# My father is the old man that the dog that the baby cries at the sight of barks at.



## JungKim

These are sentences of my own making.

I know that (1) is possible English. How about (2)?

(1) _My father is the old man that the dog barks at._
(2) _My father is the old man that the dog that the baby cries at the sight of barks at._


_
_


----------



## JustKate

May I ask why you're writing this, JungKim? Yes, #2 is possible but since it takes at least three readings to make sense (and a written diagram on a piece of paper wouldn't hurt, either ), it is not a sentence I would recommend except as an exercise in "Needlessly Complicated English Sentences."


----------



## JungKim

Of course, you may. 
Sometimes, when a sentence gets too complicated to figure out the meaning of, the sentence is said to be ungrammatical. So I was wondering how far you could take this "nested dependency" structure.

And I'm certainly not asking if you would recommend using any of these complex sentences. All I'm asking is if there's any limit here.

For example, you said (2) is possible. How about (3) and (4) then?
(3) _My father is the old man that the dog that the baby that the girl loves cries at the sight of barks at._
(4) _My father is the old man that the dog that the baby that the girl that my brother has a crush on loves cries at the sight of barks at._

Are these also possible albeit overly complicated?


----------



## JustKate

No, complication alone isn't enough to make something "ungrammatical." But it's perfectly possible - and in fact common - for something to be both grammatical and...well, bad - bad in other ways, I mean. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.  A sentence can be both grammatical and nonsensical, grammatical and awkward, grammatical and not idiomatic, grammatical and misleading, etc. "Grammatical" is not synonymous with any of those things. It's only one of the factors that determine whether a sentence is a good one or a bad one.

Those sentences are grammatical, JungKim. But they are baaaaaaad. Both fit in a category that I sometimes think of as "Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should*."


----------



## JustKate

Oh, and as to how far you can take "nested dependency," it's very hard to give you a general rule, but I'd say two levels is fine, and three is possibly OK, but you shouldn't go any deeper than that - assuming you want people to understand what you're saying, of course. So:
A. _My father is the old man that the dog barks at._ - This is fine.
B. _My father is the old man that the dog that the baby cries at the sight of barks at. - _This is marginal (though verging on indecipherable), and anything more complicated is just...well, bad. 

You do sometimes come across sentences that good writers have deliberately written to be complicated, but they do so for very specific reasons. Maybe they are mimicking the confusing syntax of speech (in speech, people do sometimes create more complicated sentences than they'd ever want to write) or maybe they are trying to be funny. But it's not something to be done lightly.


----------



## JungKim

Thanks, JustKate, for the detailed explanation. It was very helpful.


----------



## Keith Bradford

JungKim, you seem to have spontaneously reinvented an old folk-song structure, best-known in _The house that Jack built_. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_the_House_That_Jack_Built).

There's another example in "What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?" apparently invented by the wonderful Sir Ernest Gower.  See https://books.google.fr/books?id=Ac... that book to be read to out of for?"&f=false


----------



## JungKim

Keith Bradford said:


> JungKim, you seem to have spontaneously reinvented an old folk-song structure, best-known in _The house that Jack built_.



Thanks, Keith Bradford, for pointing me to that nursery rhyme, which I would not have had a chance to take a look at otherwise.

I'm not sure if I understood the rhyme 100%, but it seems much easier to decipher than the OP's type of constructions. For example, the rhyme's last verse starting with "This is the horse and the hound and the horn" has no less than nine relative clauses but looks nowhere near as "bad" (as JustKate put it) as (4) above with no more than four relative clauses. 

Is it perhaps because the way multiple relative clauses are "nested" is different in the respective case? What do you think?



Keith Bradford said:


> There's another example in "What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?" apparently invented by the wonderful Sir Ernest Gower.



Even knowing the context of a nurse asking her charge, I have a hard time understanding this sentence. I mean, what is the nurse asking here?


----------



## srk

What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?
Why
from
The patient wants the nurse to read out loud to him/her.

Why do you want me to read out loud to you from that book?

(It looked to me as though Keith had given up for today.)


----------



## perpend

JungKim said:


> (2) _My father is the old man that the dog that the baby cries at the sight of barks at._



I wouldn't recommend that sentence, though, it's technically okay, in my opinion. The probably is it leaves the reader wondering???

Sometimes we use *commas* just for clarity, because we can.  And, it's grammatical to do so.

My father is the old man that the dog, that the baby cries at the sight of, barks at. (This is more clear, in my opinion.)


----------



## Cagey

The discussion in this thread is relevant: Preposition at the end of a sentence. Churchill - up with which I will not put.
It talks about contexts in which delaying a preposition until the end of the sentence will causes confusion, and others in which it is acceptable. 

See especially the discussion from post #23 on.


----------



## JungKim

srk said:


> What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?
> Why
> from
> The patient wants the nurse to read out loud to him/her.
> 
> Why do you want me to read out loud to you from that book?
> 
> (It looked to me as though Keith had given up for today.)



Sorry for not getting it yet. Even with your explanation, I'm still confused.

I guess the "out loud" part is not really in the original sentence, right?

_What for_ instead of W_hy _and _out of_ instead of _from_, I understood.

But how can you leave out the object of the preposition "to"? As you say, the object is the charge, i.e., "you". Since the sentence is to be a legitimate one, I think that the object "you" can or should be omitted.

