Here's an extra-credit question for my ENGL 4309 (Advanced Grammar) students, who face a tough exam this afternoon:
Read the following gaseous emission from the pentagon and answer the questions that follow. Show your math!
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Mr Rumsfeld also rejected suggestions civil war was engulfing Iraq, hitting out at what he said were "exaggerated media reports of violence there."
"I do not believe they're in a civil war today," he said.
He added: "There's always been a potential for a civil war. That country was held together through a repressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves."
- The last sentence provides a good example of the passive transformation of the main verb phrase. Why, however, does Rummy follow the main verb phrase with "through" and not--as would normally be the case--"by"?
- Let's say, hypothetically, he had used "by" in that construction. Why would the first person plural pronoun that followed it be in the accusative and not the nominative case, when it would in fact be the subject of the sentence?
- What does the past tense + passive transformation suggest, semantically, in this example?
- Re-write the final paragraph for honesty and clarity.
KEY (no peeking! I couldn't think of a good way to make this upside-down):
- "Through" is indeed a strange choice of words. Generally, when we use the passive voice and include the optional subject, the subject is tacked on at the end of the sentence: "The cat was taken to the vet (by me)." "These civilians were exposed to Willy Pete (by us)." You get the point. Rummy's use of "through" is an acknowledgement that the government of Saddam Hussein--which killed lots of people in order to "hold together" Iraq--was just the tool of another, unacknowledged subject of the sentence.
- The first person plural pronoun Rummy would have used, had he acknowledged the subject of the sentence, would have been "us," in the accusative (or objective) case--despite the fact that it identifies the subject of the sentence--because it follows the preposition "by," necessary for revealing the subject after the passive transformation.
- It suggests that the country is no longer being "held together."
- He added: "There's always been a potential for a civil war. We once held that country together through a repressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves. Now we don't know what the fuck we're doing."
4 comments:
It was held together through the regime. As in, from the beginning to the end of the regime. Now that the regime is over, it is no longer held together and is, in fact, coming apart.
The hundreds of thousands in mass graves is a lie, too, It's more like 5,000. My first clue that it was a lie is that Rumsfeld said it.
Exactly. I heard this on BBC last night, and that--the "hundreds of thousands" figure--along with "mass graves" is why I thought to post anything. What is it with "mass graves," anyway? Shouldn't we be more horrified by people living with excruciating injuries caused by white phosphorous? Or dying slowly and anonymously?
"Civil war could have happened sooner. The repressive regime we were supporting murdered hundreds of thousands people in the process of scaring that regions population into compliance. But they buried the bodies efficiently, I'll credit my friend Saddam for that."
Extry credit for roxtar and murky thoughts!
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