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I had this idea once: provided that a sheet big
enough were found to take up all the structural possibilities of English, all
the teaching activities would unfold as an intricate mandala – all starting
from a core and creating a 3D-network. Taking the paths that are forming from
the core would lead anyone to progress, and at the same time would make
learning something tangible and finite. Well, the ‘good news’ is that I’m not
the only one who would like to find a solution to what in fact keeps someone
studying for years and years. The ‘bad news’ is that it would hardly be of any
use to master structures alone – simply because the meaning of structure
is relative.
Where does the structure get formed and where
does lexis stop exerting an influence?
1. Harry’s
doctor vs. Harry’s a doctor
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Do you recognize the combinations in the
example?
Is any of them a structure? And, if so, which
one?
How many differences can you find?
What are the questions you would ask so as to
receive them as answers?
2. Verb Meanings
The verb strike is polysemous – a very
common phenomenon in all the world's languages. In its second sense, it is close
to hit, or attack somebody /something:
[adapted from Oxford Dictionary
of Collocations]
a. He struck her hard across the face.
b. The German army struck deep into
northern France.
c. Lightning struck the old oak.
d. The remark struck home.
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Which sentence presents /sentences present the
literal meaning? Is any of them an expression that should be understood
figuratively? If so, which one(s)?
3. The same verb, in its second sense, means ‘come
into your mind suddenly/give an impression. What this means is that you should
expect certain adverbs to appear in sentences in which this sense is used (the
examples are taken from the same source):
a. It suddenly struck me how we could
improve the situation.
b. An awful thought has just struck me.
c. Joan was struck by the forcible silence.
d. He struck me as being rather slow-witted.
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The thing is, how do you decide on the meaning
to be applied in these sentences? What is there that directs you towards this
other sense?
When you’ve read the answers, I hope you’ll see
what I mean. And agree with me that you can hardly ever convey any meanings (in
English, in this case) without constructing those meanings from some linguistic
material arranged in a structure and having a phonological support. So, back to
the starting point.
Answers
1. Both
are structures: the former is the expression of a possessive relationship, in
which ’s stands for the possessive marker; the latter is a
predication, in which ’s stands for the abbreviated form
of is .Compare: Who's that man over there? -> Harry's doctor vs. What's Harry's job/What does Harry do? -> He (=Harry)'s a doctor.
2. (a)=
Literal meaning; (b) a border case, since ‘army’ is a collective noun, ‘struck
deep’ is a metaphor (and a collocation) and you need a lot of imagination
already; (c) a collocation (lightning, as a phenomenon, strikes); (d) strike
home/ram home are fixed expressions created in warfare, with remark as an abstract entity (i.e., what
you said reached the listener’s understanding and produced the intended
effect).
3. In
(a) it surely makes you think of a
situation, therefore abstract sense + suddenly à produce
an impression. (b) thought directs
you to decoding this sense; (c) a border case, since you can’t decide on the
sense until you finish taking the whole sentence in. If you compare Joan was struck by the forcible silence
with the passives of 2 (a) She was struck
hard across the face and 2 (c) The
old oak was struck by lightning you’ll accept that what unites the senses
is a concept: a sudden (unexpected) blow, either physical or psychological. Yet
again, in (d), if you stopped in the
middle of the intonation unit ‘he struck me’, then you would go back to
sense nº 1.
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