# a technical glitch that could be resolved and avoid wasting so much time [linguistic analysis]



## elroy

Hello!

In a recent e-mail I wrote the following:


> I had a frustratingly high number of error messages.  At least half a dozen times whatever I entered did not save and I got an error message and I had to refresh the page and enter it again.  Sometimes I had to try 3-4 times before it finally saved.  Not sure why this happened so frequently, but it wasted quite a bit of time.  I originally wanted to do 2 hours but I decided to stop after 1 hour in case there was a technical glitch that could be resolved and avoid wasting so much time next time.



_[If you're a native speaker of English, please take a minute before reading on to see if you think any part of the text is ungrammatical or unidiomatic.]
_
After I sent the e-mail, I was thinking about what I wrote meta-linguistically, and I realized that strictly speaking, my use of "avoid" in the last sentence was semantically inaccurate, because_ the technical glitch itself_ would not avoid wasting time.  The intended meaning is that _resolving the technical glitch_ could possibly avoid wasting time.  Yet the way the sentence is written, it's saying that the technical glitch would avoid wasting time.

I was intrigued by this, because the sentence sounds entirely natural, and the intended meaning is entirely clear, despite the semantic inaccuracy.  I checked with two other native speakers of English and they had the same reaction. 

My questions:

If you are a native speaker and heeded my request in brackets above, did the use of "avoid" stick out at you?

How can we analyze this phenomenon linguistically?  It looks like the contextual background is so pragmatically strong that it justifies the use of a syntactic structure that makes an semantically inaccurate statement, at no risk of misinterpretation.

I'd say it looks like something is going on at the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface - if there is such a thing. 

What do you think?


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## Cenzontle

Since you signaled (in the thread title) what part gave you doubts, I focused on that final string
(otherwise I might have let my impression of its naturalness, like yours, lead me to overlook the anomaly that you're talking about).
My first thought was that instead of "avoid", you should have written "prevent".
The glitch wasn't going to "waste time"—glitches don't care about time or consider it a valuable commodity.
But ...*prevent *wasting time (by a human who values time).
Oops!  Then I read your comments and saw that I had overlooked the fact that
we don't want to say the glitch is doing two things:  (1) be resolved and (2) avoid/prevent wasting time.
The avoiding/preventing waste of time is done, not by the glitch, but by the *resolving *of the glitch.
A more grammatical/logical wording might be "...a technical glitch that could be resolved [and whose resolution could] prevent wasting so much time."
(I still like "prevent" better than "avoid": 
When X "avoids" doing something, the doing would have been done by X.  But when X "prevents" doing something, the doing might have been done by Y.)
A more natural-sounding version:  "...a technical glitch that *we could resolve and (thus)* avoid..."
Case in point for editors:  Is this passive voice necessary?
So maybe both predicates were active in "deep structure" (if you believe in such things),
and one of them got transformed to passive, while maintaining the original—but no longer fully appropriate—"and" between them.
Let's try to construct another sentence where something similar happens.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> How can we analyze this phenomenon linguistically? It looks like the contextual background is so pragmatically strong that it justifies the use of a syntactic structure that makes an semantically inaccurate statement, at no risk of misinterpretation.


I see nothing inaccurate:
_I originally wanted to do 2 hours but I decided to stop after 1 hour in case there was a technical glitch that could be resolved and [wanted to] avoid wasting so much time next time._​There is just an obvious ellipsis in the sentence. I think our perception of syntactic correctness and semantic accuracy applies to the implicitly completed version of an elliptic sentence and not to the way the sentence is formulated.


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## PersoLatin

My penny's worth: The bold section qualifies the reason for stopping after 1 hour, and if removed, the sentence will still make full sense, because of previous information. The two commas should make it clear.



> I originally wanted to do 2 hours but I decided to stop after 1 hour,* in case there was a technical glitch that could be resolved*, and avoid wasting so much time next time.