Is it "can" or "should" here?
I mean, does this work? _What did you choose that book to be read to *you* out of for?_


----------



## Keith Bradford

No need for _'you'_.  _You chose to be read to_ is a valid construction, like _I want to be looked after_ or _he likes to be listened to_.

Just for the record, this isn't nurse-patient, it's nursemaid-child.  She asks the child: _What for_ (= why)_ did you choose that book, for the contents out of_ (= of) _it to be read to you?_


----------



## JungKim

Keith Bradford said:


> No need for _'you'_.  _You chose to be read to_ is a valid construction, like _I want to be looked after_ or _he likes to be listened to_.


I had to read your post three times to try to figure out the whole thing, and I failed.

Let me get this straight, so everyone can see where I failed.
As for your other examples, I agree that it's fine to say either _I want to be looked after_ or _he likes to be listened to_. In the former example, the subject _I _is the object of the verb cluster "look after", just as in _I'm looked after_. Similarly, in the latter example, the subject _he_ is the object of "listen to", just as in _he's listened to_. So it would be wrong to add _me_ or _him_ at the end of either: 
*_I want to be looked after *me*._
*_He likes to be listened to *him*._

Also, _You chose to be read to_ looks fine to me because the subject _You_ is the object of "read to", just as in _You are read to_.
And it would also be wrong to add you at the end:
*_You chose to be read to *you*._

But this is not the exact phrase of the sentence (_What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?_), is it?
The exact phrase, I'd think, would be not _You chose to be read to _but _You chose that book to be read to_. So I'd think the question is whether the latter, not the former, works without 'you' at the end. And I guess I don't quite understand how the latter would work without the 'you' at the end.

Also, would it be wrong to add you at the end?
_You chose that book to be read to *you*._



Keith Bradford said:


> Just for the record, this isn't nurse-patient, it's nursemaid-child.  She asks the child: _What for_ (= why)_ did you choose that book, for the contents out of_ (= of) _it to be read to you?_



In your sentence, is it possible to drop 'you' at the end?
_What for_ _did you choose that book, for the contents out of_ _it to be read to?_


----------



## Loob

You want me to read to you out of _The Boy's Book of Cars._
That's the book you want me to read to you out of.
That's the book you want to be read to out of.
....
Why did you choose that book?
Why did you choose that book to be read to out of?
....
What did you choose that book for?
What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?


----------



## Keith Bradford

What {did you choose that book (to be read to [out of])} for?

_You chose that book, to be read to you.  
You chose to be read to, out of that book. 
_
But I think you're analysing this too far.  After all, these are not good examples to follow!  Keep these postpositions to one, or two at the most.


----------



## JungKim

Loob said:


> You want me to read to you out of _The Boy's Book of Cars._
> That's the book you want me to read to you out of ______.
> That's the book you want to be read to out of ______.
> ....
> Why did you choose that book?
> Why did you choose that book to be read to out of ______?
> ....
> What did you choose that book for?
> What did you choose that book to be read to out of ______ for?



Loob, I've added the gap to indicate how the subordinate clause is related to the main clause.
Are the gaps correct as shown?

Now, let's try another construction without the 'out of'.
You want me to read _The Boy's Book of Cars _to you_. _
That's the book you want me to read ______ to you. 
That's the book you want to be read ______ to. 

Is the last one, along with the gap, correct?


----------



## JungKim

JungKim said:


> ...
> But how can you leave out the object of the preposition "to"? As you say, the object is the charge, i.e., "you". Since the sentence is to be a legitimate one, I think that the object "you" can or should be omitted.
> 
> Is it "can" or "should" here?
> I mean, does this work? _What did you choose that book to be read to *you* out of for?_



My bad! I just realized that my earlier post was seriously flawed in the red portions. That is, the missing object of the preposition "to" is not "you" (the listener, the charge) but "me" (the speaker, the child). Sorry for the inadvertent error on my part.

And now that it's "me" that is left out, it's _even _harder for me to understand the omission. I mean, there's no mention of the speaker ("me") in that sentence and you can leave it out?

For example, is it even possible to say either of these without "me"?
_What did you read that book to (me) for?_
OR
_What did you choose that book for (me) for?_


----------



## JamesM

No, it isn't.  "What did you read that book to me for?" or "What did you read that book for?" but not "What did you read that book to for?"  

I think most people would change "what... for?" to "why" and simplify the whole thing: "Why did you read that book to me?"   "Why did you choose that book for me?"


----------



## JungKim

JamesM said:


> No, it isn't.  "What did you read that book to me for?" or "What did you read that book for?" but not "What did you read that book to for?"
> 
> I think most people would change "what... for?" to "why" and simplify the whole thing: "Why did you read that book to me?"   "Why did you choose that book for me?"



Thanks, JamesM. Then, how come it's possible and even preferable to leave out "me" here?
_What did you choose that book to be read to *(me)* out of for?_


----------



## srk

I want to be read to.
What book to you want to be read to out of?
This one.
What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?

Here's a previous thread.


----------



## JamesM

I don't think it is.  "Me" is not part of that sentence.

"To be read to" means that someone is reading to someone else.  In this sentence, that "someone else" must be asking the question.

"You wanted to be read to" = "You wanted me to read to you"  (but it's in the passive voice)

"Why did you choose that book to be read to _you?"_   (I think the 'out of' is redundant and confusing.)

