Talk:Small clause

"We will be providing structural edits and adding new content to this page focused on SMALL CLAUSES. This is part of a course-based activity of a 3rd year syntax course, and we anticipate having completed our edits by the end of December. We would appreciate any and all constructive comments and suggestions about how to improve the overall quality of this article." Rachken Ammurr Rosabellec (talk) 19:34, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I know that the first example should be removed or replaced, as the verb "painted" selects not a clause but a direct and indirect object. I think that "the house blue" is no more a small clause than "the book to Mary" is in "I gave the book to Mary".

Additionally, I'm not so sure about "make" selecting for a clause either, since it seems to me that it, once again, has a direct and indirect object instead.

Urizen 10:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm working on a presentation on small clauses right now and I'm reading a lot of the relevant literature that lays out the different theories, so after I'm done I should be able to add a lot of info with citations. One thing that I've learned is that there are relatively few constructions that are universally agreed to be small clauses. This article should definitely be written in a way to show this lack of consensus. Aarts, Bas (1992) has a very nice table on p. 180 that gives a very concise rundown of areas of deisgreement between the major scholars, including Timothy Stowell, Noam Chomsky, M. Rita Manzini, Yoshihisa Kitagawa, Norbert Hornstein and David W. Lightfoot, Robert Kluender, Sandra Chung and James McCloskey, Andrew Radford; and Bas Aarts himself.--Hraefen Talk 22:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

French examples
How can we know that the French examples all involve a small clause? A couple of the examples have a relative clause that could perhaps be attached to the preceding noun. Consider, for instance, the following English sentences:


 * a. I saw the professor who was smoking.
 * b. I saw the professor who was smoking leave the room.

The relative clause who was smoking in (b) modifies the professor. How do we know that the same is not true in sentence (a)? In other words, how do we know that we are dealing with a small clause in (a)? --Tjo3ya (talk) 03:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The French examples still contain the same mistake. There are two examples with relative clauses, and it is not clear to me that the relative clause are part of small clauses. Typically, a relative clause modifies a noun in a straightforward manner. Please check with your professor about this. If the issue is not corrected, I inted to remove the examples.--Tjo3ya (talk) 00:29, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment! I hadn't realized that (a) and (b) were relative clauses rather than small clauses, I'll fix that. Can you clarify what you mean about "a straightforward manner"? Laurasegriffin (talk) 00:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I again recommend checking with your professor about this. Most relative clauses are dependents of the preceding noun, so they would not be analyzed in terms of a small clause. There are exceptions, though, such as the analysis of the relative-like clauses in it-clefts. For me, the fact that you cannot distinguish (or are not sure about) the distinction between small clause and relative clause is problematic. --Tjo3ya (talk) 05:25, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Definition section
I'm planning to add the following content user:Laurasegriffin/sandbox to the Definition section to clarify small clause behaviour, add more structure, and introduce evidence for alternative perspectives regarding small clause behaviour. Any and all comments regarding accuracy & style are welcome! I intend to post this content on April 6, 2019 if there are no objections. Laurasegriffin (talk) 23:03, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

The content from sandbox has been added! If anyone has any comments or concerns, please let me know here in the talk page, and I will make corrections ASAP. Laurasegriffin (talk) 04:48, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * There are number of problems with the newly added section. Above all, it rambles. It is not organized well, for there is redundancy with what appears lower in the article. The format used for examples now varies significantly throughout the article. The non-English examples lack interlinear glosses. The reasoning used for a couple of the examples is not strong, since alternative explanations are possible. For instance, consider the following pair of examples:


 * a. Frank saw Mary enter and John also saw that Mary entered.
 * b. Frank saw Mary enter, and John also saw it. (it=that Mary entered)


 * The it can be construed as standing in for the finite clause that Mary entered. The example therefore undermines the layered analysis, where Mary enter is deemed a constituent. A similar argument applies to the example What I heard was the people leaving. The present participle is a reduced relative clause: What I heard was the people who were leaving.


 * I am going to remove the new section unless these problems are rectified. So far, the additions to the article have not improved it, but rather they have rendered the article poorly organized, so that it is plagued by redundancy.

Hello, thank you for your comments! I have several comments.