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## Cenzontle

I"ve just made up the following sentence.  Is it grammatical?  Separate question:  Is it natural (i.e. can you imagine it being uttered in a real situation)?
"All this stuff can be removed from the stairway and prevent an accident."


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## elroy

berndf said:


> _I originally wanted to do 2 hours but I decided to stop after 1 hour in case there was a technical glitch that could be resolved and [wanted to] avoid wasting so much time next time._​


 That is not the structure that was intended, nor is it the way the sentence would be understood by a native speaker.  For one thing, "avoid" is too far away from "wanted" to be a plausible complement.  For another, in your version "avoid" would have to go with "_originally_ wanted" (not just "wanted"), which doesn't make sense semantically. 

The meaning is "a technical glitch that could be resolved and _whose resolution would_ avoid wasting so much time next time."

Could you say in German "ein technischer Fehler, der behoben werden und (somit) das Vergeuden von so viel Zeit vermeiden könnte"?


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## berndf

elroy said:


> That is not the structure that was intended, nor is it the way the sentence would be understood by a native speaker. For one thing, "avoid" is too far away from "wanted" to be a plausible complement. For another, in your version "avoid" would have to go with "_originally_ wanted" (not just "wanted"), which doesn't make sense semantically.


I didn't say it had anything to do with the _originally wanted_ in the first part of the sentence. It is just incidentally the same verb.


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## elroy

That doesn't work in English.  You can't just skip "want" like that.  The only time an ellipsis would be justified is if "want" already appeared earlier in the sentence and had a second complement.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> That doesn't work in English.  You can't just skip "want" like that.  The only time an ellipsis would be justified is if "want" already appeared earlier in the sentence and had a second complement.


It seems using _want _again is a red herring. I tried to say that _avoiding wasting time_ is obviously something desirable for but there is nothing in the sentence that hints it, i.e it is pragmatically clear that the sentence needs some form of completion to be meaningful, e.g. like this: .._ and [that would allow me to] avoid wasting so much time next time._


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Could you say in German "ein technischer Fehler, der behoben werden und (somit) das Vergeuden von so viel Zeit vermeiden könnte"?


No. I have always considered these _implied semantic closures _(_ellipsis _is maybe a misleading term for this phenomenon) typical for English. In German you can only omit repeated words or phrases according to precise rules.


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## Nino83

elroy said:


> "a technical glitch that could be resolved and _whose resolution would_ avoid wasting so much time next time."


When I read the sentence I thought:
a technical glitch that could be resolved and (that could) avoid wasting so much time next time.

But I'm not a native speaker, so take my interpretation _cum grano salis_.


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## elroy

Nino83 said:


> a technical glitch that could be resolved and (that could) avoid wasting so much time next time.


 Yes, that is in fact the syntactic structure.   It is semantically inaccurate (at least on the surface) because "a technical glitch that could avoid wasting so much time" doesn't make sense. 

My active Italian is not the best, but does the following structure work for you?

_un errore tecnico che potrebbe essere risolto e (così) evitare che si perda tanto tempo la prossima volta _


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## Nino83

Yes. 
I think that the omitted part includes "it = this fact = the resolution of the problem". 
_a technical glitch that could be resolved and (that [it] could) avoid wasting so much time next time.
_


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## elroy

The thing is, that sort of ellipsis is not _syntactically_ licensed in English.  It's only _pragmatically_ licensed, which is what makes this phenomenon so interesting, I think.  I was wondering if there was a more formal linguistic analysis for it, or if there were any rules for when it can be done.

It's interesting to see that it's licensed in Italian but not in German.


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## Nino83

elroy said:


> It's interesting to see that it's licensed in Italian but not in German.


This sounds more natural: _un errore tecnico che potrebbe essere risolto *così da* (in order to) evitare che si perda tanto tempo la prossima volta _
Anyway it can happens, for example I've found this sentence in this book:
_necessita di un'azione *per essere risolto ed evitare* così ulteriori conseguenze negative_
I don't know if it is grammatically correct (from a prescriptive point of view) but thes types of sentences are easily understood.
In these cases "it = the fact = the resolution of the problem" is implied.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> The thing is, that sort of ellipsis is not _syntactically_ licensed in English.  It's only _pragmatically_ licensed, which is what makes this phenomenon so interesting, I think.  I was wondering if there was a more formal linguistic analysis for it, or if there were any rules for when it can be done.
> 
> It's interesting to see that it's licensed in Italian but not in German.


