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Not to mess with

by jkph00, December 14, 2013

Messages: 15

Language: English

jkph00 (User's profile) December 16, 2013, 11:08:46 PM

Nile:I'm not familiar with this type of diagram, but my intuition tells me that it explicitly indicates that "not" is negating "learned".
Which means he "didn't learn (to mess with her)".
I shudder when I think of all the sentences I had to diagram when I was in 7th grade with my English teacher from East Tennessee. I didn't dare NOT learn to do it. okulumo.gif

He learned what? To mess with her (Prepositional phrase functioning as direct obect)
He learned what? NOT to mess with her (Adverb qualifying the object phrase, not modifying it)

Nile (User's profile) December 16, 2013, 11:16:13 PM

I'm still confused about the diagram though, it looks like it's saying
What didn't he learn? To mess with her.

So does the diagram just not work the way i thought, or what?

jkph00 (User's profile) December 17, 2013, 10:30:43 AM

Nile:I'm still confused about the diagram though, it looks like it's saying
What didn't he learn? To mess with her.

So does the diagram just not work the way i thought, or what?
It seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it. English grammar is very fluid. We are not supposed to split infinitives, but if I change the sentence to, "He learned to not mess with her," it changes the adverb not's reference to the prepositional phrase and you then have the diagram attached below.

sudanglo (User's profile) December 17, 2013, 12:03:41 PM

This position in an English sentence for negating a verbal idea occurs elsewhere. For example, I love not having to visit my relatives at Christmas.

And judging from the results of Google Translate 'learned not to X' has the same positional pattern in a number of European languages as it does in Esperanto and English.

Anyway, returning to the topic - I was not 100% certain JKP of the usage of 'mess with' in American English. My assumptions as to the meaning were based on the speech of low-lifes in American films.

But it occurred to me later that in British English a mother might say to a child 'don't mess with your food' and the meaning in that case is eat your food properly, don't play with it. And the girlfriend might be insisting that your son treat her properly (rather than becoming difficult when she is crossed).

Then the translation might be Li lernis ne petoli rilate ŝin

Nile (User's profile) December 17, 2013, 10:08:04 PM

jkph00:We are not supposed to split infinitives
Bah! "rules".

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