 * As I comment here, I am doing the work that your professor should be doing. Please pass that comment on to her.

1: please advise where you think redundancy occurs/rambling occurs, so I can correct it. I'm not sure specifically what you consider rambling.


 * The main redundancy is occurs in the fact that the article, before you started, already contained discussion of the contradictory data, flat vs. layered structure. The discussion remains in part in the section with the title "Movement tests" (which is a misnomer, because clefting and pseudoclefting and answer fragments are not movement tests). You have now added the same sort of message to the article, but in a disorganized fashion. The article is becoming longer without contributing significant new information. That said, your section on the history of the small clause was a positive contribution, but you seem to have abandoned that effort.

There was discussion of the contradictory data in the structural analysis, but there were some contradictions in other data, e.g. pseudoclefting. I wasn't sure how the discussion in the structural analysis explained the pseudoclefting contradictions, so I created a separate section to discuss this. I haven't abandoned my section on the history of the small clause. Stay tuned for a draft in the next week or so!

2: Interlinear glosses will be added. Formatting for examples will also be fixed.


 * OK, but why not get it right in your sandbox before moving it here? It looks sloppy and hence does not build confidence in the person performing the edits.

I had posted the examples in my sandbox sans glosses since I wasn't sure if Wikipedia articles required interlinear glosses or not. Some Wiki pages, such as Logophoricity, use interlinear glosses while others, such as French pronouns, don't. That being said, I'm learning from my mistake and I will rectify it!

3: For example (a), "that Mary entered" is not a small clause. I'm not sure this is a good example for proform substitution. There are multiple ways to communicate the same idea, but that doesn't mean the small clause analysis is necessarily wrong. If you have alternate sources that support your flat analysis, please include them so that way this article can represent different viewpoints.


 * The point is that your example does not deliver any support for the layered analysis precisely because of the flexibility in interpreting the pronoun it. You have therefore produced an argument in favor the layered analysis that is faulty, misleading the reader.

I understand your point now, thank you!

4: I will move the constituency tests down to "Detecting Small Clauses" since having this information in two separate sections could be considered redundancy.

Yes, precisely.

5: Please consider revising content we add rather than deleting it. We wish to work with you to improve the small clause article and to have a collaborative approach involving you rather than having an edit war. As you know, we are doing this for a school project but we still wish to see the article improved from its current C rating to a higher rating. We would like to have you involved in this process as it is clearly something that you are passionate about. Please reach out to us through the talk page to let us know your thoughts and how we may work together and improve this article so that even someone with no knowledge of linguistics can learn about small clauses. Laurasegriffin (talk) 21:33, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the positive words. Here is the problem from my point of view, however. I am a seasoned syntactician with an extensive publication record. I am now helping to oversee the work of undergraduates whose efforts in syntax extend back a few months (or perhaps a year or two). I have expressed to your professor in the past that what she is doing is problematic, precisely because syntax is difficult stuff -- You guys are not editing an article on some aspect of popular culture. You are making the type of errors that one would expect people with your exposure to syntax to make, e.g. the inability to recognize relative clauses. Someone like me needs to come to clean it up later. --Tjo3ya (talk) 03:36, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I understand that you've been doing this work for a long time and clearly value Wikipedia editing a great deal. I can empathise with your perspective and am grateful for the constructive feedback you've been giving us.


 * Some further comments and suggestions for improvement: The format used for examples is inconsistent. I prefer the original format for English examples, because the examples then match the normal text. Before you started, the article was consistent in this area. I concede, though, that when examples from other languages are used, a different format is needed, one that accommodates the interlinear glosses, which are absent in the current version. Note that the format you are now using for examples gives the examples in a larger text size. That doesn't look good to my eye. Aesthetics count!

Sounds good! I'll go back and re-format the English examples to be in normal test, following the examples you have posted previously. TFor the interlinear glosses, I think there are two options. One of them is using a table to have a word-by-word breakdown, and the other is to have the format I'm currently using which also uses a larger text size. Looking at other articles for reference, Logophoricity uses the current format that I've been using. Please let me know what version you prefer so I can fix the examples!


 * When citing examples found in the literature, you should always include the page number where you found the example. In fact, including page numbers in citations is a good idea in general; it increases plausibility because it demonstrates more effort.

