207. Exotic Grammar Structures 4

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Some English grammar structures are unlikely to be described in language coursebooks

THE NATURE OF “EXOTIC” STRUCTURES

The word “exotic” seems an appropriate one to describe grammar structures that are rarely, if ever, explained in English courses. The fact that this is the fourth Guinlist post on such structures is an indication that there are plenty of them (for a list of the other posts, see 88. Exotic Grammar Structures 1).

A few exotic grammar structures are absent from coursebooks because they have not been clearly identified by grammarians. Many, however, are left out because course designers usually lack the space to cover the whole of English grammar and, forced to make choices, tend to give priority to the more common structures in the belief that those will enable learners to have the greatest success in future communication.

Nevertheless, exotic grammar structures can still be useful, and even interesting, to know, especially for English users with a more advanced competence, who are the target audience of this blog. There are five that I have to offer this time.

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LIST OF EXOTIC STRUCTURES

1. Apparent Passives of Intransitive Verbs

Intransitive verbs (which cannot have an “object” noun or equivalent) cannot be in the passive voice, with BE before and -ed after (see 113. Verbs that cannot be Passive). *Is remained, for example, is an impossible form of REMAIN. Yet there are some intransitive verbs that seem to break this rule. Consider the following use of GO:

(i) When the police arrived, the money was gone.

GO here is definitely in the typical form of passive verbs. Yet, it is not a true passive, since its meaning does not differ in the same way from its active equivalent (went) as most normal passives do (see 21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings). Instead, the meaning of was gone is more like that of the past perfect active form had gone, where the gone is also not passive (following the general rule that “past” participles after HAVE are more “past” than “passive”).

Both was gone and had gone express states. The difference between them is perhaps that the former focuses attention more on the final state, the latter on the action causing it (though gone, in following BE, is still more verb-like than adjective-like: see 245. Adjectives with a Participle Ending, #2). This difference resembles the one between ordinary stative passives like were freed and those with HAVE BEEN like had been freed (see 66. Types of Passive Verb Meaning, under “Adjective Meaning”). For more about GO, see 176. Ways of Using GO.

There are only a small number of intransitive verbs that can be used in the same way as GO. Common ones are COME, ARRIVE, DEPART, DISAPPEAR, FAIL,  FALL and RISE. Their use often has a poetic feel (…were fallen in battle; …are departed from this life). To them might be added a use of passive DO with living subject nouns. With non-living subject nouns a passive like is done has the expected meaning of “is performed” (e.g. Work is done). However, with a living subject (e.g. Everyone is done) it normally means “has finished” (see 213. Special Uses of “Do” 2, #1).

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2. Noun + Relative Clause instead of “so” + Adjective

An example of this structure is:

(a) The wealth (that) people had, they could buy luxury cars.

The underlined part comprises a noun (wealth) followed by a relative pronoun (that, which, who etc.) that can sometimes be left unmentioned but still understood. The sentence means the same as:

(b) People had so much wealth that they could buy luxury cars.

In both cases, the underlined half of the sentence gives a cause of a consequence named by the other half (see 32. Expressing Consequences). The positions of the two halves are reversible:

(a1) People could buy luxury cars, the wealth (that) they had.

(b1) People could buy luxury cars, they had so much wealth.

For more on reversal with the so use, see 88. Exotic Grammar Structures 1.

The noun that expresses the meaning of so usually includes or implies the idea of “amount”, “level” or “number”; for example the wealth in (a) is equivalent to the amount of wealth. For a fuller discussion of sentences like (a), along with further examples, see 200. Special Uses of Relative Clauses, #5.

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3. “What” Highlighting Applied to “it” Sentences

The use of what to clearly indicate which part of a sentence is its focus is described in detail within these pages in 145. Highlighting with “What” Sentences. An example, with the highlighted part underlined, is:

(c) What plants do at night is absorb carbon dioxide.

Key features here are what placed at the start, and the highlighted words placed at the end after is (or other form of BE).

