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Take the following sentence:

It is better to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks than to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify.

For the above sentence, I assume "to go in a direction" is something like a noun phrase?

Can someone explain a little bit what "to go in a direction" is in this sentence?

tchrist
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3 Answers3

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No, not a noun phrase, but a comparative clause functioning as complement of the preposition “than”.

It is better to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks than [to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify].

The meaning can be given as “it is x good to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks; it is y good to go in a direction that usually involves more certainty than you can justify; x > y”.

Comparative clauses are structurally reduced, in that some material is left understood that would be overtly present in comparable full main clauses. In your example, the subject “it”, verb “is” and the "y good" part are left understood, (“it” is of course a meaningless ‘dummy’ subject.)

BillJ
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Overall the structure is (using NP to mean noun phrase): NP is better than NP.

Both NPs are nominalized sentences, formed by combining the for-to complementizer with a S (using S to mean sentence).

The first S is: You underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks.
The second S is: You go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify.

The for-to complementizer combines with the S it goes with by combining "for" with the subject and "to" with a non-finite version of the verb phrase of the sentence. "Non-finite" means that tense is not expressed. I don't know what the tenses of these two sentences are, so I simply omitted them, but perhaps you could assume an understood "would" auxiliary in each sentence ("would" is tensed).

So after combining the complementizers with the Ss, we get:
for you to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks
for you to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify

The "for you" in both sentences is omitted -- that is, left understood. The subject of the main sentence is extraposed -- that is, it is replaced by "it" in the original subject position and the former subject is appended to the verb phrase "is better".

Greg Lee
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  • +1 Complicated structure made very clear [my usual H&P style objections to the upstairs term NP apart]. However, are you sure that the extraposed subject is really appended to better? Isn't the basic structure really "It is better than for you to go in a direction... [for you to underestimate your abilities]" with various kinds of movements? – Araucaria - Him Jan 29 '16 at 12:38
  • I don't know what your objections to "NP" are. I didn't say that the extraposed subject was appended to better, but rather to the VP is better. Am I sure that's right? No. I recalled some discussion in TSPE of where in the structure an extraposed subject goes, but I don't remember McCawley's reasoning, and I'm not sure that is better is actually a VP. I don't understand your idea about the basic structure. – Greg Lee Jan 29 '16 at 17:01
  • [I have no real objection to NP, just that coming from an H&P type background I prefer to reserve NP for phrases headed by nouns.] What I mean is that as an extraposed subject, the first 'NP' is a Complement of BE. The second NP is actually part of the better adjective phrase. So having the extraposed subject NP appended to is better makes it sound like the exptraposed NP is part of the phrase headed by better - which it isn't, I don't think. It would seem to be an entirely separate complement of BE. Does that explain why I'm unsure? – Araucaria - Him Jan 29 '16 at 18:03
  • @Araucaria: What does "H&P" mean? I think your reasoning has been contaminated by the fundamental assumption of dependency grammar, which is that the syntactic behavior of a phrase is determined by its head. And the problem with that assumption is that it just isn't true. – Greg Lee Jan 29 '16 at 18:47
  • @ Greg Lee H&P refers to Huddleston & Pullum, the authors of the award-winning The Cambridge Grammar of The English Language. Revered throughout the world by linguists and grammarians alike, it is a grammar masterpiece; arguably the most authoritative grammar ever written. You should read it some time. – BillJ Jan 29 '16 at 21:05
  • @Araucaria, I'm trying to understand what you mean in your comment "... which it isn't". Are you saying that in "It is better to diet" that the "is better to diet" is not a constituent? I think it is a constituent, specifically a VP. – Greg Lee Jan 29 '16 at 22:50
  • @GregLee Yes, that's kind of the issue I'm wondering about. The verb BE would seem to have two complements here: an Extraposed Subject and a Predicative Complement. I would have thought that the phrase headed by better would be PC, The infinitival clause to underestimate.... seems to be the ES - so I don't see how "better to underestimate ..." can be a Complement of BE. So I upvoted you post but that little bit of it is niggling me because I don't understand it. – Araucaria - Him Jan 30 '16 at 10:46
  • @GregLee Obviously the whole Predicate is a VP, but there of course different constituents within the VP. Better and to underestimate are in different constituents within the VP it seems to me. So in It's better to diet the PC is better and the ES is to diet - but maybe you were talking about the VP as a whole? – Araucaria - Him Jan 30 '16 at 11:31
  • @Araucaria, I said that the extraposed sentence was appended to the VP "is better". When you append a thing, it becomes part of the thing to which it was appended -- this is just English I'm using here. When I refer to the VP "is better", how could I be referring to only a part of it? I'm having difficulty following what you're trying to express. – Greg Lee Jan 30 '16 at 11:54
  • @GregLee what was confusing me is that I think the verb phrase is not "is better" but "is [better than to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify]" But if what you mean is just that the ES gets melded with this entire VP, then I understand and am no longer confused. Is that what you mean? – Araucaria - Him Jan 30 '16 at 13:01
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    @Araucaria, These are not mutually exclusive possibilities. And let's keep apart what I said in my answer and what is true. You asked above whether I was sure about the structure, and I replied that I was not. I think what I said was clear, but it is not clearly correct. Neither of the two diagnostics I generally use for detecting VPs happens to be applicable in this example. – Greg Lee Jan 30 '16 at 17:52
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The sentence

  • It is better to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks
    than to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify.

is a transform by conjunction reduction of it is in

  • It is better to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks
    than it is to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify.

This comparative construction contains than, which only occurs in comparatives.
The construction compares (favorably) one infinitive clause with deleted you subject

  • (for you) to underestimate your abilities and overestimate your risks

with a different infinitive clause, also with deleted you subject

  • (for you) to go in a direction that actually involves more uncertainty than you can justify
    (this clause itself contains a relative clause with another comparative construction
    • more uncertainty than you can justify
      That's a lot of syntax. One comparative is complex enough; two is two many.)

In this sentence, both infinitive clauses are noun phrases, and the comparative just weighs them.

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John Lawler
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