Ultan's grammar quip

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 13 May 2011, 18:44 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 11:44:51 -0700
Subject: (urth) Ultan's grammar quip
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On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 11:33 AM, Jason H <beet31425 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that the problem is the placement of "mostly" (although for a
> different reason from what David says). It needs to be adjacent to the word
> it modifies. The correct statement is "Master Palaemon mostly teaches us
> apprentices." That is, the main thing that Palaemon does is teach: he
> "mostly teaches". In contrast, "teaches us apprentices, mostly" really means
> that he teaches different kinds of people, and most of them are apprentices
> (but e.g. there might be some journeymen that he also teaches). I don't
> think this is what Severian means.

If Severian meant that, he would probably say "Master Palaemon teaches
mostly us apprentices" -- or, more properly, "mainly." The hanging
adverb, separated by a comma from the rest of the sentence, is used by
Mark Twain (especially in the voice of Huck Finn) exactly as
Wolfe-through-Severian uses it here: to modify the verb, but to have
that modification come as an afterthought. The sentence as provided is
perhaps technically ambiguous, but the meaning is clear: it is the
same as if the "mostly" had been placed before "teaches."

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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