{"id":1870,"date":"2012-02-08T23:54:41","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T03:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1870"},"modified":"2012-02-09T00:06:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T04:06:25","slug":"bad-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1870","title":{"rendered":"Bad Grammar?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South Bend Tribune yesterday published a story<\/a> that makes a local judge, Jerome Frese, look bad (as evidenced by comments on the story left by three<\/del> two morons) for interpreting a statute in a manner favorable to defendants and getting reversed by a unanimous three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals in three separate cases (which all turned on that statutory interpretation) on the same day back in November. The statute at issue<\/a> (section 3 of Indiana Code 9-30-5) reads as follows:<\/p>\n

[A] person who violates section 1 or 2 of this chapter commits a Class D felony if \u2026 the person has a previous conviction of operating while intoxicated that occurred within the five (5) years immediately preceding the occurrence of the violation of section 1 or 2 of this chapter[.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Judge Frese said that “occurred within . . . five . . . years” ” modifies “operating while intoxicated.” The Court of Appeals says it modifies “conviction.”<\/p>\n

But this reasoning from one of the three Court of Appeals decisions<\/a> (the other<\/a> two<\/a> opinions contain exactly identical language) caught my attention:<\/p>\n

We conclude that section 3 is not ambiguous, and it is the previous conviction that is subject to the five-year limit, not the act that gave rise to the conviction. While we acknowledge that the word \u201coccurred\u201d is indeed closer to the noun \u201coperating\u201d than it is to \u201cconviction,\u201d simple proximity is not sufficient to support a conclusion that \u201coccurred\u201d could be modifying \u201coperating\u201d in section 3. Very few, if any, would read \u201cwe had a meal in France that was delicious and expensive\u201d and conclude that \u201cdelicious and expensive\u201d was describing \u201cFrance.\u201d In any event, while the gerund \u201coperating\u201d is nominally a noun, it is not functioning as such in section 3, but, rather, as the object of the prepositional phrase \u201cof operating while intoxicated,\u201d which is functioning as an adjectival phrase to modify \u201cconviction.\u201d As such, \u201cconviction\u201d is the noun closest to the prepositional phrase beginning with \u201cthat occurred within \u2026 five \u2026 years\u201d and, in our view, is clearly being modified by that phrase as well. In summary, while we acknowledge that word order is important, there is nothing in the word order of section 3 to suggest that the phrase \u201coccurred within \u2026 five \u2026 years\u201d is intended to modify anything other than \u201cconviction.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I used to be a sentence diagramming son of a gun, having taught 7th and 8th grade English for a year at a Catholic school back in the mid 90’s. I used to know this stuff cold. But it’s been a while. And I especially doubt myself because I have to assume that the three judges who signed their names to the above passage (one of whom is the Chief Judge) either brushed up on their grammar prior to publishing their opinion or knew what they were talking about and knew they didn’t need to. Nevertheless, after spending about 15 minutes on the internet refreshing my own recollection, I can’t help but continue to maintain the following opinions, in spite of what the Indiana Court of Appeals says:<\/p>\n

1. A gerund is by definition a verb that ends in -ing<\/em> and functions as a noun, so if “operating” in section 3 is a gerund, as the Court of Appeals says it is and as it appears to be, then, contra<\/em> the Court of Appeals, it is<\/em> functioning as a noun in section 3.<\/p>\n

2. The objects of prepositional phrases are either nouns, pronouns, gerunds (i.e., verbs functioning as nouns), or noun clauses. It makes no sense to say, as the Court of Appeals said, that a word is not functioning as a noun, “but, rather,” as the object of a prepositional phrase.<\/p>\n

3. The words \u201cthat occurred within \u2026 five \u2026 years\u201d do not begin a prepositional phrase.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps some kind reader can set me straight and show me the error of my ways.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South Bend Tribune yesterday published a story that makes a local judge, Jerome Frese, look bad (as evidenced by comments on the story left by three two morons) for interpreting a statute in a manner favorable to defendants and getting reversed by a unanimous three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals in three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1870"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1874,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870\/revisions\/1874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}