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Talk:Do-support

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Introduction

The introduction has been added to ensure that encyclopedic need (need to include information on a commonly mentioned topic) does not purport support of an erroneous concept.

I have undone the edit by USER:Angr (edited part of the introduction out citing removal of opinion) because the information provided is not opinion.

I understand that it is counter to the information provided in the body of the article and is in fact counter to what is included in the majority of grammar texts (especially those published by ESL publishers), but in fact it is not opinion. The idea of "do-support", "pro-verbs", and "dummy verbs" are however opinion. They are concepts based on fallacious analyses of the English language and are known to be non-functional in most instances.

Having no linguistic basis, and being the cause of so much confusion and frustration among learners of English, my preference would be to delete the article entirely as I have spent 20 years dealing with the damage caused to learners by promoting these ideas. However, these ideas are common, and as such, people will see this words out there and should be able to look them up somewhere. It is important though that when they do encounter an article on them, especially from a trusted sources such as WP, that a disclaimer be provided that both establishes these concepts as what they are while also providing a brief explanation of the correct analysis and justification for classifying them as linguistically incorrect.

Please do not revert without further linguistic discussion of the information provided. Drew.ward (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:BRD. Making a bold change is fine (like you did), but when someone else reverts that change (like I did), the next step for you is to discuss without reverting back to the contentious edit. As for the content of the page, it's simply a descriptive fact of English that do-support occurs in questions and negatives when no other auxiliary is present. You say it has "no linguistic basis", but it has a clear linguistic basis, namely the following data, whose accuracy I trust you do not deny:
(1a) John rides the bus.
(1b) John does ride the bus.
(2a) John rides not the bus.
(2b) John does not ride the bus.
(3a) Rides John the bus?
(3b) Does John ride the bus?
In each pair, the (a) sentence has no do-support and the (b) sentence has do-support, and that's all the term "do-support" refers to: the replacement of a finite form of a lexical verb with the corresponding finite form of do followed by the "base form" of the lexical verb. In English, the unmarked sentences in each pair are (1a), (2b), and (3b), while (1b) is used only for emphasis, and (2b) and (3b) are archaic but may still occur in poetry. This isn't fallacious, and it isn't a lie to ESL/EFL students; it's just a fact of English grammar. The term "do-support" by itself does not make any claim as to why or how this substitution occurs. It occurs in English under certain circumstances, and it occurs in other languages under other circumstances (a fact which needs to be discussed in the article; for example, in Manx, finite forms of lexical verbs occur very rarely: in most circumstances, a finite form of do or be is used in conjunction with the verbal noun, so in that language, do-support is more widespread than in English). Now, linguists may argue about the cause and analysis of do-support (is it caused by insertion where it appears, or is it there from the beginning and then suppressed where it does not appear?), but argument about the theoretical analysis of do-support doesn't change the fact that it exists as a phenomenon in the grammar of English (and other languages). —Angr (talk) 21:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

First, full disclosure: I created this page. That said, I agree that it is insufficient and needs a more world-wide view, among other shortcomings.

Second, to the substance of this dispute: I do not agree that material added by Drew.ward is an improvement in terms of the coverage or information of this article. Since the additions were unsourced and appear to reflect original research by user Drew.ward, they should therefore not be added to the article.

Third, to the notions of "encyclopedic need" and the role of subject-matter experts: Misplaced Pages policy is not to publish new analyses that its editors deem superior to previous ideas. (See also the essay Misplaced Pages:But it's true!) Instead, Misplaced Pages reflects the consensus view and main minority views of previously published work. (See also the policy statements Misplaced Pages:Core content policies and Misplaced Pages:Verifiability.) In this sense it is more like a textbook than a scientific journal. Subject matter experts (and by the way, it is my understanding that both Angr and Drew.ward are professional linguists, as am I) should verify that content on Misplaced Pages pages accurately reflects reliably published sources, and that those sources do not represent fringe theories within our fields. However, subject matter experts should never succumb to the temptation to underplay theories we disagree with nor to label them as fallacious. (See also the policy statement Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view.) Cnilep (talk) 00:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Two subtle questions

Since a recent correction, this page declares, "Except in copular sentences such as Is he here? or They are not banjo players (and except in have questions like have you any bananas, which are permissible in some but not all dialects), in English all questions and all sentences with negative polarity feature an auxiliary verb."

This is not strictly true, as exemplified by Angr's examples above, or literary usages such as "No, no, go not to the Lethe". Is it worth getting into the particulars, I wonder? The pre-correction version was no truer: "In English, all questions and all sentences with negative polarity feature an auxiliary verb."

