The Stylistics of Syntactic Complements: Grammar and Seeing in Flannery O'Connor's Fiction - Critical Essay

Style, Spring, 2000 by Donald E. Hardy, David Durian

Another verb that works very similarly to see is hear. Consider how the examples in (9)-(l0) parallel those in (7)-(8):

(9) a. John heard Mary leaving and went to say goodbye.

b. ?John heard Mary leaving through an e-mail message from Bill.

(10) a. John heard that Mary was leaving and went to say goodbye.

b. John heard that Mary was leaving through an e-mail message from Bill.

As with see, hear allows a physically direct interpretation of a nonfinite complement, as in (9a), but not a cognitive, or indirect, interpretation of a nonfinite complement, as in (9b). Just like see, hear allows either an ambiguous physical direct/cognitive indirect interpretation of a finite complement, as in (10a), or a cognitive indirect interpretation of a finite complement, as in (10b).

Many verbs that do take non-finite complements do not allow the use of finite complements for the very reason that they may not have a cognitive interpretation. Givon points out, for example, that manipulation verbs (e.g., make, tell, order, help, ask) along with modality verbs (e.g., want, begin, finish, try), have the strongest syntactic integration of verbs that take complements (3). Consider (11) and (12):

(11) a. Bill made Susan write the letter.

b. *Bill made that Susan wrote the letter.

(12) a. Bill helped Susan write the letter.

b. *Bill helped that Susan wrote the letter.

In (11a) and (12a), the bare-stem complements are grammatical because the manipulation verbs make and help demand a syntactic integration reflecting their physical directness. Compare (7a) and (9a). In (11b) and (12b), the finite complements are ungrammatical because the matrix verbs demand more syntactic integration than the finite complements provide. Compare (8a) and (8b), and (lOa) and (lOb). Figure 2 illustrates the interaction of syntactic integration with physical/cognitive semantics.

Our analysis of verb complements in O'Connor's fiction takes as its theoretical base a combination of the foreground/background distinction in linguistic studies and the figure/ground distinction in gestalt psychology. As in Hardy ("Figure and Ground"; "Narrating Knowledge"), Reinhart, Talmy, Townsend and Bever, and Wallace, we use the gestalt distinction figure/ground to explain a wide variety of linguistic patterns, including what we will refer to here as implication and its linguistic cousin, clausal presupposition. Both implication and presupposition mirror the primarily visual patterns of perception that reveal the underlying innate disposition to separate the visual field into a figure, which is near and focused, and a ground, which lies behind the figure and is more diffuse (see Koffka 177 ff.).

Next, let's consider some intuitional data to establish the pragmatic similarity between various types of complements to the verb see:

FIGURE - GROUND

(13) a. John saw - Mary leave.

b. He did?

c. ?She did?

(14) a. John saw - Mary leaving.

b. He did?

c. ?She did?

(15) a. John saw - Mary left at the altar.

b. He did?

c. ?She was?

(16) a. John saw - that Mary left.