Why would you interpret it that way if the next sentence begins with the phrase, “For you see”? Doesn’t “for you see” indicate that what follows is going to give reasons to believe what preceded? And if that’s the case, doesn’t this make what preceded the conclusion of an inference, the premise or premises of which follow the phrase “for you see”?
TLDR: What do you make of “for you see” in that example? Why doesn’t that phrase make you read “pizza is awesome” as the conclusion of an inference?
Something else I’ve discussed in class a few times is the difference between an explanation and an argument. I’ve made sure they understand that in these examples, the passages are always meant to be read as arguments, not explanations.
Basically, an explanation is an attempt to tell why something happens or happened. An argument is an attempt to tell why one should believe something happens or happened. (There’s more to it than that but that’ll do for present purposes.)
You’re reading the inference as an explanation of sorts, but if you read it as an argument, (which my students (should) know they’re supposed to do for these examples) then it seems clear (doesn’t it?) that the first sentence is the conclusion.
Admittedly, I didn’t even notice that that one could be read as an explanation. I designed some of the others with that distinction in mind, but not that particular question. Good catch.
If it had said “This must be because…” instead of “this is because” it’d more plausibly read as an argument with the second sentence as the conclusion rather than the first.
I’m not sure why you think this wouldn’t count as an inference by the bolded definition. The conclusion “my walls are blue” is asserted on the basis of a premise “I painted my walls blue.” That phrase, “for you see,” indicates that what follows is going to give us (an attempt at) a rational basis for belief concerning what preceded.
It’s that very fact (the fact that the second sentence is as though someone had asked “why is pizza awesome”) that marks “pizza is awesome” as a conclusion in this passage. Since the other sentence is intended to answer the (spoken or unspoken) question “Why do you believe/Why should I think the first sentence is true?” the other sentence is giving a rational basis for belief regarding the first sentence. This makes the second sentence a premise, and the first sentence a conclusion.
An inference consists, usually, when written down, two or more sentences (sometimes joined together with a conjunction, sometimes not). Note the technical definition I gave to clarify later on–and which you agreed with.
An inference is a process. The record of an inference typically consists in a few sentences, one of which is a conclusion, the others of which are premises.
You don’t have to lack an opinion to give an inference. You simply have to give reasons for a belief in order to be giving an inference. (Giving reasons is necessary for giving an inference, it may not be sufficient.)
So, yeah, so, for the record, here are the answers. Thought some might want to see them, since there has been discussion about particular examples.
Sentences containing conclusions are highlighted in bold.
Kathy wasn’t in class. She must have been sick.
You should come to class every day. Students who don’t come to class almost never pass.
Carlos didn’t do his homework. So he couldn’t have turned anything in.
Every dog has three legs. For my dog has three legs.
For every dog that has three legs, there are a thousand dogs that have four legs. This is because three-leggedness is very unusual.
Maria is probably going to become a doctor. She spends most of her free time reading medical thrillers.
Doing homework is an essential part of learning the subject matter. Students who don’t do homework are thus, to a certain degree, depriving themselves of the learning process.
This kid likes movies. Look at all the posters in her room.
Pizza is awesome. For you see, it has cheese on it, and cheese is always good.
Dextrous ventricles are the best kind of ventricles. You can be sure of that, since only dexterous ventricles can help you perambulate.
If it had said “For every dog that has three legs, there are a thousand dogs that have some other number of legs. This is because three-leggedness is very unusual.” it would be plausibly (sort of) read as an argument in which the first sentence was the conclusion.
But it actually says “For every dog that has three legs, there are a thousand dogs that have four legs. This is because three-leggedness is very unusual.”
There is no way to get the information about “four legs” from the second sentence. There is no reference at all to “four legs” in the second sentence.
The natural reading is that the first sentence must be previous knowledge, and the second sentence must be the conclusion. If you know three-legged dogs are unusual, then you might conclude that three-legged animals are unusual in general. Notice that the second sentence does not mention dogs in particular.
“Clocks tell time. Therefore some unicorns are pink.”
The second sentence is a conclusion, the first a premise. Yet there is no way to get the information about unicorns from the first sentence.
It’s a really strange inference. It’s a bizarrely badly drawn conclusion. But it’s an inference, and the second sentence the conclusion, for all that.
I don’t see how that can be a natural reading given the presence of the phrase “this is because…” Like I said, if it said “This must be because…” I’d agree with you.
But the more I think about this example, the more I think it can be read as an explanation rather than as an argument. I’ll probably take it out of the pool next time I give quizzes like this.
It is extremely unusual. Have a flick through some textbooks or fiction or any type of writing and you’ll find hardly any subordinate clauses used as standalone sentences.
I think you’re right to drop the dog question when teaching this subject; while the conclusion definitely is the part you’re saying it is, there’s too much confusing stuff in those sentences, clouding the issue.
I wish there were some way to find a collection of data about this. My impression is that it can often be unobjectionable. Others’ is that it never happens. The question of who is right is empirical, but flicking through the books I have in my office is not a good way of settling that empirical question.
I find it unusual as well. Other than poetic writing, or maybe stylistically odd authors like Kurt Vonnegut, I can’t really think of when I’ve come across subordinate clauses as standalone sentences. It certainly strikes me as non-standard and only makes sense in a conversational tone. “Why do I have to do this?” “Because I said so. Or else you’ll be in trouble. Just do it already!” (that last one isn’t subordinate, but the first two are, right?)
I read the OP as “Most of these are examples of inferences, but only one is an example of a conclusion. Which one?” IOW, it’s an exercise in identifying inductive vs. deductive reasoning, or which second sentences follow inexorably from the first ones.
Well, it’s not scientific enough to merit publication, but it’d work and it’d take only a few minutes.
Subordinate clauses depend on the main clause for meaning, which is why it’s rare to see them used as sentences on their own - it’s a matter of linguistic logic as well as empirical observation. When it does happen, it’s mainly as a response in dialogue or as an intentionally fragmented sentence in poetry or fiction.
Well… not the best source but the second book I picked up had the following:
“For it isn’t, either, as if he had arrived at his proposition by pursuing some line of thought which, while it is open to me, I have not in fact pursued.”
That’s a translation of On Certainty, by Wittgenstein. It’s not formal academic writing, nor is it particularly good writing, (though it does make a lot more sense in context,) but it’s English prose, and adds a tiny bit of evidence to my claim that starting with “for” is neither forbidden nor constitutive of an incomplete sentence.
Guess I’ll look for more? This seems really ridiculous. Is there really no way to search a corpus for the string “. For”?
David Armstrong quotes a Hume passage containing the construction. (Treatise Concerning Human Nature, quoted in Armstrong’s The Mind Body Problem.) But Hume’s from a few centuries ago so that may not count.
Shoemaker and Swinburne’s Personal Identity has the following sentence: “For on other views of the nature of personal identity it is easy to give an account of why continuity of brain and memory should be evidence of it.” (p49 of the 1989 edition.)
The 2006 novel Strangers in the House has this construction in it.
I need to start doing something more productive now. But my point has been that it does happen, in quality writing, that people begin sentences with “for.” I guess if I can find several cases within a half hour doing some basic google searching and book perusing, it’s likely a better empirical method would probably even further bear out my claim.
And when it does happen in quality writing, that word “for” functions to indicate that what follows is going to function as a premise for a conclusion that’s probably been stated just prior to the word “for.”
The Google book you reference also has “Not yet.” and “Not quite.” Those aren’t full sentences either. If this is a test you’re giving to students, wouldn’t it be better to use standard English rather than poetic-sounding prose?