A second, related question: I added (originally in a footnote) the bit about "Have you any bananas?" I know that some speakers use main-verb have without do, and that it sounds slightly odd to me. I wonder, though, whether this is a case of WP:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, or if some readers or editors may doubt it?　Cnilep (talk) 03:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding your first point, I actually thought of that when I wrote it, but wrongly decided to ignore the out-of-the-ordinary constructions in the interest of keeping the sentence from getting too long. I'll put in "almost" for strict correctness. However, I think that "John rides not the bus" and "Rides John the bus?" are poor examples -- those forms would be extremely rare. A better example would be "John rides the bus?" I'll put that in as an exception.
Regarding your second point: It sounds a bit odd to me too, but only because I'm American. But I do see it a lot from British speakers -- both the form "Have you any bananas" and, more commonly, the form "I haven't any bananas". I don't think it needs to be cited, because I think any Briton would say it's a sky-is-blue thing. Duoduoduo (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
I have to agree with Duoduoduo here, "Have you any bananas?" is grammatically incorrect and thus shouldn't be taken into account. It is commonly used by some speakers particularly in parts of the UK but it is not a correct form. It has come about due to speakers confusing have as a perfecting auxiliary "You have eaten -- Have you eaten?" with have as a main verb "You (do) have a cold -- Do you have a cold?" but not "Have you a cold?". Drew.ward (talk) 01:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Under normal circumstances "commonly used by some speakers" is virtually equivalent to "grammatically correct", at least within traditions of descriptive and theoretical linguistics. See Linguistic description and Grammaticality, inter alia. Cnilep (talk) 04:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Just because an error is common does not make it grammatical. I can go out into the street and here "She be hatin on him" but to include it in a reference to English grammar would be wrong because no matter how many people say it, it's grammatically incorrect. Drew.ward (talk) 13:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
No, we have to be descriptive here. There are dialects in which "Have you any bananas?" is grammatical and other dialects in which it is ungrammatical or at least very odd. It would violate both Misplaced Pages's NPOV policy and all standards of scientific endeavor for the article to call "Have you any bananas?" an error. (Incidentally, I'm not a speaker of British English, but I believe that most Brits would be more like to say "Have you got any bananas?" than "Have you any bananas?".) Angr (talk) 20:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Being descriptive does not include misinforming readers. It's obvious that "Have you any bananas?" is incorrect in Standard English. This is not an article on language theory, and obviously there are too many "dialects" to describe here. How is it NPOV to describe only one when we can admit that it's not Standard English? I think we've already covered ourselves with the "almost" qualifiers, and we don't need to get into non-standard usage. Please remember that this page is very useful for ESL students and teachers, and that "Have you any something?" is a common mistake among beginners and intermediates. David.f.dana (talk) 16:21, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Since there is no single monolithic "Standard English", you cannot say it is "incorrect in Standard English". English has more than one standard, and "Have you any bananas?" is correct in some standard varieties of English, and incorrect in other standard varieties. Angr (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
  • OK I just reworded that paragraph to include the colloquial "Have you a..." example but to label it appropr'ately. I also rewrote most of it, but kept the same points. As most of you know, I don't buy into this idea of do-support and it's not something that could in the slightest bit be linguistically justified. That said, for some reason the consensus on here is that this weird idea is to be the official wikipedia version of English grammar so I didn't "correct" it as I feel would be the academically responsible thing to do. What I have done though it clarify some of the ways that first paragraph was worded to ensure that most of the missing understanding of what goes on in English verb forms is at least somewhat accounted for so that readers upon consideration of the article may themselves surmise the actual linguistic happenings that proponents of do-support attempt to account for with this theory. Hopefully this is an adequate compromise.Drew.ward (talk) 19:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Do-support isn't a theory; it's a descriptive fact. You yourself just wrote "I didn't 'correct' it", using do-support. You didn't write "I 'corrected' it not". Anyway, I had to revert your changes because they were incomprehensible. I have no idea what "an unperfected, simple aspect verb" or "vocal auxiliary" means, and the sentence was long and rambling and very difficult to follow, including multiply nested parenthetical tangents. Finally, you called the American English constructions "Do you have a pen?" and "No, I don't have a pen" standard, although they are not standard in British English. Angr (talk) 07:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Well now I'm unreverting it because saying you don't like something and calling it incomprehensible because you personaly don't understand the concepts are not grounds for reverting a change. If you don't know what these things are maybe you should either ask or research before rejecting them. A vocal auxiliary is an auxiliary used to signify voice (as in active, passive, or middle voice). In English the two vocal auxiliaries are BE and GET with BE being far more common than GET in that usage. Unperfected means that the verb has not been perfected - or in simple terms that the grammatical structure of the verbal construction has not been preempted by the perfecting auxiliary HAVE with the following verb put in the past participle form. If you don't know simple aspect is, I really don't think you need to be arguing anything on here...
I (and the others you're opposing on here regarding the 'have you bananas' issue) have not asserted preference over American or British varieties. The use of have without auxiliary do is neither standard in the UK nor in the US. It is however a colloquial construction found in both varieties albeit all but limited to older literary sources in American varieties these days. Just because you or people around you use this construction does not nor has it ever made it standard. No one's calling wrong, or incorrect, or less desirable. Get over yourself. It's not standard English; it's colloquial and when you consider the small number of speakers out of the 400-500 million native and near native English speakers in the world, it's rare. Providing reference to it while classifying it as a regional colloquialism (which it is) is the best compromise possible while not confusing readers or destroying the quality of this article.
Finally, if as you say, "Do-support isn't a theory; it's a descriptive fact," then prove it. I have neither edited out the content of this article asserting the acceptance of this theory, nor have I presented an alternative. I know it's not correct and I know that's true because it cannot be linguistically proven because the only way to buy into the idea of do-support is to ignore huge chunks of well-proven linguistic attributes of English grammar. I've already fought the fight on here to have this article label do-support' as the non-universally accepted theory that it is. The consensus on here has been that despite ample proof (easily explained proof) that it's incorrect, that wikipedia won't classify it as anything but true and the only wiki-approved explanation of what DO is in English whether it works or not. If you are so sure of yourself, why don't you do what no one else on here has ever been willing to do: provide irrefutable proof that do-support is correct. Proof by the way is not sources or citing it's being mentioned on websites or in books or in grammar guides. Proof is actual, accepted linguistic proof that provide an explanation that works 100% of the time, has no exceptions, cannot be disproven, and does not require a specialised version of syntactic theory that applies only to the English language. Go ahead. Let's see you do it.
I'm guessing you'll just take the easy way out, throw a fit approach that everyone else on here takes when called out and pack up your toys and say you don't have to prove anything because this is what it is or some other excuse. I'm hoping though that you'll be a better man (or woman) than that and take the effort to stand by your claim and provide proof. Let's see...
I am going to now revert back the change to the last version I added. In doing so, I will however look through it and see if I can reformat it to be clearer or more easily read. Until you can take the time to reply to the points above though here on the talk page, I think it apt that you not revert what I've written again. If what I've written is wrong and what you've written is right, then you should be able to easily prove it at which point I will gladly do the revert for you myself. Additionally, if the style or wording of my version bother you, then without changing the content, why not recommend or make some subtle changes as you feel would be required to rectify your perceived issues?Drew.ward (talk) 17:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, I have reverted to the previous version, but have then moved the majority of inline examples to hover boxes and provided hover box definitions for all of the terminology that confused you. Hopefully this version is easier to read.Drew.ward (talk) 18:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Once again, please see Misplaced Pages:Core content policies, Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, and Misplaced Pages:But it's true! It is not Misplaced Pages policy that English has do-support. It is Misplaced Pages policy that Misplaced Pages articles reflect reliable third-party sources; it is sources such as Traugott and Pratt 1980, Kaplan 1989, and most English grammars that assert the existence of do-support. It may be appropriate for Misplaced Pages editors to argue about the adequacy of those sources as sources, but Misplaced Pages is not the appropriate forum to argue that most existing grammars are wrong and that one or several Wikipedians know better. Cnilep (talk) 00:20, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, if it's verifiable, find me a single source that can verify that do-support is linguistically sound by proving it to be correct. One source or a hundred sources that say something without proving it to be true have no more value than having no sources at all. If it's so easily clear and such a sound concept, why can't any of you find a single nugget of support other than source after source that says 'this is what it is' without themselves providing any support or defense at all? You guys all I'm sure have the best of intentions regarding the quality of articles on here, so if you do, find proof for do-support. And if you can't, either delete the article or reword it to point out that it is an unfounded theory. You guys need to be holding yourselves to the same standards as you're holding me in regard to this discussion. So?Drew.ward (talk) 01:53, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Here are a few.

