all uses of some:
[19] i There
were some children in the park.
[non-proportional use of some]
ii I saw some children climb over the fence.
……………………………………………………………………………As for [ii], we are concerned with
the reading where some is unstressed,
reduced to /səm/
or /sm/. In this case there is no particular larger set of children that I have
in mind of whom it would not be true that I saw them all climb over the fence.
Again, then, I’m not implicating that I didn’t see all of a certain set of
children climb over the fence. Some
conveys “not all” only when it is interpreted proportionally, i.e. when there is a certain set involved such that
the issue arises as to whether all members of that set have the predication
property. …………………………………….But it isn’t only in partitives that some has a proportional interpretation.
Consider:
[20] i Some
people misunderstood the question.
[proportional use of some]
ii Some people don’t
know how to say ‘No’.
In [i] there is an
implicit set of people who were asked the question (perhaps the candidates in
an examination, perhaps the voters in a referendum, and so on), so some is interpreted proportionally: it
contrasts with all and implicates
“not all”. In [ii] I am talking about people in general, but people in general
constitute a set, so again we have the “not all” implicature.
On page 380 we find:
(z) Basic
non-proportional use, selecting plural and non-count heads
[27] i There
are some letters for you. [plural]
ii
We need some sugar.
[non-count]
…………………………………………………..In
this use some is non-proportional: we
are not concerned with a subset of letters belonging to a certain larger set.
There is accordingly no “not all” implicature, ………………………………………..This
some is normally unstressed and
pronounced /səm/.
On page 381:
(e) Basic proportional use
[31] i Some
people left early. [plural]
ii I think
some candidate expressed a view on this issue. [count singular]
Iii Some
cheese is made from goat’s milk. [non-count]
Here, in contrast most directly to use (a) [Basic non-proportional
use, selecting plural and non-count heads], we are concerned with quantity
relative to some larger set, so that there is a clear “not all” (and indeed
“not most”) implicature: “Not everyone left early, most people didn’t leave
early”, and so on. As with use (a), any
would generally be used in negative declarative contexts: I don’t think any people left early. In this use, however, some is stressed, and
not reducible to /səm/.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
(a)
Non-affirmative
anyn
Anyn has essentially the same sense as some in its basic non-proportional and proportional uses, but is
restricted to non-affirmative contexts – prototypically either negative
declaratives or else interrogatives.
The non-proportional use
is seen in:
[32] i There
aren’t any letters for you. [plural]
ii We
don’t need any sugar.
[count singular]
iii I
haven’t got any job lined up for you today, I’m afraid. [non-count]
And on page 382:
The proportional use of anyn is illustrated in:
[33] i I
don’t think any people left early.
[plural]
ii I
don’t think any candidate expressed
a view on this issue. [count singular]
iii I
don’t think any cheese is made from goat’s milk. [non-count]
This is yet another example of how abstract analysis cannot convey the
meaning of some and any and
how they are used; and, indeed, in the CGEL’s authors’ insistence on differentiating
between proportional and non-proportional some
they reveal a basic misunderstanding. Of [19] ii (above)
they say “there is no particular larger set of children that I have in mind …”
But of [20] ii (above) they say “I am talking about people in
general, but people in general constitute a set…”. But if this is the case,
then children in [19] i and ii are a
subset of children in general, friends
in We are having some friends round ([24]
ii b, p.365) are a subset of friends in general – or at least of the set of our
friends - and letters and sugar in There are some letters for you and We need some sugar ([27] i and ii, p.380) constitute subsets of letters
and sugar in general, and so some
is ‘proportional’ in these sentences,
although the CGEL claims it is
non-proportional. There is in fact, in its most common use, no such thing as
non-proportional some. The very
essence of some is the idea of proportion,
a portion, a part.
As regards any, the idea of
proportionality and non-proportionality is surely irrelevant?
The CGEL combines its confusion
concerning proportionality, as well as its questionable distinction of two
sorts of any’s, with confusion about
stress. It declares that its ‘free choice’ any
is always stressed (see above on page 361
and page 383). On page
381 (see above) it asserts
that ‘proportional’ some, as in Some people left early, is stressed, and
not reducible to /səm/.