Thank you for the critique! I'll go back and change them.


 * The organization as it is not good. I think the order of the sections should be as follows: 1. Definition, 2. Examples, 3. Structural analyses, 4. Arguments for and against the two analyses, 4.1 Arguments for the layered analysis, 4.2 Arguments for the flat analysis, 4. Small clauses in other languages... I think the English examples should all use the original format, whereas when switching to other languages later in the article, the format has to change to include the interlinear glosses.--Tjo3ya (talk) 04:32, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that seems like a good outline! For small clauses in other languages, can we make it a separate section? So it will be: 1. Definition 2. Examples (in English) 3. Structural Analyses 4. Arguments for and against the two analyses 4.1 & 4.2 5. Small clauses in other languages Thank you so much for all of your comments! Laurasegriffin (talk) 06:08, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Plans for the article
Yes, your suggested outline sounds good to me. Concerning interlinear glosses, the necessity to include them increases as one reaches to languages that are less known. Examples from languages related to English (German, French, etc.) may not need the strict glosses, whereas examples from less-widely known languages require strict glossing. I think the examples you are producing from Persian, Welsh, etc. need the strict glossing. The tables are good for those examples. Interlinear glosses in table format have been added!Laurasegriffin (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Concerning what others have done in other articles, I think there is a lot of disorganized material out there. Take for example the notes you are producing. Compare your notes with the notes in the article here; the notes there give a sentence or two about the what is being cited and its relevance, whereby the actual sources are listed in the reference list. I think this practice is best, since it helps the reader understand what is being cited.

I see, that's not a style that I'm familiar with. Let me look into it more!Laurasegriffin (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Another issue concerns your use of brackets. You use brackets as the default mechanism to mark small clauses, whereas I originally used bold script. The problem with brackets is that they are the typical means used in many syntax texts to mark constituents, hence the very convention you are using to mark small clauses suggests that they are constituents, meaning you have not produced a neutral account. I therefore suggest that you switch to bold script (or some other convention, e.g. the underline, perhaps), since bold script is more neutral. --Tjo3ya (talk) 12:58, 8 April 2019 (UTC) I changed examples added to use bold script, or in cases where the bold script was obligatory (e.g. in the table format) I added the underline.Laurasegriffin (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Tjo3ya, thank you for your work on the small clauses article and the other Wikipedia articles that you work on. We are aware that you are a published syntactician and that is why we want to work with you on this article. We are students and that is why we will sometimes make errors - we are still learning but we (3 of us in this group) are passionate about this subject and about linguistics in general. That is why we picked this subject on Wikipedia. We ask that you give us a little bit of patience as we work on this article and in return we will offer transparency on what we want to accomplish with this project and we will strive to include you in the process. For the sake of this transparency, here is a list of the changes that we would like to add to this article:

1. General accessibility: this article as it is now is very technical and not accessible to the general public who may not have an extensive knowledge of syntax. We want to make the article more accessible by simplifying the language while retaining the nuances so that anyone can understand this article regardless of their background.

2. We also want to include more examples of small clauses in languages other than English so that small clauses can be understood to be a universal phenomenon and that their behaviour can be unique depending on the language

3. Thank you for your positive reception to our history section, we are still doing research and are planning on expanding it

4. We would like to include more detailed examples of x-bar theory. We understand that your area of expertise is dependency grammar and it has advantages over x-bar theory (particularly in examining cases where constituency is not clear), but x-bar theory can still be a useful framework for examining small clauses, particularly in cases where movement is suspected. We will keep in mind that constituency is not a universally-held concept and we will make our language more neutral in that respect.

This is our general plan for this article. We read every one of the critiques provided for us and we take them very seriously. As suggested, we will continue to post all of our proposed edits to the talk page and we will leave them up for 3 days so that we can address and correct for any concerns you may have, and hopefully post those edits to the main article once those 3 days have elapsed. We will strive to have less redundancies, include better citations (with page numbers!) and we will try to adhere to the organizational structure that you have started

Again, thank you for your work and all your comments. We know that you only edit our contributions because you want to maintain the quality of the article, and we want to demonstrate that we also believe in maintaining quality while also adding more knowledge to the article. We look forward to working with you!

