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In the sentence, "my dog ran up to me, wagging its tail," does "wagging its tail" modify "dog" or "ran"? Does rewriting the sentence as "wagging its tail, my dog ran up to me" change anything?

tchrist
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codeMonkey17
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  • What research have you done yourself? (Clue: adverbs don't modify nouns.) – Tim Lymington Apr 22 '16 at 22:08
  • That is an adverbial phrase using a present participle. The phrase answers the question about how the dog ran up to the me. I can be positioned at the front or back (pre-positioned or post-positioned). – Lambie Apr 22 '16 at 22:15
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    @TimLymington Come on Tim!. This is a good question. The what research have you done thing is meant to be there for single-word-requests and the kind of people that like to answer those types of questions. On syntax, any decent question that's obviously problematic, doesn't need more research. For example if it's self-eveident what the problem is, as it is here. – Araucaria - Him Apr 22 '16 at 22:21
  • @TimLymington (btw, too scared to ask almost - what's your answer?) – Araucaria - Him Apr 22 '16 at 22:23
  • A canonical adverb is an adjective +'ly'. Adverbials (adverbial phrases) do not have to contain adverbs. They are merely relations whose topic (subject) is the verb (rather than the subject noun). They apply to the subject 'when it was doing the verb'. Adverbials can appear anywhere (except inside a [prepositional] noun phrase). – AmI Apr 22 '16 at 22:30
  • The topic of the adverbial phrase is the verb?? I say its relationship to the verb is that it answers the question how. How did the dog run up to you? – Lambie Apr 22 '16 at 23:00
  • Related. – tchrist Oct 03 '23 at 14:06

1 Answers1

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This is called a praedicative adjectival phrase; that means that it has an adjectival form and syntactically it mostly modifies the noun (my dog), but semantically it tells you something about both the noun (my dog) and the verb (ran). This is often the case when an adjectival phrase comes after the noun it modifies. Other examples:

She arrived first.

She became mad.

Community
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Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
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    Surely not, Cerberus. It has the form of a clause (not an AdjP) whose head word is the verb "wagging". It even has a direct object "its tail". VPs/clauses don't usually modify nouns like this. It has to be a non-finite gerund-particial clause functioning as supplementary adjunct - the kind of adjunct that doesn't modify anything, but simply provides additional (though syntactically optional), information. Like most non-finites it's subjectless, but the subject (my "dog") is easily recoverable from the main clause. – BillJ Apr 23 '16 at 08:52
  • @BillJ: Why do you say it doesn't modify the dog? As to the rest of our disagreement, I think that rests mostly on mere terminology. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 23 '16 at 12:57
  • Non-finite clauses as supplements are not noun post-head modifiers. It would modify "dog" in something like . A dog wagging its tail ran up to me. But this is an entirely different construction. Supplements like this are not modifiers at all, but just appendages. – BillJ Apr 23 '16 at 13:33
  • @BillJ: Why is it a different construction? It looks the same to me, except that now the participial phrase is appositional. The forms are the same, and so are the semantic roles. I think together those should be the most important criteria. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 23 '16 at 13:39
  • Syntactically it's quite different ( a different construction), and we are talking syntax here, not semantics. Why do you say the forms are the same? – BillJ Apr 23 '16 at 13:41
  • @BillJ: As to form: the exact same words are used. So the two are morphologically identical. Only the comma is "new". As to the word order: you changed it to demonstrate a difference, but I really don't see how that turns it into a different construction here. As to semantics, the analysis of syntax heavily depends on it, even though it is in the end not about semantics. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 23 '16 at 14:05
  • If you take an expression like "wagging its tail", and switch it from a tightly integrated part of a noun phrase (as in a dog wagging its tail), to a loosely attached element at the end of the clause, the syntax does change. Noun modifiers are part of the NP; the noun and its modifiers form a constituent. But a loosely attached supplement tagged on at the end of the sentence is a completely separate constituent, not part of the NP. – BillJ Apr 23 '16 at 14:16
  • @BillJ: Then how would you describe the relation between my dog and wagging its tail in the comma sentence? I will admit that the conexion is somewhat looser, but it is still the same type of conexion. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 23 '16 at 14:27
  • The connection is actually quite different in that "wagging its tail" has "my dog" as an anchor (some grammars call it a 'host'). Although it's not dependent on a 'head', it is semantically related to the anchor. By the way, do you by any chance have access to the award-winning 'The Cambridge Grammar of The English Language' by Huddleston & Pullum? – BillJ Apr 23 '16 at 14:43
  • @BillJ: I have it, but I haven't read most of it...while it contains valuable research, I don't always agree with their choices. But it strikes me that so many debates about linguistics seems to be mainly about terminology, not about the res ipsa. // So you call it an anchor relation: the dog is the bottom and the wagging is the ship? How is it essentially different from the relation in your other sentence, the one without the comma? And how do you explain that many people seem to agree that the participial phrase can only be used when it is anchored on the subject of the sentence? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Apr 23 '16 at 16:41
  • The topic of supplements and anchors is discussed in some depth in CGEL Ch15, pp1350-1362. I think you'll find it's well worth a read. – BillJ Apr 23 '16 at 17:23
  • @BillJ May I please trouble you to distill the reasoning shown in your comments here into a separately posted answer to this question? – tchrist Feb 25 '17 at 15:50
  • @tchrist Yes, of course. I just want to double-check something first with Geoff Pullum before I post an answer. I won't forget! – BillJ Feb 27 '17 at 11:50
  • @BillJ It's been a year and folks are still asking about adjuncts like these. – tchrist Feb 11 '18 at 03:08
  • @tchrist Oh dear, Tom, I did forget. It must be old age getting the better of me! – BillJ Feb 11 '18 at 07:41