all the blocking flights and arming Ukraine

[Ostap]

Now, beyond all the blocking flights and arming Ukraine, one of the biggest moves that Europe and America are taking right now is cutting Russia off of SWIFT, right?
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Hello, everybody. The above is from a Trevor Noah show episode. Am I right that the boldfaced definite article refers to the whole phrase "blocking flights and arming Ukraine" at once?

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, right.

 

[Phaedrus]

I find "all the blocking flights" and "all the arming Ukraine" ungrammatical.

"The" doesn't take verb-phrase complements, but it can take a true gerund as a complement. Here are two possibilities:

all the blocking of flights
all the flight-blocking

all the arming of Ukraine
all the Ukraine-arming

 

[Ostap]

I find "all the blocking flights" and "all the arming Ukraine" ungrammatical.

"The" doesn't take verb-phrase complements, but it can take a true gerund as a complement. Here are two possibilities:

all the blocking of flights
all the flight-blocking

all the arming of Ukraine
all the Ukraine-arming

But doesn't the whole part "blocking flights and arming Ukraine" simply act as a noun phrase in the sentence? Just like you would use an article with an ordinary noun?

 

[jutfrank]

I'm not sure you understood Phaedrus' point. He's saying that blocking flights and arming Ukraine are wrong because those are verb phrases, where grammatically you'd need gerund phrases (blocking of flights and arming of Ukraine).

Yes, you're right that the article goes with the whole compound.

 

[Phaedrus]

I'm not sure you understood Phaedrus' point. He's saying that blocking flights and arming Ukraine are wrong because those are verb phrases, where grammatically you'd need gerund phrases (blocking of flights and arming of Ukraine).

Yes. Of course, there's nothing wrong with "blocking flights" in a sentence like this:

Blocking flights irritates airline executives.

But there we don't have "the" before "blocking flights." My point was that a verb phrase, such as "blocking flights," cannot function as the complement of "the."

Where "the" is followed by a present participle before the noun, the present participle modifies the noun and does not function as the head of the noun phrase:

The swaying flights alarmed airplane engineers.

In that sentence, "the swaying flights" refers to flights that swayed ("swaying" modifies "flights"), not to flights' being swayed by something or someone.

 

[Ostap]

The way I see it is this:

If we think of "all the blocking flights and arming Ukraine" as "all the blocking flights and (all the) arming Ukraine", then I agree.
But in the original, "the" doesn't refer to "blocking flights" and "arming Ukraine" separately. It refers to "blocking flights and arming Ukraine" as a whole regardless of the parts of speech it consists of.

What about: "Now all you hear everywhere is this Putin invaded Ukraine." The idea is: "Now all you hear everywhere is this [whatever phrase, sentence you like]."

 

[Phaedrus]

The way I see it is this:

If we think of "all the blocking flights and arming Ukraine" as "all the blocking flights and (all the) arming Ukraine", then I agree.
But in the original, "the" doesn't refer to "blocking flights" and "arming Ukraine" separately. It refers to "blocking flights and arming Ukraine" as a whole regardless of the parts of speech it consists of.

Whether "all the" is used before each phrase or before their conjunction, the construction remains ungrammatical, as any native speaker will agree. Compare:

*Beyond all the making sandwiches and washing dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.
*Beyond all the making sandwiches and all the washing dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.

Beyond all the making of sandwiches and washing of dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.
Beyond all the making of sandwiches and all the washing of dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.

Beyond all the sandwich-making and dish-washing, there are other tasks that need to be completed.
Beyond all the sandwich-making and all the dish-washing, there are other tasks that need to be completed.

 

[Ostap]

Whether "all the" is used before each phrase or before their conjunction, the construction remains ungrammatical, as any native speaker will agree. Compare:

*Beyond all the making sandwiches and washing dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.
*Beyond all the making sandwiches and all the washing dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.

Beyond all the making of sandwiches and washing of dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.
Beyond all the making of sandwiches and all the washing of dishes, there are other tasks that need to be completed.

Beyond all the sandwich-making and dish-washing, there are other tasks that need to be completed.
Beyond all the sandwich-making and all the dish-washing, there are other tasks that need to be completed.

Maybe it's too informal and casual for it to be considered strictly grammatical, but I often hear such constructs, where entire phrases and sentences act as nouns or adjectives (in movies, TV shows, etc.), in speech. Because I understand you still think of "the" as referring to "blocking" only, and so "blocking" needs to be a noun followed by "of".