These statements seem
to betray a basic misunderstanding of the nature of stress, caused once more, I
suggest, by insisting on basing linguistic analysis on category. Virtually any
word can be both stressed and unstressed, irrespective of grammatical category,
depending purely on context and the speaker’s meaning.
In all three examples
of the authors’ ‘free choice’ any on page 382 the any is unstressed. (Perhaps one should say, rather, not heavily
stressed, because there are not just two possibilities where stress is
concerned, stressed or unstressed. Stress is on a continuum, from minimum to
maximum, and is judged relative to the stress on the words surrounding it. Here
I would only stress any relative to computers, policeman and remaining dirt if my interlocutor had
contested my assertions about these things.) On the other hand, in a sentence
like
Any fool could have told you that
in most contexts the any would be stressed relative to fool; while in a sentence like
Any moisture will quickly
evaporate
the any
will not be stressed.
In contrast, on the same page 382 (see above) there are three examples of
their ‘proportional’ any where they
imply that the any’s are unstressed, when in fact they are
stressed. The any’s would only be
unstressed if they appeared in sentences like
I don’t think any people left
early, but some pigs did or
I don’t think any butter is
made from goat’s milk – cheese yes,
but not butter.
In the sentence Some /sʌm/ people left early it is clear that the speaker is talking about a
party, or a meeting, or perhaps a football match; in any case, it is a sentence
where it is natural to stress some
and not people, because people is, as it were, a default
concept, so there is no reason to emphasize it. But one could add
but some /səm/ ladies stayed
on to the very end,
where ladies would be stressed and some
would be unstressed /səm/.
On the other hand, if people is not a ‘default’ concept, as
in, for instance,
The Martians
all stayed to the end of the party, but some /səm/ people left early,
people will be stressed. Similarly, one might say
No butter is
made from goat’s milk, but some /səm/ cheese is.
Again, in contrast to Some people left early, consider:
Some /səm/ people came out of the house.
Here people is not a ‘default’ concept; the
listener needs to be told that it was people, not dogs or cats, or anything
else, that came out of the house.
As further
illustrations of the possibilities in the variation of stress, consider
sentences such as:
They made some /səm/ mistakes, but they weren’t important ones.
and
They made some /sʌm/ mistakes, but not many.
Or a conversation such
as:
“Next we’ll need some /səm/ sugar.” “I don’t think we need any sugar.” “No, I’m sure we’ll need some /sʌm/ sugar - not much, but some /sʌm/.”
(Note that in all
these examples, some, whether stressed
or unstressed, always has the sense of “part of”, whether it is part of all the
sugar or all the people in the world, or just part of the people at the party,
and so on.)
There are other flaws and mistakes in the CGEL’s
account of some and any.
CGEL page 380
[28] i It was some years before she saw him
again.
ii We discussed the problem at some length.
Here some cannot be
phonologically reduced to /səm/, and there is no replacement by any in negative contexts.
On the contrary, any is
perfectly normal in a negative context:
We didn’t discuss the problem
at any length.
Still on page 380, the CGEL is right to describe the use of some in the three sentences below as
“vague”:
(c) Vague count singular use
[29] i When I
arrived, some student was waiting outside the door.
ii Some
idiot must have left the oven on!
iii
Some day
I will win the lottery.
But wrong to restrict it to “count
singular use”. Some can be used in
this vague sense with plural count and non-count nouns as well:
Some idiots have left their cars blocking the exit, so nobody can get
out.
“Why do you have to collect your visa in person?” “Oh, some bureaucratic nonsense.”
CGEL p.384
(b) Generics
Some
is likewise excluded from generic NPs. Only the [a] examples in [39] allow
generic interpretations:
[39] i a. [A lion] is a ferocious beast.
b. [Some lion] is a
ferocious beast.
ii a. [Lions] are ferocious beasts.
b. [Some lions] are
ferocious beasts.
iii a. [Sulphuric acid] is a dangerous b. *[Some
sulphuric acid] is a dangerous
substance. substance.
