In Word order^x, Verbs^x

In Italian:He is as poor as a church mouse >> He is poor in reed. (it's not a misspelling for "red" ... it's the plant! it doesn't make sense, does it?)When in Rome, do as the Romans do. >> Town where you go, tradition that you find. ( not only is it ungrammatical, it's also...

Studies of languages have shown that any given language will compensate for complexity in one area with simplicity in another and that if you compare any two languages that they have roughly the same number of complex and simple areas. Consider the following: Imagine a language with only two...

I have always wondered why the English proverb He is as poor as a church mouse is He is as poor as a church rat in Finnish. What is it in your language? Can you give us some examples of equivalents of English proverbs or sayings are in your language, please.Here are a couple of other examples:To...

Yankee wrote:I agree with Goodman but would like to add that this word order would also be very common:I was wondering what the difference between a planet and a star was / is. Hi allStrictly speaking, this is the only grammatically correct sentence but I accept all the others as well because...

I see nothing wrong with your sentences. There are other possibilities; for instance, if you were a pop star or a famous writer, you might say People who love me... without the article. This would imply you have lots of "lovers".You have resorted to variety yourself by using a different word...

Peaceblinkfriend wrote:Thank you for explaining the differences between them to me. Thank you for explaining to me the differences between them. Hi PBFBoth sentences are correct. It may be safer for you to use the word order of the first example because you can't normally take many liberties...

Hi ForbesThank you for your long reply. I do appreciate it. I would just like to say that I my opinion is based on the knowledge I have of the Germanic and Romance languages and it is of course very subjective. I fully understand that not everyone agrees with me and what I consider easy may be...

Hi Cool Breeze I thought that might be what you were getting at. I think it is a mistake to equate complexity solely with the degree of inflectional morphology of a language. I have never studied Finnish, but I would be willing to bet that at least one of the following is true: 1. that a...

I think YL's suggestion is good. And don't neglect this possibility: Can you tell me the last time you saw him? As for the word order of an indirect question with heavy clauses, you can be flexible. You don't need to strand the verb way at the end if it sounds very awkward. Your case b...

are sought = are looked for. You look for an apartment or job. = You seek an apartment or job. (Not seek for.) I would have said ... are sought with complete secrecy .... It means People a great many processes depending on such research with complete secrecy ... ________ offering...