Honestly, "What book do you want to be read to out of?" seems very garbled to me.


----------



## srk

JamesM said:


> I think the 'out of' is redundant and confusing.


If one is read to, it's often out of a book.


----------



## JamesM

It's often a book. There is no reason to add "out of".   "I read a book to my son" works perfectly fine for me.  I don't see why I would add "I read _out of_ a book to my son".

If one is read to, it is often _from_ a book or it is often a book.

It might be technically possible to say "Why did you choose that book to be read to from?"  but there is no reason to add it.  "Why did you choose that book to be read?" or "Why did you choose that book to be read to you?" or "Why did you have that book read to you?" make much more sense to me.


----------



## srk

I hear "I read a book to my son" and "I read out of a book to my son" differently.  The first might be a twenty page book with large print and pictures and finished in one sitting.  The second can be an installment from one story in a book of short stories.


----------



## JamesM

Perhaps we just see it differently. When I read a book it's rarely the entire book in one sitting.   "I went home, made dinner, read a book and fell asleep" doesn't imply, to me, that I finished the entire book before falling asleep.

I've heard "from" and even "out of" (as in "This is out of Corinthians 7" when reading a Bible passage) but I can't imagine that I would construct a sentence in real life that would make that distinction with someone who was being read to (an invalid, a child, an elderly person) in the form of "What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?"  I would expect "Huh?" as a response.  

It works as a puzzle and a brain twister but it's not something I would recommend an English language learner to use as a guide.


----------



## JungKim

Whether the use of "out of" is redundant is a different issue, I believe. And I would very much like you guys to focus on the other issue first. 



JamesM said:


> I don't think it is.  "Me" is not part of that sentence.
> ...



JamesM, so do you think that the sentence without "me" (_What did you choose that book to be read to *(me)* out of for?_) is wrong, aside from the issue of 'out of' being possibly redundant?

If so, does this mean what Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers wrote was wrong? Or somehow the quoted sentence allegedly written by him might not be the correct version of what he actually wrote? I couldn't find the exact original text as written by him on the Internet, so I was wondering.


----------



## srk

JamesM said:


> It works as a puzzle and a brain twister but it's not something I would recommend


Here's an example not meant as a brain teaser:

_And one day she said to the young princes, who were all very fond of being read to out of this splendid book -- "Since you like this book so much, I will give it to the one who is first able to read it, and to say all the poetry in it by heart."_

Edith Nesbit, _Royal Children of English History_


----------



## JungKim

srk said:


> I want to be read to.
> What book to you want to be read to out of?
> This one.
> What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?
> 
> Here's a previous thread.





srk said:


> Here's an example not meant as a brain teaser:
> 
> _And one day she said to the young princes, who were all very fond of being read to out of this splendid book -- "Since you like this book so much, I will give it to the one who is first able to read it, and to say all the poetry in it by heart."_
> 
> Edith Nesbit, _Royal Children of English History_



Thanks for the thread and the quote.

The thing is, both in that previous thread and in your quoted example, the construction is such that the omitted object is the same as the subject of the sentence. But, as JamesM agrees, that's not the case in the current sentence allegedly written by Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers.

Do you think it's okay to omit the object of a preposition when there has been no previous mention of the object in the same sentence? (as in _What did you choose that book to be read to *(me)* out of for?_)


----------



## srk

It seems that the "out of" part is critical to the grammar of Gower's sentence.

Do you want to be read to?
What book do you want to be read to?
What book to you want to be read to out of?  Out of what book do you want to be read to?

In the checked versions, the subject "you" is the object.

Edit: corrected a typo

Edit: I see your problem.  There is a difference from the original:

What book do you choose to be read to out of.  No object for "read to."
What book do you choose *for you* to be read to out of?

The best I can say is that "for you" is unspoken but understood.


----------



## JungKim

srk said:


> It seems that the "out of" part is critical to the grammar of Gower's sentence.
> 
> Do you want to be read to?
> What book do you want to be read to?
> What book to you want to be read to out of?  Out of what book do you want to be read to?
> 
> In the checked versions, the subject "you" is the object.
> 
> Edit: corrected a typo



But your checked versions are not the same type of sentence as Gowers' in that, in Gowers' sentence (_What did you choose that book to be read to *(me)* out of for?_), the omitted object (_me_) is not the same as the subject (_you_) or even previously mentioned in the sentence itself. And how do your checked versions tell anything about the validity of the Gowers' sentence?


----------



## srk

JungKim said:


> But your checked versions are not the same type of sentence as Gowers'


I know.  I was editing while you were setting me straight.  Please see my most recent edit in #30.

I have to give up for now.  I'll look for your reply tomorrow.


----------



## manfy

Interesting puzzle! Such tough nuts I usually try to approach by means of simplification:

I want to be read to. = I want somebody to read to me.
I want this book to be read to. = (strange but grammatically possible (?), I think): I want somebody to read this book to me.
 OR (semantically nonsensical but grammatically possible): I want somebody to read to this book.

I want my children to be read to. = I want somebody to read to my children.
I want this book to be read to my children. = I want somebody to read this book to my children.

