Introduction
Attempting to describe the language you speak is about as difficult as attempting
to describe yourself as a person. Your language is very much part of you and
your thinking. You use your language so instinctively that it is difficult to stand
outside yourself and think of it as something that is independent of you, some-
thing which you know and which can be described. You may even feel inclined
to say that your language is not something you know, you just speak it, and
that’s all there is to it. But as the native speaker of a language, there is an impor-
tant sense in which you do know all that there is to know about that language.
This is not to deny that there are almost certainly words with which you are
not familiar. Perhaps you don’t know the meaning of the word lagophthalmic.
If so, your (understandable) ignorance of this is more medical ignorance than
ignorance about the English language, and is anyway quickly remedied with
the help of a dictionary. But there is much more to a language than its words.
There is much more that you do know about your language which cannot so
conveniently be looked up, and which you were never explicitly taught. And this
is knowledge of a more fundamental and systematic kind than knowledge of
the meanings of individual words. The more fundamental such knowledge is, the
more difficult it is to become consciously aware of it.
We are brought up sharply against our own knowledge of the language
when, for example, we hear a foreigner make a mistake. You may have had the
frustrating experience of knowing that something is wrong but not being able to
say precisely what it is, beyond saying ‘We just don’t say it like that’. The very
deep-seated character of speakers’ knowledge of their language makes it extremely
difficult for them to explain what it is they know.
Here are some examples to illustrate the point. As a speaker of English, you
will agree that [1] and [2] are good English sentences:
[1] Dick believes himself to be a genius.
[2] Dick believes he is a genius.
but that there is something wrong with [3] and [4]:
[3] Dick believes he to be a genius.
[4] Dick believes himself is a genius.
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INTRODUCTION
It’s interesting that, simply on the basis of assuming you speak English, and
knowing nothing else about you, I can predict that you will judge [1] and [2] to
be good and [3] and [4] to be odd, even though these sentences are something
you may never have considered before.
In attempting to answer the question ‘Is this an example of a good English
sentence or not?’ we are obliged to go to speakers of the language and ask them
whether they would accept it as such. (If we ourselves speak the language, then
we may ask ourselves.) It’s difficult to see how else we could decide what is and
what is not a sentence of English. Yet, if this is so, our agreement about [1]–[4]
constitutes a fact about the English language. In a real sense, then, all the facts
about the language lie inside the heads of its speakers, be they native speakers
or not.
But can you give an explanation for the oddity of [3] and [4] – beyond saying
that we just don’t say it like that?
Here’s another example. If the negative of [5] is [6],
[5] They were jumping on it.
[6] They weren’t jumping on it.
why isn’t [8] the negative of [7]?
[7] They tried jumping on it.
[8] They triedn’t jumping on it.
And another example: Since [9] is a good English sentence, why aren’t [10]
and [11]?
[9] Bevis mended his bike in the garage and Max did so in the garden.
[10] Bevis put his bike in the garage and Max did so in the garden.
[11] Bevis went to the circus and Max did so to the zoo.
Finally, compare [12] and [13]:
[12] The fact that I communicated to Mona is irrelevant.
[13] The fact that I communicated with Mona is irrelevant.
Superficially, the only difference might seem to be the different prepositions,
with and to. So we might expect the difference to be exactly the same as that
between I went with Max and I went to Max. In fact, though, your understanding
of the difference between [12] and [13] goes way beyond your understanding of
the difference between with and to. You can demonstrate this for yourself: try
replacing the that in each sentence by which. How do you react? Do you agree
that you can do it with [12] but not [13]? What’s going on here? Why should
the choice of preposition in one part of a sentence affect the choice of that or
which in another part? You know it does, but what exactly is it that you know?