This is a revealing statement. It
demonstrates the pointlessness – and misdirection - of so much of the CGEL’s
analysis. It is surely completely unnecessary to point out that some is not used to make generic
statements? The essential meaning of some
is the opposite of the generic. To make a point of it is rather like, for
instance, emphasizing that red objects cannot be described as colourless. I do
not believe the CGEL could have made such a point if its authors had recognised
that the essence of language is meaning, not grammar.
And the CGEL’s disqualification of
sentence iii b. is another perfect example of how grammarians confuse mistakes
in life with mistakes in language. Some
sulphuric acid is a dangerous substance is linguistically identical with ii
b., Some lions are ferocious beasts, which
the CGEL allows. It is not an unacceptable sentence; it is a perfectly normal
sentence, but almost certainly betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of
chemistry- presumably all sulphuric acid is dangerous. On the other hand,
Some cheese is too salty for my wife
is both linguistically and factually
correct.
Replacement
of a with some and any
CGEL p.384
Some and
anyn cannot replace a in examples like Jill has a
good knowledge of Greek .…
……………………: *Jill
doesn’t have any good knowledge of Greek.
Once again the authors fail to
recognize the fundamental factor of particular combinations of meanings. Surely
both
Jill has some (considerable) knowledge of Greek.
and
Jill doesn’t have any real knowledge of Greek.
are both perfectly sensible sentences?
CGEL page 411
Explicitly partitive constructions
Here the head is followed by a complement consisting of of+a partitive oblique, an NP which can
be plural, non-count, or, under restricted conditions, count singular:
[6]
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
iii a. some of the morning ………………………………… [count singular]
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Count
singulars are admissible as partitive obliques only if they can be interpreted
as divisible into parts in some relevant way. The clearest cases are those
involving time periods, as in [iii]. We can also have, for example, Some of the loaf had mould on it, but
not *Some of the car was muddy:
we need a noun head, as in Parts of the
car were muddy.
The authors are confused again here.
Usage is the opposite of what they say. Some
is used in this ‘partitive’ way with singular count nouns only if there is no clear division into separate parts.
The meaning of some of, in fact, sits
uneasily with single things at the best of times. It is nothing to do with
‘needing a noun head’. Indeed, some
in the phrase some of is itself
‘noun’-like. Some of sounds most
natural – perhaps one should say least unnatural – with single things when the
thing in question is rather amorphous. For instance,
Some of their argument is sound, but much of it is irrational.
‘Alternation with verbal negation constructions’
CGEL page 813
Clausal negation marked by the absolute negators is generally in
alternation with verbal negation in
which no is replaced by any in the case of [19i] and by
………………….. Compare:
[21] NON-VERBAL NEGATION VERBAL NEGATION
i a. They
showed no remorse.
b. They didn’t show any remorse.
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………..
There are three restrictions
that apply to the alternation between the non-verbal and verbal constructions.
(a)
No
verbal negation counterpart with negator in clause-initial constituent
Where the negator falls
within the subject or an element preceding the subject, there is no direct
verbal negation counterpart:
[22] i a.
Nobody knew where Kim was. b. *Anybody didn’t know where Kim was.
ii
a. At no stage did she
complain. b. *At any stage she didn’t
complain.
iii
a. ………………………………………………………………………
In the case of [iib/…],
the ungrammaticality of the verbal negation construction can be corrected by
placing the element in post-verbal position: She didn’t complain at any stage ……………………………
This is an example of trying to solve problems by resorting to
assertions of arbitrary grammatical rules. In fact it is once again just a
matter of compatible and incompatible meanings. [22] i b. is simply nonsense (whichever person you like to think of didn’t
know where Kim was). As for [22] ii b., this is a perfectly normal case of
meaning being determined by the combination of particular meanings with the
meaning of a particular word order.
One day she didn’t complain
is a natural sentence.