There are various kinds of it sentence, but the relevant one here uses it as a “dummy” subject representing a later-mentioned verb statement, like this:

(d) It is impossible to reach other stars.

(e) It seems a shame that poverty still exists.

The statements represented by it in each sentence are underlined. The main reason why they are not at the beginning is their length. For a fuller analysis, see 103. Representing a Later Statement with “it”.

The sentence type that I wish to present here combines the above two types:

(f) What seems a shame IS that poverty still exists.

Here, the that part of (e) – the “real” subject of the main verb seems – is highlighted by the what structure as the key information in the sentence. To compose the sentence you simply replace it with what and add is before that. It might be instructive to try rewording sentence (d) in the same way, before looking at the following suggestion.

(g) What is impossible IS to reach other stars.

One especially common type of what is… sentence with a later to verb indicates importance (see 199. Importance and Unimportance, #3).

The object of a to verb at the end of an it sentence (other stars above) can be highlighted by placing is before it rather than before the to verb. There is then the option of adding it after what:

(h) What (it) is impossible to reach IS other stars.

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4. Whole-Sentence Indirect Speech

Indirect speech is usually only part of a sentence – most typically the object of a speech or thought verb (see 127. When to Use Indirect Speech), like this:

(i) Rousseau BELIEVED that morality is better decided by conscience than by reason.

Indirect speech becomes more like an independent sentence, but is still not totally independent, when a speech or thought verb accompanies it in a parenthesis, like this:

(j) Morality, Rousseau BELIEVED, is better decided by conscience than by reason.

For more on such sentences, see 183. Statements between Commas.

However, it is possible under certain circumstances for sentences like (j) to altogether drop the words in the parenthesis (Rousseau believed) and still be understood as indirect speech. This happens if the sentence before gives the relevant clue, e.g.:

(k) ROUSSEAU BELIEVED that the human conscience evolves the clearest understanding of right and wrong. Morality is better decided by conscience than by reason.

A further clue to the presence of indirect speech in situations like (k) is often a past tense verb. Just as ordinary indirect speech is likely to be given such a verb because the verb introducing it is one, so the verb of whole-sentence indirect speech is often in a past tense when the “understood” speech verb (believed above) also is. Thus, in (k) the verb is after morality could easily be was instead, thereby clearly signalling indirect speech (see 171. Aspects of the Past Perfect Tense).

Indirect questions can just as easily be signalled by a previous sentence as statements can. Surprisingly, though, they must keep most of the features of direct questions, inverting their subject and verb and ending with a question mark, like this:

(l) CAESAR URGED his soldiers to keep marching. Where was their famous Roman willpower?

Note again the use in the question of was, reflecting the past tense of urged. In this case it is compulsory – the question is not understandable as relating to now.

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5. “No wonder…”

This phrase tends to occur at the start of a sentence, like this:

(m) No wonder languages are difficult to learn.

Used like this, no wonder… is an abbreviation of it is no wonder that… . Thus, the kind of sentence where it occurs is the same as that illustrated by (e) above: starting with a “dummy” it representing a later verb statement (here underlined).

The statement after no wonder expresses a consequence. As a result, there must be a recognised cause or reason (see 32. Expressing Consequences). Usually this will have been mentioned in a previous sentence, in which case no wonder is showing the link between them as if it were a “connector” (see 112. Synonyms of Connectors). An alternative, however – again as with most consequences – is to have the cause in the same sentence as no wonder, usually after the preposition with. One could, for example, begin sentence (m) With the size of their vocabularies, … .

The literal meaning of no wonder is plain enough: a suitable paraphrase would be it is not surprising (that)… (which does not similarly allow it is to be dropped in formal communication). However, there is a further important aspect: the verb statement after no wonder must say something that the addressee knows already, so that the main message of the sentence is just the meaning of no wonder. The usage is thus similar to that of that is why (see 20. Problem Connectors, #5) and of course (see 156. Mentioning what the Reader Knows Already, #4).

Thus, sentence (m) assumes that the reader already knows that languages are difficult to learn, and is just asserting that the difficulty is unsurprising in view of the previously-stated cause.