MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver (Italics)
Terrance
lycidas2 at earthlink.net
Mon Aug 26 07:59:05 CDT 2002
jbor wrote:
>
> on 26/8/02 12:01 PM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> >> The modal verb ("must") doesn't indicate future tense here either. It's not
> >> framed as a question at all; it is a statement which accompanies Dixon's
> >> action of whipping the man "from the Back".
> >
> >
> > I can follow your grammar, but not your logic.
>
> I was questioning or disagreeing with the way you had rewritten the
> utterance as a future tense construction. But you seem to have changed your
> position on that now, so OK.
Let's say I changed my position. I have not, but that's not important.
>
> Modal verbs express degrees of certainty. The verb "must" is at the extreme
> end of the spectrum, expressing necessity, intention, deliberateness (here,
> also impatience, contempt). Try putting any other of the modals (can, could,
> shall, should, will, would, might, may) into the sentence and see how it
> compares.
I followed your grammar. I just didn't follow it to your conclusion.
>
> Further, the lack of a question mark does indicate that it isn't framed as a
> question, whatever else Dixon might use question marks for. Can you find
> another example in the text where Dixon asks a question but doesn't use a
> question mark? And why would he be asking the slave-driver anything anyway?
> He's the one calling the shots. It's rhetorical, not interrogative, imo.
Right, actually the Dixon's inflection mark is (...?) not (?). When he
asks a question we get a simple (?). Otherwise we get(...?).
Again, I agree with the grammar, it's certainly rhetorical, a command
and not an interrogative.
>
> What of Bandwraith's point regarding Dixon's exclamation at 699.13?
>
> "Now then!" cries Dixon merrily.
>
> He's certainly relishing a return to action of some sort, isn't he?
No doubt about it. Action. Dixon is a man of action, a violent man by
nature.
I've never doubted that he would, could, did, hit the Driver. Or that he
would not enjoy doing so.
>
> And what about the relative pronoun "this" at 698.35? The man has turned
> away and cannot see the whip. Dixon sees that he has turned away. Thus, the
> relative pronoun used by Dixon, if it were meant to stand for "the whip", is
> ambiguous in and inappropriate to the context of situation. By his use of
> the relative pronoun Dixon indicates that he knows the slave-driver knows
> what the pronoun is meant to stand for. The "this" has to refer to something
> which is immediately tangible to the slave-driver, i.e. the sting of the
> lash, which occurs on the "you've" three words prior to it. Dixon's
> utterance here simply doesn't make sense any other way.
>
> Play it out your way. Dixon takes the whip off the man. The man comes after
> the whip. Dixon makes a fist and puts it where it will hit the slave-driver
> in the face (i.e. Dixon punches him in the nose). The driver turns and
> staggers away. Dixon follows and says " ... I'll guess *you've* never felt
> this." Unless there's a whipstroke on "*you've*" the proximate referent for
> the relative pronoun is the punch.
Right.
>
> On the subject of the italics. You assert unequivocally that they do not or
> cannot indicate or represent Dixon's whipstrokes. What, then, in your
> opinion, do they represent?
>
> best
Lashes...?
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