ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: What's the logic behind this?

Mister Micawber — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:14:22 GMT

Sorry, I.O.-- what precisely is your question?

Re: What's the logic behind this?

Guest — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 03:42:04 GMT

Hello everyone,

Could you explain the example from LONGMAN? The second one is new, right?

http://pewebdic2.cw.idm.fr/display/display.html?unfolded=2819&ids=2818&ids=2819&ids=2820&ids=16112&ids=16900&ids=18292&ids=21460&ids=27705&ids=31033&ids=32776&ids=47842&ids=47958

6 though
- Unlikely as it might seem, I'm tired too.
- Try as she might, Sue couldn't get the door open.
- As popular as he is, the President hasn't always managed to have his own way.

Thanks,
I. O. Schugar

Re: What's the logic behind this?

MrPedantic — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:39:30 GMT

Since simple words in English are mostly Germanic, and abstractions, technical terms, etc are mostly derived from Latin and Greek, it should (in theory) be true that Latin-derived languages become easier for an English native speaker to learn, as he or she goes further into them, while Germanic ones become more difficult.

I wonder if this is indeed the case.

And is (for instance) English easier for a Spanish person to learn, if he already knows German?

(This is not of course strictly on-piste – but I notice that this thread brings together several people with an interest in German; and MisterM only says he may be too old to start learning, which suggests at the very least a possible interest.)

MrP

Re: What's the logic behind this?

eagle2l84 — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:08:06 GMT

... And I thought English was difficult! Thanks for the warning, Eagle. I may be too old to start studying German.

It's even worse. The optional article is just the tip of the iceberg. (
As in English we also have phrase verbs, but it does not end there, we create new nouns by putting other nouns together. A few examples:

Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitaen - captain of a steam ship on the river Danube.

or the longest word with no repeating character (there has been a competition by the Association of German language to find it):

Heiz(oe)lr(ue)cksto(ss)abd(ae)mpfung - reaction/recoil dampening for heating oil (where oe is a transcription for o umlaut, ue for u umlaut, ss for strong s /sz and ae for a umlaut, so if your browser can show those characters here is the real word: Heizölrückstoßabdämpfung)

and not to forget:

sitzen bleiben - remain seated
sitzenbleiben - stay down; have to repeat a year

weiter entwickeln - keep developing; continue to develop
weiterentwickeln - to make progress

German is very very difficult, even for native speakers. I think, that's why the concept of a "descriptive grammar" for German is getting more and more popular. We now had several hundred years only a prescriptive grammar and grammar rules are somewhat perceived as unchangable laws.

But enough about German. Thanks for listening. It was a joy to show off the nuances of German.

cu

Re: What's the logic behind this?

Mister Micawber — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 01:16:18 GMT

The indefinite article is optional in your example. Usually it is required as in

He is a loser. - Er ist ein Versager.

I would have to think it over more thoroughly, but for now I would say it is only optional for occupations, professions, cronic medical illnesses and to indicate geographic or ethnic origin (and probably a few other nouns, that describe long term or habitual states, though not all). In all other cases it is required. However, if optional, there are occasions where it sounds slightly odd if you include it and others if you omit it, I am though not sure why and what rule I could give to advise proper usage.

... And I thought English was difficult! Thanks for the warning, Eagle. I may be too old to start studying German.

Re: What's the logic behind this?

MrPedantic — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:19:31 GMT

The off-topic parts are often the best.

I am late, as usual; but not too late (I hope) to join in the standing ovation.

MrP

Re: What's the logic behind this?

paco2004 — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 22:19:44 GMT

To Eagle

Thank you for the information. I learned some German when young. But now I forget all what I learned. It's a bit sad.

paco

To Komountain

Thank you for the compliment. But please know my opinion is nothing but an opinion. I cannot find any good reference to support it. Let's study it more! By the way I feel you are really a good student of English. Your questions always inspire my mind to study. Also I am admiring your excellent skills of English writing. Have a nice day!

paco

Re: What's the logic behind this?

komountain — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 20:57:50 GMT

Paco, do you hear a wild roar of clapping hands?
You deserve a standing ovation, indeed! So do all other participants.

Off-Topic German

eagle2l84 — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 20:50:43 GMT

Dear paco,

The indefinite article is optional in your example. Usually it is required as in

He is a loser. - Er ist ein Versager.

I would have to think it over more thoroughly, but for now I would say it is only optional for occupations, professions, cronic medical illnesses and to indicate geographic or ethnic origin (and probably a few other nouns, that describe long term or habitual states, though not all). In all other cases it is required. However, if optional, there are occasions where it sounds slightly odd if you include it and others if you omit it, I am though not sure why and what rule I could give to advise proper usage. Examples:

including is slightly odd (but not wrong!):
He is a professor of fine arts. - Er ist Professor der schoenen Kuenste.

omitting is slightly odd (but not wrong):
He is a politician of the old school. - Er ist ein Politiker des alten Schlages.

both are equal, but omitting is more common:
He is a student. - Er ist (ein) Student.
He is a farmer. - Er ist (ein) Landwirt.
He is a Greek. - Er ist (ein) Grieche.
He is a diabetic. - Er ist (ein) Diabetiker.

required, as neither occupation nor geographic or ethnic origin:
He is a giant. - Er ist ein Riese.
He is an extraterrestrian. - Er ist ein Ausserirdischer.
He is a genius. - Er ist ein Genie.

