Search results for 'tag:Adverbs tag:Modal verbs' matching tags 'Adverbs' and 'Modal verbs'

Re: Lack of emphasis on NPs in ESL

Kooyeen — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:38:55 GMT

I obviously agree with Forbes: it depends on your first language. I have never had any problems with passive sentences, subjects and objects, the difference between countable and uncountable, etc. because those are all features I have in Italian too. It is not difficult at all for me to use conditional structures (= modal verbs) in polite requests, like in "Could you lend me 1,000 dollars?", because very similar structures are used the same way in Italian too. On the other hand, I know some Asian languages don't even have past or future tenses, so it's easy to imagine how much more difficult it must be for them to learn English.

So instead of focusing on noun phrases, shouldn't we rather focus on the real difficulties, which happen to vary from learner to learner according to their native language and past experience with languages in general?

Anonymous

How about this student?

<<I assume many of you have watched the cartoon "Totally spies", right?
I just wonder why it is "Totally" here. "totally" is always an adverb, so what do they imply when using "totally" here? How can it go with the noun "spies"?>>>

Heh, good question! I don't know! Could somebody tell me more about that, as a side note here without going completely off topic? Otherwise I will open another thread. I would say "Total spies", but if I suspect that "totally" in "Totally spies" is used informally in some dialects to mean "definitely", like in, like " Are you, like, coming to my awesome party tonight? - Oh, yeah, totally!"
If that is the case, then I don't think that "totally" has anything to do with proving learners have trouble with noun phrases. It would suggest learners have trouble with informal English, and if you ask me, that's true.

Re: Maybe vs. May be...

Huevos — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:41:14 GMT

I don't understand what you are asking.

"Maybe" is an adverb, while "may be" is the modal verb "may" followed by the verb "to be".

Re: Calls

Anonymous — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:13:28 GMT

This is Rotter again.

Cool Breeze, I am delighted when you pointed out my mistakes. I want you and all the others to point out each and every mistake I make here.

However, I can't understand the mistake I made here.

May is an auxiliary verb.

1. Cool Breeze may have been to Sweden. [ Here 'may' is an modal verb.]

2. Cool Breeze is rich/poor.

3. Cool Breeze may be rich/poor. [ Here too 'may' is an modal verb.]

Maybe is an adverb.

I wrote 'It maybe Mr Ban has called on Burmese leaders to grant more access ...

[ The above maybe is not an adverb. Is that the mistake?]

Cool Breeze kanske har varit i Sverige.

Cool Breeze Ã¤r rik/fattig.

Kanske Cool Breeze Ã¤r rik/fattig.

Verbs

ganesh77 — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:38:41 GMT

The list isn't meant to be exhaustive or carefully arranged. Any additions, corrections or further examples would be welcomed.

1 main verbs; lexical verbs (all verbs which are not auxiliaries or modals)

2 action verbs; event verbs; dynamic verbs (a verb which can be used in continuous tenses) i.e. eat, run, talk

3 state of being verbs; existence verbs; state verbs; stative verbs; static verbs (a verb which describes a state and is not usually used in a continuous tense) i.e. be, own, know

4 regular verbs (a verb that has four forms and follows the normal rules)

5 irregular verbs; strong verbs (a verb not following the normal rules for inflection)

6 auxiliary and modal verbs (which make up verbal phrases) â 23 in total

7 linking verbs; copulative verbs; copulas (a verb which links the subject and complement of a clause) i.e. It is warm today.

8 transitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that involves more than one person or thing, and so is followed by an object) i.e. Sheâs wasting her money.

9 intransitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that only involved the subject and so has no object) i.e. She arrived.

10 multiword verbs

a type 1 â intransitive [phrasal verbs; adverb particle

b type 2 â transitive (inseparable) [prepositional verbs; preposition particles]

c type 3 â transitive (separable) [phrasal verbs; adverb particle]

d type 4 â transitive (with two inseparable particles) [phrasal-prepositional verbs; first particle is an adverb, second particle is a preposition]

11 compound verbs

12 delexical verbs (a verb which has very little meaning in itself but is used with an object to describe an action) i.e. She gave a small cry.

13 ditransitive verbs (a verb which can have both a direct and indirect object) i.e. She gave me a kiss.

14 ergative verbs (a verb which can be used transitively to focus on the performer of the action, or intransitively to focus on the thing affected by the action) i.e. He boiled the water. The water boiled.

15 reporting verbs; performance verbs; performative verbs (a verb used with a quote or a reported clause to describe what people say or think) i.e. suggest, say, wonder

16 reciprocal verbs (a verb which describes an action involving two people doing the same thing to each other) i.e. They met in the street.

17 reflexive verbs (a verb which is typically used with a reflexive pronoun) i.e. Donât cut yourself with that knife.

