Verb aspect and ellipsis: does French helps?

[Jacques Lecavalier]

In French, your sentence (2) would not be grammatical.

Please compare:

(F1) Elle éleva trois enfants pendant qu'elle occupait deux emplois.
(F2) *Elle éleva trois enfants pendant qu'elle occupa deux emplois.

The tense "passé simple" is not compatible with the durative conjunction
"pendant que". But it seems to me that with another conjunction, "alors
que", which can be adversative and/or temporal, your sentence may be judged
grammatical, at least in oppositive contexts :

(F3) Elle éleva trois enfants alors qu'elle occupa deux emplois.

So my hypothesis is that it may be the same in English, but I leave that to
you and others.

Another test occurs to me. Let's replace the conjunction "while" by "and",
plus a temporal or oppositive modifier:

(3) She raised three children and she was working two jobs at the same time.

(4) She raised three children and she worked two jobs, nevertheless.

That way, you should be able to get rid of the second pronoun in (3) and of
the pronoun and auxiliary in (4):

(5) She raised three children and was working two jobs at the same time.

(6) She raised three children and worked two jobs, nevertheless.

Is this grammatical English ?

Jacques Lecavalier
jacques.lecavalier at rocler.qc.ca


----- Original Message -----
From: "Johanna Rubba" <jrubba at CALPOLY.EDU>
To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 8:24 PM
Subject: [Fwd: Verb aspect and ellipsis]


> A friend posted this query to a grammar list I subscribe to:
>
> > Here are two sentences containing adverb clauses:
> >
> > (1)  She raised three children while she was working two jobs.
> > (2)  She raised three children while she worked two jobs.
> >
> > In sentence (1), we can make the adverb clause elliptical:  "She raised
> > three children while working two jobs."
> >
> > Can somebody explain why the corresponding clause in (2) cannot be made
> > elliptical: *"She raised three children while worked two jobs"?
> >
> Any theories?
>
> I think this has something to do with the construal of 'working' as an
> ongoing process, thanks to the participial suffix; this coheres better
> with the meaning of 'while' than does the simple past 'worked'.
>
> But then why is #2 grammatical at all?
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue  . San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184  .  Fax: (805)-756-6374 . Dept. Phone.  756-259
> . E-mail: jrubba at calpoly.edu .  Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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