 

[probus]

Ostap, I think maybe your are having a problem with register. The construct is fine in a context like The Daily Show. In a more formal context a more precisely correct phraseology would be preferred.

 

[Phaedrus]

Maybe it's too informal and casual for it to be considered strictly grammatical, but I often hear such constructs, where entire phrases and sentences act as nouns or adjectives (in movies, TV shows, etc.), in speech. Because I understand you still think of "the" as referring to "blocking" only, and so "blocking" needs to be a noun followed by "of".

Would you, then, consider an ungrammatical sentence like "The reading books is good for the mind" to be acceptable in casual or informal contexts rather than an outright error?

 

[emsr2d2]

Would you, then, consider an ungrammatical sentence like "The reading books is good for the mind" to be acceptable in casual or informal contexts rather than an outright error?

No.

Reading books is good for the mind.
The reading of books is good for the mind.

The relevant part of the original was "all the". In BrE, that can be used to introduce, in a slightly sarcastic or narky way, something that you've been doing or has been happening. I use "all this/that/the".

Aaargh! All this eating healthily and running six miles a day is driving me mad. Why can't people just sit on the sofa and watch Netflix?
I wish I didn't have to work with James. All the alphabetising the files and rearranging the staples is really irritating.
I really like Helen. All that ignoring what other people think and just being yourself have really rubbed off on me. I feel much better about myself.

 

[Phaedrus]

All this eating healthily and running six miles a day is driving me mad.
. . . All that ignoring what other people think and just being yourself have really rubbed off on me.

Those two examples work for me too!

How interesting that demonstrative determiners can take VP complements, in addition to possessive determiners and the null determiner.

All the alphabetising the files and rearranging the staples is really irritating.

That example does not work for me; or, at least, I cannot say that I find it fully grammatical. Perhaps it's not as bad the "all the making sandwiches" example that I gave in post #8. It's interesting that you have not used an example that is grammatically parallel to the "all the blocking flights," which does not contain an additional "the." Your example would be parallel to "all the blocking the flights," if that had been the example in the OP, which it isn't.

The relevant part of the original was "all the".

Do you and other British speakers find a sentence like the following syntactically ambiguous, then?

All the eating animals surprised the zookeeper.

Can that mean for you either (i) "all the eating of animals"/"all the animal-eating" or (ii) "all the animals that were eating"?

(You see how different the interpretations are. In (i), people are eating the poor zoo animals. In (ii), the animals at the zoo are nourishing themselves.)

If so, I assume that, as a sentence subject, "all the eating animals" could be followed by either a singular or a plural verb for you, depending on your interpretation.

All the eating animals is disgusting to vegetarians.
All the eating animals are a big attraction for zoo goers who like seeing animals feed.

If both those sentences work for you, we may conclude that, outside of context, the head of the phrase "all the eating animals" can't be determined by BrE speakers.

 

[emsr2d2]

That example does not work for me; or, at least, I cannot say that I find it fully grammatical. Perhaps it's not as bad the "all the making sandwiches" example that I gave in post #8. It's interesting that you have not used an example that is grammatically parallel to the "all the blocking flights," which does not contain an additional "the." Your example would be parallel to "all the blocking the flights," if that had been the example in the OP, which it isn't.

That's a fair point. Having thought about it, I realise that I would equally say:

All the alphabetising files and organising staples is driving me mad.

There's a very good chance that I would stress "alphabetising files" and "organising staples" in some way - either by clearly separating the two phrases with a short gap before and after, or by rolling my eyes while saying them.

 

[Ostap]

Do you and other British speakers find a sentence like the following syntactically ambiguous, then?

All the eating animals surprised the zookeeper.

But here, "all the" works in a different way, doesn't it? It doesn't combine different actions/events in one, like in the original. It's just "eating animals".
Being a foreign speaker, and without additional context, I would interpret it as:

(ii) "all the animals that were eating"

 

[emsr2d2]

I don't find "All the eating animals surprised the zookeeper" ambiguous. I'd call it at best unnatural and at worst ungrammatical.

 

[Phaedrus]

I don't find "All the eating animals surprised the zookeeper" ambiguous. I'd call it at best unnatural and at worst ungrammatical.

How about this one?

All the punching robots frightened the visitors.

Can you tell whether the robots were throwing or receiving punches? My grammatical sensibility only allows the interpretation on which the robots were punching (and one on which they were made for the sake of punching). I find it ungrammatical to parse it as equivalent to "All the robot-punching frightened the visitors."