My conclusion: 
The confusion comes from the difficult differentiation between the verbal phrase 'to read to', which is only used in passive 'to be read to', and the standard verb 'to read' plus prepositional object 'to somebody' (and its passive form "to be read to somebody").
_Test of concept:_
He was read to. -> passive verbal phrase 'to be read to'
He read to his kids. -> active verb 'to read'; prepositional object 'to his kids' 
He read me my rights. -> active verb 'to read'; indirect object 'me'; direct object 'my rights' 

Does this description make any sense in the traditional English grammar system??


----------



## Myridon

manfy said:


> I want this book to be read to. = (strange but grammatically possible (?), I think): I want somebody to read this book to me.


Very strange: The book will be read to - someone will tell a story to the book.  The book will listen to the person who is reading the book.


----------



## manfy

Myridon said:


> Very strange: The book will be read to - someone will tell a story to the book.  The book will listen to the person who is reading the book.


 
Right! Now that you mention it, I see it too. To render this meaning we'd need the prepositional object: "I want this book to be read *to me*."

But then JungKim seems right:  "What did you choose *that book to be read to* out of for?" follows the same structure.
Hmmm, my brain is in knots. But at least now I know why I never say senytences like that.


----------



## Loob

JungKim said:


> But your checked versions are not the same type of sentence as Gowers' in that, in Gowers' sentence (_What did you choose that book to be read to *(me)* out of for?_), the omitted object (_me_) is not the same as the subject (_you_) or even previously mentioned in the sentence itself. And how do your checked versions tell anything about the validity of the Gowers' sentence?


JungKim, there's no omitted object in that sentence.

We're talking about a passive here: the same sort of passive as you get when you convert_ I gave John a sausage _to _John was given a sausage (by me).

Alice reads to John.
> John is read to (by Alice).

Alice reads to John out of his favourite book.
> John is read to (by Alice) out of his favourite book.

Out of what book does Alice read to John?
> Out of what book is John read to (by Alice)?

What book does Alice read to John out of?
> What book is John read to out of (by Alice)?_


----------



## manfy

Loob said:


> What book does Alice read to John out of?
> > What book is John read to out of (by Alice)?[/I]


 
You're right. But this only works with a patient (John). Without it, 'book' takes the role of patient.
"What book is read to out of?"  -> this doesn't make sense because 'book' becomes the patient and 'out of' becomes a tangling preposition that cannot refer to anything.
"What book is read to?"  -> nonsensical but grammatical with meaning: Which book is somebody reading to? (or clearer: Somebody is reading to which book?)

When it comes to active/passive comparison it's often better to talk about 'agent' (the initiator of the action described by the verb) and 'patient' (receiver of the action), rather than subject and object.
Passive voice needs a patient (which is usually the subject of the passive voice sentence); the agent (Alice) can be omitted.

-------------------
[second edit:]
I just thought of another construction that supports my theory of phrasal verb vs. normal verb (and if so, that we're not comparing apples to apples if we treat both verbs the same way):

John is being read to from this book. (John is being read to out of this book.) -> 'to be read to' acts like a phrasal verb
BUT
This book is being read to John. -> 'is being read' is passive of 'to read' with 'to John' as prepositional object.

I'm not enough into grammar to guarantee that this is right, but I think it has something!?! Let's see what native speakers think!


----------



## Loob

I wouldn't call "read to" in either _Alice reads to John _or _John is read to by Alice _a phrasal verb, manfy.

_John is read to by Alice _is what's called a "prepositional passive": a passive in which the object of a preposition in an active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.

[Another prepositional passive example: _Somone has slept in the bed > The bed has been slept in.]_

_-------

EDIT.  Oh, maybe I misunderstood: are you saying that for the pupose of creating passive sentences, "read to" *works like* a phrasal verb?  If so, then yes, I think you're right.
_


----------



## JungKim

Loob said:


> JungKim said:
> 
> 
> 
> But your checked versions are not the same type of sentence as Gowers' in that, in Gowers' sentence (_What did you choose that book to be read to *(me)* out of for?_), the omitted object (_me_) is not the same as the subject (_you_) or even previously mentioned in the sentence itself. And how do your checked versions tell anything about the validity of the Gowers' sentence?
> 
> 
> 
> JungKim, there's no omitted object in that sentence.
> 
> We're talking about a passive here: the same sort of passive as you get when you convert_ I gave John a sausage _to _John was given a sausage (by me)._
Click to expand...

With all due respect, Loob, even when you focus on the passive construction itself, the passive construction of your examples is different from that of Growers' sentence.

In the latter, the only passive construction there is is the infinitival _to be read_ and the logical subject of that passive construction is _that book, _not _me._

So if you'd like to compare this passive construction to that of any one of your examples, let's convert the infinitival into a finite clause as in: _That book is read (by you)._
Of course, the corresponding active construction is _You read the book_.
And let's add 'out of' as well and we get this pair:
_You read out of that book. _[active]
_That book is read out of (by you). _[passive]

Now when we are going to add the prepositional phrase "to me", we get this pair:
_You read to me out of that book. _[active]
_That book is read to me out of (by you)_. [passive]

In the latter, how can you omit only "me" and say this?
_That book is read to out of (by you)_. (?) [Here, the omitted object of the preposition "to", _me_, is *not* the same as the subject of the passive construction, _that book_.]

On the other hand, in all of your other examples shown below, the object of the preposition "to", _John_, *is* the subject of the passive construction.