And you cannot omit it, if there are adjectives or relative clauses:
He is a good professor. - Er ist ein guter Professor.
He is an artist who is famous around the world. - Er ist ein Künstler, der auf der ganzen Welt berühmt ist.

I hope this was interesting although off-topic.

cu

Re: What's the logic behind this?

paco2004 — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 11:19:20 GMT

Hello MrP

Thank you for your compliment. But I need some literature material to prove my supposition.

By the way, don't you think English is extraordinary among European languages in that they put an indefinite article even to predicate nouns?
(English) He is a student.
(German) Er ist Student.
(French) Il est etudiant.
(Spanish) El es estudiante.

paco

Re: What's the logic behind this?

MrPedantic — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 09:25:52 GMT

Ah! good thinking!

And if we assume that the board of the workhouse held this opinion too, Dickens' 'concession' can then be classed as ironic.

And perhaps there's another possible reason: perhaps the concession applies rather to 'reckless/desperate'.

Or perhaps there's an element of both reasons.

Well caught! I should have read Dickens more carefully.

Also, it occurs to me that ‘fronting’ of the noun is common in e.g. early alliterative poetry in Germanic languages.

I realize now that this is ambiguous: I should have said 'it occurs to me that ‘fronting’ of the noun is common (e.g. in early English alliterative poetry) in Germanic languages'. (Even then, it doesn't say much.)

So we would have to go a long way back to find evidence of ellipses.

And this is muddled thinking, since, as you point out, by the time we've gone a long way back, we're dealing with quite a different animal.

Another reason people disincline to put "a/an" to the noun in [N as SV] constructs might be that "a/an" cannot be stressed so much in narration.

Yes – in other words, the inversion is no longer quite so 'emphatic'. Cf 'As hungry as he was,...': hardly emphatic at all.

This is my humble opinion and it has no firm grounds.

They sound pretty firm grounds to me.

Thank you, Paco!

MrP

Re: What's the logic behind this?

paco2004 — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 08:40:32 GMT

Hello MrP

So I can only assume that either Dickens got his idiom slightly wrong, or ‘Child as he was’ had a simple complementary sense in his day.

I feel your sense that children are not immune to hunger and misery is very modern one. Children of poor social classes in Dickens' times would be put in misery and they were exposed to hunger more intensely than adults. I think "who earns least should eat least" was the rule among poor families in pre-modern societies. Indeed in my childhood I was told this rule quite often by my father. So I take Dickens's 'child as he was' as a concessive clause to mean 'though he was a child'. I think this would be supported by Dickens' uses of [N as SV] construct in his other novel "Nicholas Nickleby";
"It might have been that Sir Mulberry remembered, that, knave and usurer as he was, he must, in some early time of infancy, have twined his arm about her father's neck." (Dickens; Nicholas Nickleby Chapter 38)
"The waiter was touched. Waiter as he was, he had human passions and feelings, and he looked very hard at Miss Squeers as he handed the muffins." (Dickens; Nicholas Nickleby Chapter 39)

Also, it occurs to me that ‘fronting’ of the noun is common in e.g. early alliterative poetry in Germanic languages. So we would have to go a long way back to find evidence of ellipses. And I suppose you couldn't 'front', if you included the article...and there's nowhere else to put it...

I tried to look for the origin of this kind of usage in OED but it was a vain work. But as you know well, historically speaking, the English language had not indefinite articles at least at the time of Old English in which people could discriminate singular and plural by the noun's declensional form. So they said the way like "MrP is good man" (MrP iss god mon). Noun declension systems being degenerated, use of "a/an" gradually got popular and the sentence structure had been changed into the one like "MrP is a good man". But still now you would often use a singular countable noun without articles especially when you talk about person's quality or profession. For example: "Ms Condoleezza Rice is more scholar than politician". So I don't think it is curious the noun in [N as SV] constructs does not take an indefinite article. Another reason people disincline to put "a/an" to the noun in [N as SV] constructs might be that "a/an" cannot be stressed so much in narration. I think the construct [N as S V] is used not only as concession but also as to emphasize the fronted word and the word should be stressed. So it would be quite inconvenient for emphasis if the noun is headed by weakly pronounced a or an. This is my humble opinion and it has no firm grounds.

paco

Re: What's the logic behind this?

MrPedantic — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:25:13 GMT

Thanks, Eagle, Paco, and MisterM for all your painstaking posts! Much to chew on.

1.

