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Use of The Verb "LIKE"

English Language & Usage Asked on January 27, 2021

Consider the following sentence, please:

I don’t like these comments coming from you.

How would a native speaker of English analyze the above sentence? I tried to analyze it myself in the following ways:

1) I don’t like these comments that are coming from you, with a relative clause at the end and probably an emphasis on the phrase ‘these comments.’

2) I don’t like these comments’ coming from you, with an apostrophe after ‘comments’, meaning “I don’t like the fact that they are coming from you.” ‘coming from you’ functions as a gerund phrase here.

3) I don’t like (these comments) and also (the fact that they’re coming from you), with “LIKE” as a di-transitive verb and the two bracketed parts as its two objects. An analogy can be drawn with the verb “see” in the following sentence:
“I saw him doing this.”

So, my question is: To a native speaker, which one/ones seems/seem correct. I know a proper context could limit the number of analyses of the given sentence. But, without a given context, in how many possible ways the above sentence could be interpreted by a native speaker is of my concern. Thank you in advance.

2 Answers

So, my question is: To a native speaker, which one/ones seems/seem correct.

The verb "like" is irrelevant. The sentence is incorrect. It is an example of the “dangling/misapplied participle.” If your sentence is ambiguous because of a participle, then you have written it wrongly.

In grammar, a dangling participle is an adjective that is unintentionally modifying the wrong noun in a sentence. An example is: "Walking through the kitchen, the smoke alarm was going off." This sentence literally means that the smoke alarm was taking a stroll. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/dangling%20participle.

Your sentence needs restructuring for clarity.

Answered by Greybeard on January 27, 2021

So, my question is: To a native speaker, which one/ones seems/seem correct.

This non-native speaker thinks the sentence sounds just fine. The correct (and only possible) interpretation is number 2. I'd drop the accent though : I don't like these comments coming from you (of all people). Also, it is not a gerund and it is not a phrase. "These comments coming from you" is only an auxiliary short of being a full-blown, finite clause. Grammatically speaking this ing clause is a catenative complement of the verb "like" . It is not uncommon at all for the ing clause to have an overt subject as in your sentence. Unlike catenative sentences involving to-infinitivals, the NP that comes in between the two verbs in partcipial catenatives is relatively rarely understood as the (semantic or syntactic) object of the matrix verb. In the case of the verb "like" in the catenative conatruction, the intervening NP is understood as the subject of the ing clause

I think that "these" in "these comments" stands in the way of interpretation 1. If you drop it, the first interpretation works and the second one doesn't. (at least how I read it at this moment, I may change my mind). There could be ambiguity in this construction, for example:

I don't like people coming to this place.

Answered by user97589 on January 27, 2021

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