I have thought about more about it and found a possible interpretation that could be interpreted as an exbraciation of a modal verb:
_... that could be resolved and [could] (thus) avoid wasting so much time next time.
And that could also work in German:
... der gelöst werden [kann] und (somit) Zeitverschwendung beim nächsten Versuch vermeiden kann.
_
These formulations, interpreted in such a way, are awkward in both languages but it might explain why your formulation is licensed at least in informal language.


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## elroy

But those are the structures that are semantically inaccurate.  Again, the technical glitch itself wouldn't avoid wasting time.  Der Fehler selbst würde keine Zeitverschwendung vermeiden. 

Am I missing something?


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## berndf

elroy said:


> But those are the structures that are semantically inaccurate.  Again, the technical glitch itself wouldn't avoid wasting time.  Der Fehler selbst würde keine Zeitverschwendung vermeiden.
> 
> Am I missing something?


Not the glitch, its resolution avoids losing time.


berndf said:


> ... that *could* be *resolved* and [*could*] (thus) *avoid* wasting so much time next time.
> And that could also work in German:
> ... der *gelöst* werden [*kann*] und (somit) Zeitverschwendung beim nächsten Versuch *vermeiden* *kann*.


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## elroy

Yes, of course, but the subject of "could avoid"/"vermeiden kann" can't be "resolved"/"gelöst" (syntactically).


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Yes, of course, but the subject of "could avoid"/"vermeiden kann" can't be "resolved"/"gelöst" (syntactically).


Right. My bad. Forget what I said about a possible licensed form in German. I concentrated to much on the bit after "..." in #16.


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## Forero

I agree with PersoLatin. The English sentence just needs some commas:

_I originally wanted to do 2 hours, but I decided to stop after 1 hour*,* in case there was a technical glitch that could be resolved*,* and avoid wasting so much time next time._

I decided to stop and avoid wasting so much time.

I don't have the full Italian sentence, but what I could see of it seems to have the same problem:

_... il problema, di chiunque sia la colpa, necessita di un'azione per essere risolto ed evitare così ulteriori conseguenze negative. Questa azione è di esclusiva pertinenza del debitore e nessun altro, tanto meno la provvidenza, potrà intervenire._

It is "il problema" that needs to be "risolto" but someone not mentioned in (this part of) the sentence who needs to avoid negative consequences.


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## berndf

Forero said:


> _I originally wanted to do 2 hours, but I decided to stop after 1 hour*,* in case there was a technical glitch that could be resolved*,* and avoid wasting so much time next time._
> 
> I decided to stop and avoid wasting so much time.


Sounds good.


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## elroy

But again, that's not what was intended, nor is that the way the sentence would be intuitively processed by most native speakers. 

"I decided to stop and avoid wasting so much time" is not what I meant to say, because there was no way for me to know whether I would in fact be able to avoid wasting so much time the next time.  The response could have been that the technical glitch could not be resolved so for the time being I would have to deal with the frequent error messages.  I couldn't just "decide" to avoid wasting time next time. 

Besides, I can think of sentences with the same structure that don't allow a different reading.  What do you think of the sentence below? 

_I don't know if there's a technical glitch that can be resolved and avoid wasting so much time next time._


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## berndf

I am not sure I would have understood that sentence, if I hadn't read this thread.


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## Forero

Cenzontle said:


> I"ve just made up the following sentence.  Is it grammatical?  Separate question:  Is it natural (i.e. can you imagine it being uttered in a real situation)?
> "All this stuff can be removed from the stairway and prevent an accident."


That does not make sense to me. If I heard it, I would assume the speaker got lost in mid sentence.