Loob said:


> _Alice reads to John.
> > John is read to (by Alice).
> 
> Alice reads to John out of his favourite book.
> > John is read to (by Alice) out of his favourite book.
> 
> Out of what book does Alice read to John?
> > Out of what book is John read to (by Alice)?
> 
> What book does Alice read to John out of?
> > What book is John read to out of (by Alice)?_


----------



## Loob

JungKim said:


> In the latter, the only passive construction there is is the infinitival _to be read_ and the logical subject of that passive construction is _that book, _not me.


That's actually not right, JungKim.  The passive construction in the Gowers sentence is the infinitival _to be read to _and the logical subject of that passive construction is _you..
I am read to 
You are read to
He wants to be read to.
We want to be read to out of that book.
_


----------



## JungKim

Loob said:


> The passive construction in the Gowers sentence is the infinitival _to be read to _and the logical subject of that passive construction is _you.._


Since this is already very confusing to me, in order not to confuse the matter further, let's get things straight as to who did what to whom in the Gowers' sentence. As far as I know, the speaker of that sentence is a child and the listener a charge. So, in that sentence, "I" or "me" refers to the child and "you" the charge. If so, are you saying that the logical subject of the passive construction within that sentence is "I" (the child)? (It can't be "you", the charge.)


----------



## Loob

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "a charge", JungKim: do you mean "a person in charge of a child"?

If so, I understand it exactly the opposite way round.  The speaker is the adult; the listener is the child.  The adult is in the habit of reading to the child; the child is in the habit of being read to by the adult.  The child has a favourite book, which is blue; he likes being read to out of the blue book. This evening, he's chosen a different book: he wants to be read to out of the red book. The adult asks the child why he chose that book to be read to out of.

As others have said, this particular sentence really isn't worth spending time on: it was created as a piece of fun, an example to see how many prepositions could be piled up at the end of a sentence.  On the other hand, prepositional passives are worth spending time on.  (I have the feeling you've started a thread on a prepositional passive example in the past?)


----------



## JungKim

Loob said:


> I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "a charge", JungKim: do you mean "a person in charge of a child"?
> 
> If so, I understand it exactly the opposite way round.  The speaker is the adult; the listener is the child.  The adult is in the habit of reading to the child; the child is in the habit of being read to by the adult.  The child has a favourite book, which is blue; he likes being read to out of the blue book. This evening, he's chosen a different book: he wants to be read to out of the red book. The adult asks the child why he chose that book to be read to out of.



Somehow I must have gotten all confused about the whole thing. 
Upon re-reading the quoted book, I realize that you're right about the context, and that I got it all upside down about the context. Sorry for the confusion.

In this correct context, let's see the sentence with 'what for' replaced with 'why' for simplicity:

Adult (to Child): _Why did you choose that book *to be read to out of*? _

And the real issue, I guess, is not about how many prepositions can pile up at the end of a sentence, but about how to figure out the logical subject of an infinitival.

This task of figuring out the logical subject is straightforward in your earlier examples:
_He wants *to be read to*.
We want *to be read to out of that book*._
In each of these examples, the infinitival directly follows the verb "want". So, the logical subject of the infinitival is the same as the subject of the verb "want."

But this is not so in the Gowers' sentence. There, the infinitival does not directly follow the verb "choose". The noun phrase "that book" is located in between.

Normally, if there's an intervening noun phrase between a verb and an infinitival, the intervening noun phrase acts as the logical subject of the infinitival, as in:
_He wants her *to be read to*.
We want her *to be read to out of that book*._
So, in either of these examples, the intervening "her" is the logical subject of the infinitival. And the same is true for the verb "choose":
_He chooses her *to be read to*.
We choose her *to be read to out of that book*._

This is especially so if the infinitival is in the passive voice as above.

*What's confusing about the Gowers' sentence is that the intervening noun phrase "that book" is not meant to be the logical subject of the infinitival even when the infinitival is in the passive voice.*

Is this anomaly because of the way the verb "choose" acts?
Let's see other examples with "choose":
_You chose the book to be read to your son.
You chose the book to be shipped to her.
You chose the book to be shipped to you._

Honestly, I can't think of any example right now where the verb "choose" has a direct object followed by a passive infinitival whose logical subject is not the direct object but something else such as the subject of the verb "choose".

On the other hand, if the infinitival is not in the passive but in the active voice, the logical subject of the infinitival doesn't have to be the intervening noun phrase.

_You chose the book to read._


----------



## siares

JungKim said:


> example right now where the verb "choose" has a direct object followed by a passive infinitival whose logical subject is not the direct object but something else such as the subject of the verb "choose".


I tried to answer the OP question, and I notice I would answer it differently to other questions in which the direct object of choose is the object of prepositional phrase. My answer would depend on the verb (maybe on whether the verb is transitive or not.), because that would direct me in deciding what does 'to be' refer to. Or at least that is the reason I came up with for the moment.

Why did *X* choose *Y* to *be* verbed+preposition referring to *X
*
a) the verb has a direct object (Y):
Why did he (X) choose this book (Y) to be read to?
_Because it is a good book to be read to. Because it is a good book to be read to somebody._

b) the verb has no object. 
_Why did he (X) choose this time (Y) to be read to?
Because this is a good time to be read to._


----------



## Loob

This is my last post on this topic, or I fear my brain will explode, JungKim.

