Purslanes cultivating

[Joel S. Berson]

At 7/9/2014 08:51 AM, Elizabeth J. Pyatt wrote:
>I would agree that pragmatically this sentence doesn't work because 
>most terrestrial plants can't choose to cultivate themselves. 
>Further "cultivate" is not generally considered an unaccusative verb 
>like "start" or "close" - that is, the verb assumes there is an 
>active agent initiating the cultivation.
>
>But suppose Purslane is an exotic sentient plant that can choose to 
>reproduce itself at will? Then I think the sentence WOULD be 
>considered OK (more or less).

Invasion of the alien sentient Purslanes, that (who?) started 
cultivating themselves at will in the fertile soil of India and Persia.

Joel


>Our pragmatic engine really, really wants to make sense of any 
>sentence, so there definitely cases where sentences first considered 
>"ungrammatical" become OK in the right semantic frame.
>
>That's why I gave up being a semantician ;)
>
>My two cents
>
>Elizabeth
>
>On Jul 9, 2014, at 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system 
><LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
>
> > Date:    Tue, 8 Jul 2014 13:54:58 +0800
> > From:    W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: Re: Is there anything ungrammatical about this sentence, beyond...
> >
> > WG:  <<Is there anything ungrammatical about this sentence>>
> > JL:  <<Wrong as can be, regardless of syntax.>>
> > RA:  << Nothing syntactically wrong>>
> > NC: <<Colorless green Purslane started its cultivation furiously.>>
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
>Instructional Designer
>Teaching and Learning with Technology
>Penn State University
>ejp10 at psu.edu, (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)
>
>210 Rider Building  (formerly Rider II)
>227 W. Beaver Avenue
>State College, PA   16801-4819
>http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/psu
>http://tlt.psu.edu
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org