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Aswad -> RE: Now God intended rape to happen. (10/24/2012 7:04:42 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tazzygirl
I see the "it" as being the struggle between the act of rape and the pregnancy that may ensue.
Not attacking your interpretation, just showing why mine is what it is:
«I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realise that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.»
We have a narrative structure here. Let's make a few rewrites to highlight it.
«I struggled with it myself for a long time. Eventually, I came to realize that life is that gift from God. Therefore I think that: even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.»
Now, the first sentence uses the dummy pronoun "it" because the "with" PP cannot be empty by prescription (English is not pro-drop). He could have used "I struggled with this myself" instead, but since he didn't, that branch is redundant. The PP is not necessary, and I think it is there because he doesn't want to say "I myself struggled" or "I, too, struggled" or "Too, I struggled". So let's leave out the "me too" bit that we can take to mean "I'm aware of the problem like the rest of you." and get a clearer structure.
«I struggled [with this] for a long time. Eventually, I came to realize that life is that gift from God. Therefore I think that: even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.»
As I said, "with this" is only present because it's mandatory, it doesn't convey anything when we know the overarching topic. So let's lose it for clarity. In the same pass, let's disambiguate "that gift from God" into "a [special] gift from God." without bothering to write out the "[special]" part he implied with "that".
«I struggled for a long time. Eventually, I came to realize that life is a gift from God. Therefore I think that: even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.»
We can see the topical subject emerging in the second sentence, to which the third sentence presents the conclusions to his thinking, and that topical subject is life. So let's lose the part where he says this is his conclusion, as we already know that, and will keep it in mind.
«I struggled for a long time. Eventually, I came to realize that life is a gift from God. Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, it is something that God intended to happen.»
The third sentence starts with a topic and then makes a statement about it. For clarity, let's get rid of some subordinates. Two prepositional phrases and a couple of noun phrases can go:
«I struggled PP¹. Eventually, I came to realize that life is NP¹. Even when life begins PP², it is NP².»
We can make the binding sequence even clearer, as well as dropping some fluff:
«I struggled PP¹. I came to realize: life is NP¹. Even when it begins PP², it is NP².»
And a rewrite for more clarity, structurally allowed:
«I struggled PP¹. I came to realize: life is NP¹. It is NP². Even when it begins PP².»
Pared down this way, I think it should be clear how I thought that there could be only one viable antecedent to "it". That antecedent, "life", is structurally adjacent, a good fit in meaning, already the topical binding, and even occuring in the same subject role continuously throughout.
Other readings either cast the "it" binding way up past the bounding scope it is in (as you did; perfectly sensible, though I disagree), or casting the binding backwards in linear sequence, which is not how human language works (we have either context-sensitive grammar or recursively enumerable grammar, and the common analysis is via tree structures, which I couldn't be arsed to draw, photograph and post).
As I said, your interpretation is allowable and sensible enough, but I think mine is more accurate.
I'll try to be humble about a second language, though.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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