There are certainly examples where the verb _choose_ has a direct object followed by a passive infinitival whose logical subject is not the direct object of _choose_:
_She chose a dress to be married in.
He chose a specialist to be trained by.
They chose two good-looking men to be photographed with._

These are direct parallels to:
_He chose a book to be {read to} from / He chose a book to be {read to} out of_.


----------



## srk

Loob said:


> This is my last post on this topic, ....


I was trying to develop an argument showing that "He chose a book to be read to out of" is defective.  You've shown me that it is my argument that is defective.

Those are great examples.


----------



## siares

Loob, when I get rid of the question form, all your examples follow this pattern:

_X chose Y + to be verbed (no object) + preposition referring to *Y*._
She chose a *dress* to be married *in.*
(to marry the dress x)

OP structure is this:
_X chose Y (object of the verb) + to be verbed + preposition referring to *X.*_
*He* chose a book to be read *to.*
(to read the book)

examples I thought of which I think are in the OP structure:
He chose a present to be given to. (him)
She chose a ball to be thrown at. (her)
They chose a cake to be bought for. (them)


----------



## Loob

OK, I'll join in one more time


siares said:


> Loob, when I get rid of the question form, all your examples follow this pattern:
> 
> _X chose Y + to be verbed (no object) + preposition referring to *Y*._


Yes


siares said:


> OP structure is this:
> _X chose Y (object of the verb) + to be verbed + preposition referring to *X.*_
> *He* chose a book to be read *to.*


No it isn't, siares.  The structure is _He chose a book to be {read to} out of._

Which is closer to:
_X chose Y (object of the verb) + to be verbed + preposition referring to Y._


----------



## siares

Ha! I got so misled by the suggestion that out of is irrelevant, I forgot its existence.

There are extra prepositions now which don't fit my structure.

I think in 'to read out of a book' 'to read' has no object and it is radically different to 'to read a book'!

I'll rephrase it:
_He chose a book to be {read to} out of.
X chose + Y + to be verbed (no object) + preposition referring to X + preposition referring to Y.

E: _He chose to be read to out of a book. - sounds good because of different word order but it means a different thing 

Hm.


----------



## manfy

I've tried now several new approaches and some of them work well. For what it's worth, I know how it works and how to use it, but I still have no idea how to explain it without opening Pandora's box, so I better don't try. 

Generally, I think srk was on the right track in post #30, it's the second dangling preposition 'out of' that makes Gower's sentence work and grammatical.

Compare these sentence conversions and make your own conclusions what the prepositions refer to and how this changes the syntactical function of that sentence element:
She chose a dress to be married in. -> She will be married in that dress.
He chose to be read to. -> So, he will be read to.
He chose a book to be read to. -> He will be read to that book.  (based on the same conversion concept as the first sentence "She chose a dress...")
_(OR: based on Myridon's statement in post #34: A book, which he chose, will be read to. -> Due to the absence of other prepositions 'read to' refers to the closest grammatically suitable reference, 'a book'.)_
BUT
He chose a book to be read to out of. -> He will be read to out of that book.   _(Since 'out of' refers to 'a book', the phrase 'read to' cannot refer to the same NP, thus it automatically attaches itself to the next suitable reference, 'he' )_

This last sentence can also be rephrased to "He chose a book, out of which to be read to." -- but "He chose a book to be read to" doesn't allow a comparable, yet sensible conversion.

[edit: add some lines for clarity (in italics)]


----------



## JungKim

Loob said:


> ...
> There are certainly examples where the verb _choose_ has a direct object followed by a passive infinitival whose logical subject is not the direct object of _choose_:
> _She chose a dress to be married in.
> He chose a specialist to be trained by.
> They chose two good-looking men to be photographed with._
> 
> These are direct parallels to:
> _He chose a book to be {read to} from / He chose a book to be {read to} out of_.



I'm not sure Loob will join in once again, but I'll ask anyways.

In the three examples of Loob's, what's the intended role of the infinitivals? 

Did you intend the infinitivals to modify the preceding noun phrases as follows (as manfy suggests the infinitival of the Gowers' sentence does in the last parragraph of post #50)?
_She chose a dress in which to be married.
He chose a specialist by whom to be trained.
They chose two good-looking men with whom to be photographed._


----------



## srk

JungKim said:


> She chose a dress in which to be married.
> He chose a specialist by whom to be trained.
> They chose two good-looking men with whom to be photographed.


Those mean exactly what Loob's examples mean, and they would please anyone who objects to ending a sentence in a preposition.


----------



## siares

manfy said:


> make your own conclusions what the prepositions refer to and how this changes the syntactical function of that sentence element:


Oh but I can't. Please make mine for me.

Why and how exactly is the reading sentence resistant to conversions to which Loob's examples are amenable? Is it because there are prepositions referring to two different things, or because the preposition _to_ is different in some way, or because the verb is different in some way (like you suggested: similar to phrasal verb?)

I am longing for another example with more prepositions and so far I thought of:
She chose a uniform to be sworn in in.  It bothers me that _to swear in_ is a phrasal verb, and I also thing 'a perfect uniform to be sworn in in' sounds different to 'a perfect book to be read to out of'.