18 defective verbs (a verb without all the inflected forms of a regular verb) i.e. modals

19 finite and non-finite

a infinitives

b gerunds; verbal nouns

c participles

20 catenative verbs (a verb that takes other verb forms as objects; found at the head of a series of linked constructions) i.e. We agreed to try to decide to stop eating snacks.

21 causative verbs (a verb that designates the action necessary to cause another action to happen) i.e. The devil made me do it.

Re: don't also have to do something

Kooyeen — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:56:11 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
The examples in that other thread had no modal verbs, but the examples you just gave here do. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Uh, probably! That could be an important factor... In some sentences those adverbs seem to be more acceptable than in others, and the presence of modals could make them sound better...
So, yeah, it's a good point! Thanks

Re: Adverbs of frequency

CalifJim — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:01:45 GMT

Argh! The adverb question again!
Have you gone through this one yet? Post:258302

Here's a new take on the subject. If it doesn't appeal to you, toss it in the trash!

Safe and typical practice: Use contracted forms wherever possible. Then place the adverb of frequency after the first contraction -- or after uncontracted not. Place sometimes at the beginning: certainly for a negative sentence, but also good for an affirmative. Note: rarely and seldom (and never, of course) have negative polarity already, so don't use in a negative sentence. And don't prepose them unless you want to struggle with the inversions, as Amy points out.

[I'm, you're, he's, she's, we're, they're] (not) [usually / always / often] ...
[I've, you've, he's, she's, we've, they've] [sometimes / usually / always / often / rarely / seldom / never] ...
[I'll, you'll, he'll, she'll, we'll, they'll] [sometimes / usually / always / often / rarely / seldom / never] ...
[I'd, you'd, he'd, she'd, we'd, they'd] [sometimes / usually/ always / often /rarely / seldom / never] ...
[I, you, we, they] [don't / didn't / haven't / won't / wouldn't / shouldn't / can't / ...] [usually / always / often] ...
[he, she] isn't [usually / always / often] ...
[I, he, she] wasn't [usually / always / often] ...
[you, we, they] [aren't / weren't] [usually / always / often] ...

If no contractions, place after the modal verb.

[I, you, he, she, we, they] [can / could / may / might / will / would / ...] [sometimes / usually / always / often / rarely / seldom / never] ...

No contractions? No modals? Just subject followed by a non-modal verb? Place the adverb of frequency between them.

[I, you, he, she, we, they] [sometimes / usually / always / often / rarely / seldom / never] [go / do / like / want / think / ...]

Not using subject pronouns? Using nouns instead? The order doesn't change.

The boys aren't [usually / always / often] ready on time.
The Browns don't [usually / always / often] eat in restaurants.
Fred has (Fred's) [usually / always / often / rarely / seldom / never] recovered from a cold in a week.

CJ

Re: The Seven Deadly Sins of Grammar

Drewauerbach — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:08:48 GMT

Alienvoord, I appreciate you're constructive criticism. Allow me to rebute:

1) Comprehensible, yes. But many expressions are comprehensible even without being gramatically sound. The nuances I try to reveal in this post are to help you write better gramatically, not to sound or to write comprehensible.

2) I cannot refute this well supported argument. In fact, there is a sliver of the article that directly weakens my point. I quote:
-------BEGIN EXCERPT FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive -----------

Problems caused by trying to avoid the split infinitive

Stylistically, the careful placement of another word between to and the bare infinitive sometimes avoids ambiguity or ugliness. The old prohibition on split infinitives is particularly surprising when one observes that there are a number of expressions in English that are weakened considerably by avoiding the split infinitive.

[edit]

An example

R.L. Trask uses this example:

She decided to gradually get rid of the teddy bears she had collected.

Clearly, what is implied here is she took a decision to get rid of her teddy bears, and the disposal would happen over time. 'Gradually' splits the infinitive 'to get'. But if we were to move it, where would it go?. Consider the following:

She decided gradually to get rid of the teddy bears she had collected.

This implies that the decision was gradual.

She decided to get rid of the teddy bears she had collected gradually.

This implies that the collecting process was gradual.

She decided to get gradually rid of the teddy bears she had collected.

This sounds awkward to most native speakers of English.

She decided to get rid gradually of the teddy bears she had collected.

This is almost as awkward as its immediate predecessor.

Not only does the original example sound right to a native speaker, it is also the only semantically sound possibility.

The best way to avoid using split infinitives is usually via a change in lexical choices. However, in spoken language, phonetic stresses and timing is usually all that is needed for a sentence's actual implications to be understood.

In other instances, use of a split infinitive is for many people the most natural way to add certain kinds of emphasis in conversation:

Student A: "I'm going to do better next year."Student B: "I'm going to really do better next year."

