In Articles^x, Noun phrases^x

Hi Taka, Yes I've found the reference-- it's over in 'adjectives', and has to do with the rather anomalous order of adjectives with intensifiers 'how, too' etc. where the order of indefinite article and attibutive adjective is reversed. So, just as we cannot have 'X how lovely flowers these...

Actually, "nonsense" (as well as "wood", "knowledge", etc.) are all singular noncount nouns. Maybe the question should not be when to use "what" vs. "what a". Maybe it's just a matter of saying that, in this type of expression, "what" precedes whatever the usual indefinite noun phrase normally...

MountainHiker, I've received this message concerning the question: ------- It could be either (a ) or (b), Taka. Intonantion would really help us out. You wouldn't happened to have it on audio tape, would you? The writer dropped the article "an", so we're not sure if the article placement...

Hello, runner I don't know if this will be very easy to understand. It will depend, perhaps, on how familiar you are with syntactic analisis. "a person or object" is a noun phrase which has two heads: person and object. Both heads appear in coordination (linked by the conjunction "or"). The...

Hello again, kynguyen You said: "In fact I think most of the verbs can be used with or without "to", right? For ex: I need to have a vacation. Or I need a vacation." You used the verb "need" as an exampe of the verbs that can be used with or without the particle "to". But the particle "to",...

Dave, First of all, and even when everyone is surely aware of this, I must insist that even when I believe my knowledge of the English grammar is good, I'm not a grammarian or a linguist. It would be completely absurd for me to try and analyse a language that is not even my own in depth when I...

The full grammatical explanation is that an adjective modified by the intensifiers 'too', 'so' or 'enough' can be separated from its complementation if the adjective is placed before the indefinite article of the noun phrase. Let's take "It was so hot a day that we went out." Adjective:...

Hi, I'm confused about when should we use a gerund after 'to', I know that if 'to' is a preposition, then it must either be followed by a gerund or noun, the thing is, I cannot differentiate whether 'to' is a preposition or part of a to-infinitive. One suggestion was: "It is possible to check...

Thank you very much. Yes, I think the sentence using an adjective "polite" is correct, too. The problem is I'm not so sure when an adverb is used in this pattern. a. Tom is the more polite (one) of the two (boys).---correct. b. Tom behaves the more politely (one) of the two (boys).---wrong. As...

Thank you very much for your answer. Could I ask again? All the examples I have come across of this "the COMPARATIVE of the two" pattern are those using adjectives, not adverbs. a. The older of the two boys is in college. b. Of gold and silver, the former is the more precious. c. About half...