----------



## JungKim

manfy said:


> ...
> He chose a book to be read to. -> He will be read to that book.  (based on the same conversion concept as the first sentence "She chose a dress...")
> _(OR: based on Myridon's statement in post #34: A book, which he chose, will be read to. -> Due to the absence of other prepositions 'read to' refers to the closest grammatically suitable reference, 'a book'.)_
> BUT
> He chose a book to be read to out of. -> He will be read to out of that book.   _(Since 'out of' refers to 'a book', the phrase 'read to' cannot refer to the same NP, thus it automatically attaches itself to the next suitable reference, 'he' )_
> 
> This last sentence can also be rephrased to "He chose a book, out of which to be read to." -- but "He chose a book to be read to" doesn't allow a comparable, yet sensible conversion.
> 
> [edit: add some lines for clarity (in italics)]



Manfy, since the Gowers' sentence has the form "that book" as opposed to "a book", I was wondering why you and others (including Loob) switched to the latter form for their examples, whether the switch be conscious or subconscious.

Does the form of "a book", "a dress", "a specialist" and "[no article] two good-looking men" somehow let the subsequent infinitival be more readily construed to modify the preceding noun phrase rather than be more closely related to the verb "choose"?

If so, does the form of "that book", "that dress", "that specialist" and "those two good-looking men" somehow let the subsequent infinitival be more readily construed to be more closely related to the verb "choose" rather than modify the preceding noun phrase?

And if so, does this switch make any difference as to the validity of such constructions? Even if it does not, at the very least, the fact that "He chose a book to be read to" doesn't allow a comparable, yet sensible conversion does not necessarily mean that the sentence is automatically faulty, does it?


----------



## manfy

JungKim said:


> Manfy, since the Gowers' sentence has the form "that book" as opposed to "a book", I was wondering why you and others (including Loob) switched to the latter form for their examples, whether the switch be conscious or subconscious.


I guess, that happens sort of subconsciously, but it's logical: When you 'choose *a* something', it turns automatically into '*the/that* something you chose'. It works the same way with other verbs: "I saw *a* horse and *that* horse was great" -> 'that horse' means 'that horse [I saw]', but without verbally repeating it.

The choice between zero/indefinite/definite article and demonstrative pronoun has only influence on the noun/noun phrase itself, I can't see a strong influence on the remaining sentence structure (this statement is based on a first, rough, generalized look at the issue!)



JungKim said:


> And if so, does this switch make any difference as to the validity of such constructions? Even if it does not, at the very least, the fact that "He chose a book to be read to" doesn't allow a comparable, yet sensible conversion does not necessarily mean that the sentence is automatically faulty, does it?


No, of course not. 'a/that' would not make a difference here to the overall sentence. The sentence is grammatically correct, but in this form nonsensical. The very same structure with different words (same type but different meaning) is perfectly fine: "He wanted his kids to be read to."

My conclusion "doesn't allow a comparable, yet sensible conversion" in comparison to a seemingly identical sentence just proved to me that those sentences are not grammatically identical -- and they were not: the stranded preposition 'out of' turns 'a book' into a prepositional object and makes 'read to' refer to the subject 'he', whereas in the blue sentence above, 'read to' refers to 'a book'.
I just used this reverse logic to confirm that fact, before starting to analyse both sentences in more detail. (since such analysis is harder and more error-prone than most people might want to admit! At least for me it is...  )


----------



## JungKim

manfy said:


> No, of course not. 'a/that' would not make a difference here to the overall sentence.



If so, changing "a" back to "that" in all those examples wouldn't change their overall sentence structure, right?

If so, would the following first four examples be equivalent to the next following four, respectively?
_He chose that book to be read to out of. _
_She chose that dress to be married in.
He chose that specialist to be trained by.
They chose those two good-looking men to be photographed with.

He chose that book out of which to be read to. _
_She chose that dress in which to be married.
He chose that specialist by whom to be trained.
They chose those two good-looking men with whom to be photographed._


----------



## manfy

siares said:


> I am longing for another example with more prepositions


 
Don't! As several other posters mentioned, it is unnatural to string too many stranded prepositions together.
The examples in this thread are nice for learning purposes. They allow you to get a feel for the concept and the governing grammar behind it. But in real life, nobody talks that way. One single stranded preposition is normal, easy, and idiomatic; sometimes, due to sentence structure or other factors, 2 of them are ok. But anything more than that is usually subconsciously rephrased into a different sentence that results in max. one stranded preposition. (and that's almost always possible!)



siares said:


> ... and so far I thought of:
> She chose a uniform to be sworn in in.  It bothers me that _to swear in_ is a phrasal verb, and I also thing 'a perfect uniform to be sworn in in' sounds different to 'a perfect book to be read to out of'.


 
Don't be bothered by the phrasal verb - it makes everything easier. "To swear in" is a true, formal phrasal verb and therefore 'in' becomes part of the verb and the preposition cannot be misused for other grammatical purposes. As Loob said, "to read to" is NOT a formal phrasal verb (even though it behaves like one in certain circumstances). That's exactly what makes those dangling prepositions tricky:

He was read to. -> 'to' can only refer to the subject 'he', because there's nothing else there it could refer to.
Detangling this sentence is not intuitive because when you place 'to' in front of 'he', the subject becomes an object -> To him was read.
This is a major transformation, the sentence becomes subjectless. If this is unacceptable it needs to be reformulated to: "It was read to him." with the dummy subject 'it'.
This sounds simple enough with 3 words, but try the same thing in a really complex sentence and you'll see why you would usually try to avoid this.