On a historical level, it is possible that years of attacks against split infinitives by prescriptive grammarians have cowed some people into needless reluctance to split other compound verb forms. For example, people will contort sentences to avoid placing an adverb in its usual position between the auxiliary verb and the participle, leading to constructions such as, "The argument originally had been usedâ¦" instead of "The argument had originally been used", which is more natural for most speakers.

It is probably not possible to disentangle this argument from the modality of English grammar. Typically, in a phrase such as "I am going to", the verbal construct "to be going to" acts as a modal verb, analogous to other standard modal verbs "will", "could", "can" etc. In this sense, it becomes apparent that the preposition 'to' does not belong to the infinitive verb, but rather to the modal verb. In this case, it becomes impossible to split an infinitive.

-------END EXCERPT FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive --------

3) By saying, "I only <want to go to the movies>," you do NOT imply that you also <do not want to breathe.> Again, you got to pay attention to what "only" is modifying, the verb. By placing the limiting modifier before the first verb in this sentence, you imply limitations to what you can do, including breathing (although the idea sounds exagerrated initially, it really is correct). Now, you say that the sentence implies that the speaker <does not want to breathe>. Not so! In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he CANNOT breathe, regardless of desire. In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he is capable of only desiring to go to the movies. In my last sentence, I would have been correct to say, "In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he is only capable of desiring to go to the movies," or, "In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he only is capable of desiring to go to the movies."

4) The point I'm trying to make here is that using "it" as a dummy subject is gramatically incorrect; therefore, we should reject its use as a dummy subject (think prescriptivist rather than descriptivist).

5) I do not understand your argument here; therefore, I cannot refute it.

6) Your "counterargument" seems to be more like a historical basis that I would use to set up my argument. Which side are you on: yours or mine?

7) You're correct; I have not. Here is my evidence: Passive voice is boring. End of discussion.

Please check the grammar

Davidrock65 — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 05:21:14 GMT

I have to hand in the reports tomorrow. Could you please run a quick check through them? Thanks loads!!!

When asked to make a sentence with When J~ , J will ~, Harry sometimes gets confused with the order of two events happening and forgets to add s after verbs when they are placed after a third person in the when- clause. Please remind him that When describes the moment as a block of time, if you prefer moment to be only 1 slice of time, then when describes a block of time relative to some event. For example, When the baseball player went up to bat, he struck out means the pitcher pitched to the player at the moment that he has gone to home plate. When asked to make sentences with does, did and will, he occasionally mismatches the modal verbs with wrong time adverbs. Please have him get into the habit of reading five minutes a day, as many as he can of the sentences in each tense that he wrote in his homework. We have been rehearsing the play for the graduation. I anticipate that they will demonstrate an incredible performance to do us proud!

Please remind your child to pronounce voiceless P sound as in shop and cap and voiceless S sound after nouns to form plurals. Five minutes a day at home, please have your child listen to the CD and read as many of the yellow books as possible, in order to familiarize him with the sentence patterns and vocabulary, therefore improving his thinking in English.

Re: both

paco2004 — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 00:31:10 GMT

"a" is more common but "b" is not so bad.

"Both" in attributive uses commonly behaves like a middle-positional adverb in its position.

The middle-positional adverbs are positioned like:
(1) When the main verb is not "be" and the main stands as a finite (=tense/person bearing) verb, the adverbs are put between the subject and the main verb.
      (EX) They both like flowers.
(2) When the main verb is a finite form of "be", the adverbs are put after the "be".
      (EX) They are both young.
This construct is problematic when the predicate consists of two words: "They are both young and pretty". In this case, you'd better say "Both of them are young and pretty" or "They both are young and pretty".
(3) When the verbal is a complex one with auxiliary/modal verbs, the adverbs are put after the first (finite) verb.
      (EX) They were both christened at St Peter's.
      (EX) I hoped you would both be good students.
      (EX) They said they had both been learning English.

paco

Re: may be

Mister Micawber — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 03:33:11 GMT

Yipes! My mistake-- confused by my own language! I thought we were discussing present tenses, and I thought read was pronounced /ri/ in your question. OK, in addition to my previous post; I will start again:

She may be reading a history book -- Yes, she herself is perhaps reading; as I wrote before: now; as we speak or these days; in the process of reading.

She may be read a history book -- here, read is pronunced /red/ (the past participle); this is passive, and means that someone else might read to her from a history book. My time comment remains the same: sometimes; in the future; at an unspecified time (She may be read a book every night by her mother; she may be read a book tomorrow by her teacher).

Still, percentages are not involved, Broken Heart.

And don't confuse may be (modal verb) with maybe (adverb)!