  • Brinton, Laurel; Brinton, Donna (2010). The Linguistic Structure of Modern English. John Benjamins. p. 234. So a verbal element must be supplied by inserting the dummy auxiliary do. This serves the function of an auxiliary when there is no other independent auxiliary present. This insertion transformation is called do-support.
  • DeCapua, Andrea (2008). Grammar for Teachers. Springer. p. 5. Therefore, to make these sentences into questions, we need to add something to the position before the noun phrase. This "something" is the auxiliary do, which functions to "fill" the auxiliary slot before the noun phrase in question.
  • Freidin, Robert (1982). Foundations of Generative Syntax. MIT Press. p. 171. The distribution of this auxiliary can be accounted for via a substituion transformation that inserts the auxiliary do (not to be confused with the verb do) into an empty auxiliary position in Infl.
  • Heidinger, Virginia (1984). Analyzing Syntax and Semantics. Gallaudet U Press. p. 82. In the sample question, do must be inserted. Without do the questions would be The baby walks? and *When your guests arrived? Although The baby walks? is grammatical, and it asks a question, it does not have the syntactic form of a question.
  • Huddleston, Rodney D.; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2005). A Student's Introduction To English Grammar. Cambridge U Press. p. 152. Negative clauses of this kind require the presence of an auxiliary verb. If there is no auxiliary in the corresponding positive clause, formation of the negative involves the insertion of do as described in Ch. 3, §3.1, and illustrated in
  • Klammer, Thomas P. (2006). Analyzing English Grammar. Pearson/Longman. p. 261. It appears only in sentences that have undergone some kind of transformation. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