*Every day she didn’t complain
is not; it is an incomplete sentence.
Every day she didn’t complain
she was given a present
is a natural complete sentence. In the same way,
*At any stage she didn’t
complain
is incomplete too. At any stage
here is roughly equivalent to whenever.
*Whenever she didn’t complain
is very obviously an incomplete sentence. But
Whenever she didn’t complain
they gave her a present
is a natural sentence. So is
She didn’t complain whenever
they gave her a present,
but with a different meaning.
*Any days she complained
is an incomplete sentence; something like
Any days she complained, they
docked her wages
is needed. But
Some days she complained.
is complete; and so on.
CGEL page 822
Items which prefer
negative contexts over positive ones (such as any longer) are negatively-oriented
polarity-sensitive items, or NPIs.
[According to the CGEL, the any series of words are ‘NPI’s.]
CGEL page 834
(Here I use bold type to replace the double underlining of the original CGEL text which indicates the item
that according to the authors “sanctions” the underlined NPI.)
4.4 Non-affirmative contexts
……………………………………………..
Negators
All negators, whether
expressing clausal or subclausal negation, sanction NPIs [negatively-oriented
polarity-sensitive items]:
[28] i a.
Kim didn’t
do anything wrong.
b. No one did anything wrong.
[clausal negation]
c. Hardly anyone liked it at all.
ii
a. He seems not very interested in any of these activities.
b. It was a matter of little
consequence for any of us. [subclausal negation]
c. It is unlikely anyone
has noticed it yet.
Recall, however, that
the negative context begins at the point where the negator is located. An NPI
is not sanctioned by a following negator: cf. *Anyone did nothing
wrong or * We had given anyone
nothing.
Once more the authors seem unaware that the decisive factor is
particular combinations of meaning.
*Anyone did nothing wrong
[Whichever person you like to think of did nothing wrong]
does not make sense. But
Anyone with a conscience will
do nothing wrong.
does, as does
We could have given anyone
nothing, and they wouldn’t have complained.
‘Bare
infinitival why interrogatives’
CGEL page 835
Bare infinitival why interrogatives
[30] a. Why
tell them anything about it? b. *Why not tell them anything about it?
It might initially seem
surprising that the NPI is permitted in the positive question [a] but excluded
from the negative [b]. But again the explanation has to do with the conveyed
meaning of the construction.
Although positive, [30a] conveys the negative suggestion that there is
no reason to tell them anything about it. The negative meaning of the clause
that would express this negative implicature allows naturally for NPIs. With why not interrogatives, on the other
hand, there is a positive implicature. The conventional meaning of Why not tell them about it? is to
suggest via a rhetorical question that you should tell them about it. The
positive sense of the latter makes the NPI in [b] unacceptable.
Again this sort of analysis suggests a misunderstanding of how
languages actually work. The authors analyse language into rigid artificial
abstract grammatical categories, and then find they have to engage in all sorts
of intellectual exercises to justify the complicated edifice they have created.
The words they use are significant. They
say that this or that grammatical category or item “permits” or “sanctions” or
“excludes” some other grammatical category or item, as if language was a system
apart, a system of arbitrary immutable laws beyond the control of the people
who speak it. I think the nature of language is the opposite of this. It is not
a negative system of restrictions. A language is a positive system: a set of
meanings out of which sense is made by combining particular meanings sensibly.
Returning to [30a] and [30b], note how selective the authors are in
their examples and interpretations. Interpreting Why tell them anything about it? as a negative is purely
subjective. To me (no doubt subjectively too) it is a demand for a reason, and
therefore solidly ‘positive’. As for [30b], this is in fact a perfectly
possible sentence. One can see this easily if one makes the question more
realistic by adding a phrase:
Why not tell them anything they
want about it? or
“I don’t know what to tell
them.” “Why not tell them anything comforting?”
So their ‘NPIs’ are perfectly ’acceptable’ in Why not sentences; as we can see again if we paraphrase [30a].
Why not refrain from telling
them anything about it?
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