Dick Hudson wrote:
>> Let's see. We know that all English present participles take the
>> -ing form. Are there any other exceptionless principles or rules
>> of English (morpho)syntax? Maybe there are lots, but I kind of
>> doubt it. What there are lots of are central tendencies.
>
> ## I don't know any verb whose object precedes it,
I know a construction that we might say does this:
(1) Your car needs washing.
The subject of NEED is WASHING's object, right?
> or adjective that follows its parent noun,
What about in the context of:
(2) Some like it hot.
> or ... But of course I agree with your
> general point that in principle any generalisation *could* have
> exceptions. You might even generalise that the typical
> generalisation has exceptions.
Which is why at a more symbolic level we need default
inheritance. See, you are making headway with some of
us!
> But then you'd predict some
> generalisations that are exceptional, wouldn't you?
Doesn't this kind of happen in German? I'm thinking
about the Clahsen argument. I'm a little hazy on
the details.
Joe
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