I’ve seen maybe 200 grammar books in my life and have yet to see a detailed explanation of what type of word, grammar rules, and usage is involved with the word “please.”
I would be very pleased if someone could please please me with the grammar for “please.” Please!
It’s either an adverb or an active verb, depending on context.
If you please someone, that is an active verb.
If you say “can you do this please?” that’s an adverb.
“Pleased” is an adjective formed from a verb, just like tired, excited, etc. There are other forms of please, but this is one you just used, so I thought I’d mention it.
To tell what grammatical class a given word falls into - and most words can be in more than one class depending on the context they’re used in - try subsituting a word you’re pretty sure about.
For example, quickly is an adverb, right? You know that. Can you substitute please for quickly and have it sound right? (It changes the meaning, obviously, but makes grammatical sense). You can, so it’s an adverb.
And irritate is a verb - an active verb. Can you exchange please for irritate and have it make grammatical sense? Then it’s a verb.
It can also be an interjection.
OED has two main entries., for verb and adverb/interjection. (There is an obsolete noun but we won’t go into that, it was rare anyway.)
The verb please is pretty straightforward so I’ll just give the adv/int entry.
Isn’t it only an adverb in present tense commands?
Open the door -> Please open the door -> Open the door please.
Please ask X to do Y.
X He please went to the store.
X He went please to the store.
X He went to the store please.
In present tense commands, it can only go before the verb and at the end of the sentence, not in the usual adverb positions. Therefore, if it cannot go in the same position as all other adverbs, then it can’t be an adverb?
Go quickly to the store. -> X Go please to the store.
Quickly go to the store. -> Please go to the store.
Go to the store quickly. -> Go to the store please.
Let’s try helping verbs. In addition to the rules above, adverbs go in between the helping verb and the main verb, eg. had quickly gone:
X was please going
X was going please
X was going Y please
I really think it’s something different than an interjection or an adverb.
Puh-lease! :smack:
But not all adverbs go in all positions. Try substituting the adverb “fast” for “quickly” above. It doesn’t sound grammatical in position two.
The logic doesn’t follow. (Try replacing “quickly” with “today.”)
“Please” as an adverb is, historically, a shortened form of “if you please” or “if it pleases you.” It’s a way of softening what would otherwise be a command, in sort of the same way as “if you don’t mind” or “if it isn’t too much trouble” are.
Yep, I think softener is the right answer. I don’t agree that softeners are adverbs though.
Why not? If it’s softening, it’s modifying. If a phrase is modifying something other than a noun or a pronoun, it’s an adverbial phrase. If an adverbial phrase is a single word, it’s an adverb.
Softeners are a class in itself, and the purpose is not grammatical but sociological.
There are four main classes of softeners:
Excuses
Apologies
Explanations
Softener phrases
In virtually every language, the more softeners you add, the more polite the communication is perceived as:
No.
I’d love to, but I can’t.
I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I can’t.
I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I can’t because my dog ate my grandma.
I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I can’t because my dog just ate my grandma so I have to wait for Fluffy to poop out her bones so we can bury her.
“mind” and “please” are pretty much reserved for commands, but serve the same function.
I don’t disagree with anything you said except the two words “not grammatical.” Of course they’re grammatical: they’re examples of language in use.
Labelling them as “softeners” is useful, because it reflects both the sociological uses and relative syntactic independence.
They are, however, still grammatically modifying the sentence. By softening it. You can see that, can you not? Traditionally, a syntactically independent modifier is either an absolute (e.g. the Latin ablative absolute or the English nominative absolute) or a kind of adverb (e.g. an interjection). I’m not a syntactitian, so I am willing to be corrected, but I just don’t see how you can claim that a regular feature of a language is “not grammatical.”
No shit–I never knew “softeners” was a technical grammar thing.
[hijack]
Which makes me think of how I understand/understood the definition of grammar.
Sociolinguistics sounds like a relatively new field, certainly next to grammar, which must be as near as primordial as can be. So in the history of the study of grammar, introducing “softeners” must have a time and place. When? Was it controversial? Is it controversial?
[/hijack]
We call it pragmatics. The problem with the traditional “parts of speech” categories is that they aren’t sufficient to describe all of the true functions of language, and so often can’t be used to describe how people really talk.
It’s mixing apples and oranges. Strictly speaking, grammar is about form (though see below), while pragmatics is about function. All too often people obsess about the forms of language and ignore its functions, which is really what language is for. In fact, I don’t much care what part of speech (adverb, etc.) please would fall into, because putting it into one of those categories tells us little about how the word really works. As we actually use it, the word has more important restrictions (as Superhal mentions above, though I’d just point out that imperatives have no tense) that say much more about its pragmatic dimensions, than terms like “adverb” can convey.
We also use verb tense itself as a softener, which underscores the distinction between pragmatics and grammar. Grammar is not always representational.
There’s nothing mutually exclusive about pragmatics and grammar, though. They usually cross over. It’s a bit odd to say “that’s not an adverb, it’s a softener,” when it’s actually both.
Is this what you mean?
<Can you pass the coffee?> <Could you pass the coffee?>
Exactly. You can go even further and say “if you could pass the coffee…?” Second conditional.
Both examples show that grammatical terms (like adverbs) and terms from pragmatics (like softeners) go hand-in-hand. They’re not separate. And because “softeners” can be from so many different word classes it’s not really helpful to just say it’s a softener - it doesn’t tell you how it’s usually used in a sentence.
Adverbs can be post-verbial, pre-verbial, or both (often changing the meaning or at least the style). There are also a few distinctions within those categories.
“Please” is both, with a change in tone: “can you pass the coffee please?” is neutral, whereas “can you please pass the coffee?” runs the risk of sounding insistent or reluctant, like a child being forced to say please. This is especially so if the emphasis is on “please.” And then I’d say it’s no longer truly a softener. Still an adverb, though.
Thanks. This is useful, especially the point about softeners being verbs.
Yes. Consider Raymond Carver’s *Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
*, the title sentence of one of the great stories/collections of the 20th century.
The grammar comes into the formation of the softener:
Do you mind if I call you?
X Do mind you if I call you?
The use, function, and placement is governed by the culture and pragmatics of the language.
And actually one could argue that pragmatics/sociolinguistics is older than grammar. I would virtually guarantee the rules for politeness predate the first grammar book by at least 20k years.