These come from generative grammar, phrase structure grammar, and pedagogical grammars. They are not bound to a single school or approach and are certainly not fringe theories. I would suggest that any argument rejecting these and the many similar grammars of English is better suited to linguistics journals and not to Misplaced Pages. Cnilep (talk) 03:27, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Those are all just statements. They don't justify it at all. They don't explain what the role of do is, how they justify treating this particular use of an auxiliary verb differently from all others in English, or how they justify using a unique version of syntax for English that can't be applied to any other language (and which only works in English sometimes). Can you provide actual research and proof?Drew.ward (talk) 05:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Origin of do-support?

Hello,

Is there any interest in adding a section on the origin of this phenomenon (that is, how and why English developed this unique characteristic)? I'd think supplementing the informative but straightforward current desciption of do-support with a bit about the historical linguistic circumstances that led to its development would improve the article. Any thoughts? NORTHUMBRIAN SPRǢC 04:48, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

A few sources we might use for an origin section. I'll look them over and perhaps work on an origin addition this weekend, if no one objects. Cheers, NORTHUMBRIAN SPRǢC 15:32, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Draft started

I've started a draft of the Origin section here using the references above. It's very rough at the momentl I hope to continue polishing it over the next few days. Anybody else interested is free to work on it too. NORTHUMBRIAN SPRǢC 22:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Who should we trust?

Two users (or at least, users editing from two different IP addresses) have removed or changed the example sentence Who did Jean flirt with? Although neither left an edit summary, I presume that each believes that only whom (not who) may serve as the object of a preposition in English. Although a few usage commentators insist on a "whom for objects" rule (e.g. Grammar Girl, various style guides), most (e.g. Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, et alia) do not. MWDEU notes that objective who has been in use since Shakespeare.

The Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style does offer some guidance on grammar, but who versus whom is not part of that guidance. Anyone who believes strongly that this usage is unacceptable should probably argue the case at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style, and be prepared to cite reliable sources for arguments in either direction. Such editors may also want to review this archived discussion.

Come to think of it, though, since this is an example sentence, and since English speakers actually do say the sentence in either of the two ways indicated on this page, such MOS arguments wouldn't really come into it. Cnilep (talk) 07:18, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure the intent of the previous unsigned edits but regardless of whether it's common or whether linguists argue for its acceptance or not, whom and not who as object is standard English and is the only grammatically correct option. Obviously quite a few speakers use who for all forms and for them whom (while known to be the prescriptive form and certainly understood) is not common usage. There are other articles in which the who vs whom dispute is constantly discussed, but seeing as this article is on the theory of do-support, this is not the place to make changes or have discussions over which to push as the norm. Whom is the grammatically correct form, so even if for many editors who is more common, the correct form should be the one used because doing otherwise risks detracting from the value of the given example in regard to the topic at hand (this goofy erroneous idea of do-support).Drew.ward (talk) 00:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

So to summarize, on one side of the debate we have Grammar Girl and Drew.ward. On the other side we have Strunk and White, Fowler, MWDEU, Shakespeare, Ursula K. Le Guin, The New Yorker, Willa Cather, and the British Parliament (see below), among others.
I note Drew.ward's suggestions above that experts, not the usage of English speakers and writers, determine what is Standard English, but I strongly disagree.
Cnilep (talk) 01:40, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
"I note Drew.ward's suggestions above that experts, not the usage of English speakers and writers, determine what is Standard English"
ummm...where exactly did I say that??Drew.ward (talk) 16:28, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
You didn't say that. You wrote, "regardless of whether it's common or whether linguists argue for its acceptance or not, whom and not who as object is standard English and is the only grammatically correct option", which is simply untrue. Who as object is also standard English and is also grammatically correct. Angr (talk) 19:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

This is the wrong place to have this argument. I have replaced the original example with another one that illustrates the same point just as well, without unnecessarily provoking the peevers. Shout out to all my whomies. CapnPrep (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

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