It's odd that both your and K's dictionaries give this structure, which I seldom if ever hear. Maybe it's more common elsewhere.

Sorry, all: I should have been clearer. I meant the ‘Child as he was…’ construction seemed unusual to me. (‘Child though…’ and ‘Child that…’ don’t seem strange.)

2.

'N as S V' structure in which 'as' means 'though' is no longer acceptable in modern English.

Your bean isn’t necessarily antique, K. It may be that my experience is limited.

In my first post, I was flummoxed by the sense:

‘Child as he was, he could outwit the robber.’

I took ‘Child as…’ to mean not ‘Child though…’ but ‘Being a child…’. So my reading was in conflict with the intended sense: ‘Child though…’ is concessive, but ‘child as…’ (I thought) was simply complementary.

This interpretation was supported by the quote from Dickens:

'Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery.'

Here, ‘as’ can’t mean ‘though’: children are not immune to hunger and misery. So it must mean ‘since he was a child’.

However, this example from Paco’s post:

‘Child as he is, he can think clearly and act wisely’

(where ‘as’ must = ‘though’) shows that my original interpretation was wrong. The sense here is clearly concessive. So I can only assume that either Dickens got his idiom slightly wrong, or ‘Child as…’ had a simple complementary sense in his day.

3.

'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.'

Now this caught my eye in MisterM’s post. There does indeed seem to be a difference here between AmE and BrE:

a) AmE - 'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.'
= ‘Fool though he was…’ – OK in AmE, as MisterM says.

b) BrE - 'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.'
= ‘Being the fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers’, which is nonsensical.

So I would have to make the 2nd clause negative, to understand it:

'Fool that he was, he nonetheless managed to evade his pursuers.'

Interestingly, as JTT points out, this does add a slightly disparaging note; and the same form can also be used metaphorically:

‘Child that he was, he would not accept my conclusions’ – i.e. he was behaving childishly.

(MisterM's second example has this non-concessive sense of 'as' too: 'Clumsy idiot that he was, Michael completely ruined the dinner.')

4.

The noun has the role of a characterizing attribute [cf. 'he turned traitor' -- MM]."

That sounds much better than my ‘ellipsis’ suggestion – especially as I can find no examples in earlier literature of a common, fuller version.

Also, it occurs to me that ‘fronting’ of the noun is common in e.g. early alliterative poetry in Germanic languages. So we would have to go a long way back to find evidence of ellipses. And I suppose you couldn't 'front', if you included the article...and there's nowhere else to put it...

(That does still leave the question of why we omit the indefinite article with a ‘characterizing attribute’; but for another day.)

MrP

Re: What's the logic behind this?

Mister Micawber — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 11:45:41 GMT

After some searching, I found these comments in Quirk, Greenbaum, et. al. I noticed that they relate it to the AmE formation with 'that' (which I don't think was mentioned above). I have not quoted all their examples, but should state that most examples they give use the adjective ('pretty as she was') rather than the noun ('nymphette as she was') and 'though' rather than 'as'. What caught my eye particularly, however, was their reference to the noun as an attribute (emboldened below), which concept could well cause the article 'a' to be lost from this formation.

(15.39) "...Concessive clauses sometimes have unusual syntactic orderings when the subordinator is 'as' or 'though'. In a rather formal style, the predication in the concessive clause may be fronted:

'Genius though she was, she was quite unassuming.'

The ordering is optional for 'though', but obligatory for 'as', which would not be concessive if placed initially. 'That' is also used concessively with the same obligatory ordering as 'as', but in AmE only a noun functioning as subject complement can be fronted:

'Fool that he was, he managed to evade his pursuers.' ['Even though he was a fool,...']

The noun has the role of a characterizing attribute [cf. 'he turned traitor' -- MM]."

(15.47) [As with concessive clauses] when 'as' is a circumstantial subordinator, the predication may be optionally fronted:

'Tired as they were, they went to bed soon.'

'That' may be a circumstantial subordinator, when the subject complement is obligatorily fronted:

'Clumsy idiot that he was, Michael completely ruined the dinner.'

Does this help?

Re: What's the logic behind this?

komountain — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 10:20:21 GMT

To MrP: Thank you so much.
To Paco: Arigato gozaimas.
To Eagle: Vielen Dank. Einaml habe ich Deutsch gelernt und sehr gut gesprachen, aber
jetzt habe ich alles vergessen.

With the the help of you guys, the picture has now become a lot clearer. 'N as S V' structure in which 'as' means 'though' is no longer aceptable in modern English. Touche! I have kept the archaic structure in my bean. Archaic, or obsolete, or at least rarely used! All this proved that as I hinted earlier, I am linguistically behind the times, and no wonder MrP and JTT, as native speakers of modern English, initially showed reactions of surprise.

Now, in the 'Child though he was' structure, neither 'a' nor 'the' before "Child' is used.
Though Paco touched a little on the absence of the articles, there could be some other explanations. Or simply, "That's the way it is used; no reason for that," you may say.