Csstudent300 (talk) 18:54, 8 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The bold script for marking small clauses is also good. The table used for the example is good. However, I think the non-English examples should be postponed until the section on small clauses in other languages. The examples produced should be English examples when conveying the main ideas about and disputes concerning small clauses. If data from another language is particularly relevant to some aspect of the debate, then it is appropriate to put it in. Otherwise, however, the content is more accessible if it remains with English examples. Keep in mind that this is English Wikipedia. French small clauses should be discussed in detail in the French Wikipedia page on small clauses, Persian small clauses should be discussed in detail in the Persian Wikipedia page on small clauses, etc. --Tjo3ya (talk) 07:19, 11 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I'll move the non-English examples into my sandbox for now and then replace them with English examples! For examples in other languages, does this outline sound all right for each subsection (e.g. French small clauses, Persian small clauses): 1. Different attested constructions (e.g. NP VP, NP AP), infinitival verb grammatical/ungrammatical. 2. Constituency tests: support or disprove constituency arguments. This would provide a guideline for new language data organisation. There could be more subsections (maybe to discuss if these examples dis/prove layered/flat structure?), but this would be the starting point.Laurasegriffin (talk) 03:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

History Section
I am planning to add content to a history section, and have uploaded the content into my sandbox here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Laurasegriffin/sandbox. Any and all comments are encouraged! After including any comments, I intend to upload this content on April 16, 2019. Laurasegriffin (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Page numbers! When citing examples, page numbers are needed. In fact, always provide page numbers if possible. The sentence John's evading his taxes infuriates me likely does not involve a small clause. Where did you find the example? Is it verbatim from a source? I see further difficulties in the section as well, but that's enough for the moment. --Tjo3ya (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Page numbers had been included, and are now clearly marked. The examples from Williams' original 1975 paper were taken verbatim from Julie Balazs' 2012 thesis. I have linked it here: https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/31215 Laurasegriffin (talk) 21:57, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Examples in Other Languages
I have begun drafting sections for French examples and Lithuanian examples in my sandbox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Laurasegriffin/sandbox. I intend on uploading these examples on April 16, 2019. Any and all comments are welcome! Laurasegriffin (talk) 02:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Difficulties with accessibility here. The examples are referred to in the text with letters, but no letters are used to label the examples. Examples in the running text should be marked using italics, not quotation marks. I am losing confidence that anything positive is going to come of this. Only the tables used for examples are good.--Tjo3ya (talk) 13:40, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Do you mean the labels "NP AP" to show the category of small clause? I have now added these labels to the examples themselves to clearly show what exactly is the NP and what exactly is the AP. Laurasegriffin (talk) 22:01, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

X-Bar Structures
I have begun drafting an addition to the X-Bar Theory Structure section on my sandbox here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csstudent300/sandbox I Intend to upload this section when I am finished, sometime around April 18th, 2019. Please bring any issues to my attention before then, thank you.

Csstudent300 (talk) 21:59, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions
This developing article has numerous issues. I continue to be skeptical about the value of this project for content in Wikipedia in general. Please convey this comment to your professor, whose work I continue to do here. I've just skimmed the new content. Here are some problems and suggestions for improvement:

1. The numbering of examples should be consistent throughout the entire article. The convention employed should be consistent. I prefer the convention that enumerates the examples in order in each section, and then restarts for each new section.

2. The names of individual linguists should not generally appear in the main text. If it is necessary to mention them, their names can appear in the notes. It is appropriate to mention only the most prominent of linguists in the main text. See the debate on this issue going on for the article on non-configurational languages.

3. Brackets are still appearing in many places to mark small clauses. Please change to bold script, a more neutral way to mark the small clauses.

4. I am against including the section on the X-bar analysis. It is too dense and technical and not understandable to the average Wikipedia reader. If such a section is necessary, it might appear in the article on X-bar theory.

If I spend more time, I will certainly find further problems. These points are enough for the time being, however. To end on a more positive note, I think the sections on coordination in other languages can in fact be a valuable contribution (assuming further improvement, though). --Tjo3ya (talk) 07:36, 19 April 2019 (UTC)