It would make sense with _to_ instead of _and_, but I suspect the intent was something like "Somebody/we can remove all this stuff from the stairway and prevent an accident", but the speaker chose to avoid saying "somebody" or "we" by using passive voice. A correct way to do that would be "All this stuff can be removed from the stairway and an accident prevented", but that sounds overly formal and too "passive", doesn't it?





elroy said:


> But again, that's not what was intended, nor is that the way the sentence would be intuitively processed by most native speakers.
> 
> "I decided to stop and avoid wasting so much time" is not what I meant to say, because there was no way for me to know whether I would in fact be able to avoid wasting so much time the next time.  The response could have been that the technical glitch could not be resolved so for the time being I would have to deal with the frequent error messages.  I couldn't just "decide" to avoid wasting time next time.
> 
> Besides, I can think of sentences with the same structure that don't allow a different reading.  What do you think of the sentence below?
> 
> _I don't know if there's a technical glitch that can be resolved and avoid wasting so much time next time._


It has the same problem as Cenzontle's made-up sentence.

It would make sense with _to_ instead of _and_, but would suspect the speaker was thinking of something like this:
_
Someone_/_we_ _can resolve the glitch and avoid wasting so much time._

But passive voice makes this a worse mess than I got from Cenzontle's "sentence":

_The glitch can be resolved and so much time wasting avoided._

On top of that, the speaker really wants to start with "I don't know if there's a technical glitch that", but that leaves no place for the "avoid" bit.


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## Forero

Cenzontle said:


> I"ve just made up the following sentence.  Is it grammatical?  Separate question:  Is it natural (i.e. can you imagine it being uttered in a real situation)?
> "All this stuff can be removed from the stairway and prevent an accident."


That does not make sense to me. If I heard it, I would assume the speaker got lost in mid sentence.

It would make sense with _to_ instead of _and_, but I suspect the intent was something like "Somebody/we can remove all this stuff from the stairway and prevent an accident", but the speaker chose to avoid saying "somebody" or "we" by using passive voice. A correct way to do that would be "All this stuff can be removed from the stairway and an accident prevented", but that sounds overly formal and too "passive", doesn't it?





elroy said:


> But again, that's not what was intended, nor is that the way the sentence would be intuitively processed by most native speakers.
> 
> "I decided to stop and avoid wasting so much time" is not what I meant to say, because there was no way for me to know whether I would in fact be able to avoid wasting so much time the next time.  The response could have been that the technical glitch could not be resolved so for the time being I would have to deal with the frequent error messages.  I couldn't just "decide" to avoid wasting time next time.
> 
> Besides, I can think of sentences with the same structure that don't allow a different reading.  What do you think of the sentence below?
> 
> _I don't know if there's a technical glitch that can be resolved and avoid wasting so much time next time._


You are right. Stopping this time does not prevent wasting time next time.

Your last "sentence" has the same problem as the one Cenzontle made up.

It would make sense with _to_ instead of _and_, but I would suspect the speaker was thinking of something like this:
_
Someone_/_we_ _can resolve the glitch and avoid wasting so much time._

But passive voice makes this a worse mess than I got from Cenzontle's "sentence":

_The glitch can be resolved and so much time wasting avoided._

On top of that, the speaker really wants to start with "I don't know if there's a technical glitch that", but that leaves no place for the "avoid" bit.


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## elroy

Forero, I understand the issue, but the interesting thing is that the utterance is natural and the meaning readily understood.  There has to be something going on at the formal-linguistic level that allows this to happen.


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## Forero

elroy said:


> Forero, I understand the issue, but the interesting thing is that the utterance is natural and the meaning readily understood.  There has to be something going on at the formal-linguistic level that allows this to happen.


I don't find it natural, or obvious in meaning. For me it requires quite a "double-take" to understand.

All I see going on is at the pragmatic level and at the level of "forgiving" the speaker for wandering into in such a formal-linguistic mess. It seems to be almost a worst-case scenario for faulty parallelism.


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