The discussed sentence ""What did you choose that book to be read to out of for?"" is exactly one of those. Try to bring the 'to' from 'read to' in front of the 'you' - it won't work easily! Not because the sentence is so different in its core structure, but because you get easily distracted by the question form, surrounding grammar and odd structures, etc., etc. If you do it on paper, step by step, you can simplify and transform it down to almost the same structure as "He was read to".


----------



## manfy

JungKim said:


> If so, changing "a" back to "that" in all those examples wouldn't change their overall sentence structure, right?


 
Right! It only changes an unspecific book/dress/specialist to a specific one. (without changing anything in the question we're discussing here)


----------



## JungKim

manfy said:


> Right! It only changes an unspecific book/dress/specialist to a specific one. (without changing anything in the question we're discussing here)



But let's look at this pair:
_He chose that book to be read_.
_He chose a book to be read_.

As far as I can tell, the former can easily mean "He chose to have that book read" whereas the latter "He chose a book that should be read". 

Of course, the opposite interpretation is not impossible. That is, the former might mean "He chose that book that should be read", and the latter "He chose to have a book read". But I would think that interpreting them the other way around (as in the earlier interpretation of the pair) sounds more natural.

Don't you think so?


----------



## PaulQ

A lot of the above relates the reduction of the relative clauses:""He chose a book to be read to from."" -> "He chose a book, from which to be read to." which is reduced from "He chose a book, from which he had decided a story should be read to him."


----------



## manfy

JungKim said:


> But let's look at this pair:
> _He chose that book to be read_.
> _He chose a book to be read_.


 
Yes, that's a well-known phenomenon.
It's not really the language that creates the difference, it's your mind! And that's because you look at these sentences in isolation - or better: you think you do(!) - and secondly, because you compare them side by side, which forces your mind to search for a difference between the two.

Language outside context has no meaning. In your specific examples, each sentence's meaning is the sum of meanings of all words in it. This sum is still meaningless and therefore your mind creates subconsciously (!!) an artificial context (based on your experience with the language and the individual words and the grammatical construct). An that's what your conscious mind gets back from your subconscious language center, the latter is responsible for decoding the data from your eyes and ears and for putting it into an understandable form for the conscious mind.

In normal, continuous English text, it will be the explicit or implicit context that will determine how you have to interpret "_He chose a/that book to be read_".

siares posted a related question, but unfortunately she deleted it while I was still thinking about it:


			
				siares said:
			
		

> _He wrote that book to be remembered.
> He wrote the book to be remembered.
> He wrote a book to be remembered._


 
When I look at these sentences without explicit context, my mind reads the first two as:
"_He wrote the/that book [in order] to be remembered_."
and the third one as:
"_He wrote a book [that has] to be remembered_."

Thus, I'm also fooled into "feeling" a difference between them. But when you analyze those sentences, you realize that this difference is not really created by the determiner a/the/that, but by the way these sentences and determiners are usually used in comparable everyday sentences and comparable everyday context.
Reading those sentences the exact opposite way is perfectly legitimate and sensible when the context supports it!


----------



## JungKim

manfy said:


> Yes, that's a well-known phenomenon.
> It's not really the language that creates the difference, it's your mind! And that's because you look at these sentences in isolation - or better: you think you do(!) - and secondly, because you compare them side by side, which forces your mind to search for a difference between the two.
> 
> Language outside context has no meaning. In your specific examples, each sentence's meaning is the sum of meanings of all words in it. This sum is still meaningless and therefore your mind creates subconsciously (!!) an artificial context (based on your experience with the language and the individual words and the grammatical construct). An that's what your conscious mind gets back from your subconscious language center, the latter is responsible for decoding the data from your eyes and ears and for putting it into an understandable form for the conscious mind.
> 
> In normal, continuous English text, it will be the explicit or implicit context that will determine how you have to interpret "_He chose a/that book to be read_".



You may be right about all this. That it's your mind that _tricks_ you into thinking this way. That it's actually the context in which these sentences are spoken that determines how to interpret them.

I'm not a native speaker, so at the very least I'm glad  that my mind tricks me into thinking the same way a native speaker's mind does, as shown by the fact that most examples of native speakers in this thread had "a book" instead of "that book", which is the wording of the Gowers' sentence.

Having said that, though, I think that the reason why your mind "tricks you" like that is because the respective version statistically does happen much more frequently in the "assumed" context. That is, over many years you've been exposed to English, sentences with "a book/dress/etc" have been used much more frequently in one type of context and those with "that book/dress/etc" in the other type. Hence, your mind's trick.

Therefore, I don't think that it's a purely random, baseless act of your mind that "tricks" you into thinking this way. In fact, I think it's somewhat reasonable to "assume" this interpretation because that's what the actual context would dictate in most, if not all, cases. It's called "context prediction", if you will.

To take this to the extreme, I guess, you have only one interpretation of _He chose it to be read_. You can't interpret it as  meaning "He chose it that should be read".


----------



## Cagey

The discussion of a sequence of prepositional phrases seems to have gone as far as is useful.
The focus is wandering. 

The thread is now closed.

Cagey, moderator.


----------

