Search results for 'tag:Articles tag:Nouns' matching tags 'Articles' and 'Nouns'

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Crokey — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:41:35 GMT

Generally, what follows the "of" in a double possessive will be definite and human, not otherwise, so we would say "a friend of my uncle's" but not "a friend of the museum's [museum, instead]." What precedes the "of" is usually indefinite (a friend, not the best friend), unless it's preceded by the demonstratives this or that, as in "this friend of my father's." - http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm
the nail is never comin out now!!! enjoy the tennis, i'm off to the hardware store to get a few screws, they should be easier to bury than nails!!!

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:52:40 GMT

Crokey

"the singing of the bird awoke me" or "the singing of the bird's awoke me" ? as "a friend of my uncle's", where you use the post-genitive form.

You're welcome! I'll start watching the US Open (tennis) on TV in a moment but before that:

You can say: He is a friend of John, or: He is a friend of John's.

You cannot say: He is the friend of John's, except perhaps in some extremely rare cases where normal grammatical rules don't apply.

Similarly, the singing of the bird's is ungrammatical; you have to say the singing of the bird.

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Crokey — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:54:22 GMT

hi cb,
im so happy i joined this forum now, because i think your comment about verbal nouns can be modified by an adjectival attribute. You said it your previous reply, but i must have missed it(it was nearly 4am in korea when i read it!), and i think the tiresome banging of the nail's head is well and truly finished! On further research, the naming of other nouns derived from verbs, such as survival from survive or action from act, is a fairly contentious area, and i am going to take a leaf from your book, and stay the bloody-hell away from it!!! Just one other question CB,

"the singing of the bird awoke me" or "the singing of the bird's awoke me" ? as "a friend of my uncle's", where you use the post-genitive form. I would say "the bird's singing", there is probably a clear case, but after my ordeal with gerunds and verbal nouns i'm afraid to go searching now. Before the gerunds and verbal nouns i had a encounter with absolute phrases and some very confusing definitions of what differs it from participles, thankfully that is behind me now also. In that example of "the bird's singing awoke me"(just to make sure the nail doesn't spontaneously pop back up) is "singing"a gerund, because it is possible to say "the bird's loud singing awoke me", with singing modified by an adjective.

cheers again cb, really grateful.

Re: Is "truth" abstract noun or not? why?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:09:49 GMT

Welcome to EF, mariappan

Truth is always an abstrcat noun because you can't put it on the scales and weigh it. It may occasionally be countable, which has nothing to do with being abstract. I may be wrong but I think it's the article (the) that you are concerned with? The article is used in the phrase to tell/speak the truth because normally there is only one truth. It's an idiom, one could say.

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:02:30 GMT

Anonymous

Which one sounds natural to you if that judgment can be made? I am asking because in rare cases, I have difficulty choosing one because they sound and look the same to me. For most cases similar to the one noted, I feel the first with an object is preferred or correct one.

1.This playground is for playing soccer.
2.This playground is for the playing of soccer.

I think you had better ask a native speaker about sounding natural. I would probably utter the first sentence because it's shorter but as I have a long background of being exposed to various varieties of English, even the second sentence sounds completely natural to me. That doesn't mean it sounds natural to all native speakers!

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:00:31 GMT

Thank you so much. I learned something I had not known before. I think you hit a home run.

Which one sounds natural to you if that judgment can be made? I am asking because in rare cases, I have difficulty choosing one because they sound and look the same to me. For most cases similar to the one noted, I feel the first with an object is preferred or correct one.

1.This playground is for playing soccer.
2.This playground is for the playing of soccer.

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:00:02 GMT

Anonymous
I agree with you on this but I wonder what is your opinion on this.

This playground is for playing soccer.
This playground is for the playing of soccer.

In this situation, I feel the first sentence pattern is what a person will see more often out there in written form or in verbal situations, but I don't think the second one is wrong. Is it wrong? Both seem to be filling the position of a noun.

Thank you for agreeing with me. However, agreeing isn't necessary at all. Diversity makes life interesting! As for your sentences, I have already explained my opinion about structures like these, but if people disagree with me, that's just fine. I don't mind in the least.

In the first sentence, playing is a gerund required by the preposition for. With an exception or two, all prepositions require a gerund in English. Soccer is the object of playing, in other words it indicates what is played in the playground. A noun cannot have an object, yet playing clearly has one in the sentence, so playing is not a complete noun. Verbs have objects, and the fact that a gerund can have an object is its verblike property.

I consider playing a complete noun derived from the verb to play in the second sentence. I am accustomed to calling such nouns verbal nouns, but I understand that others may use the term differently. The and of show that playing is not a gerund - although some grammarians prefer to call it by that name even in this context. Almost any noun can be placed between the and of: the name of this town, the history of our country, the Las Vegas of the Far East.

Moreover, a noun can have an adjectival attribute: This playground is for the occasional playing of soccer. This clearly proves that playing is not a gerund in the second sentence, that there is a grammatical difference between playing in the two sentences. You wouldn't say: This playground is for occasional playing soccer. All nouns can have an adjectival attribute; this playing can't, so it's not a noun.

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:40:18 GMT

Crokey
"The speech of the english language is beautiful". speech is surely a verbal noun, derived from the verb speak but there is no action being performed, i am merely naming an action. When i say "The speaking of the english language is easy", am I naming an action or am I implying that an action may be performed that is difficult.

I would consider speech incorrectly used in your sentence and in the terminology I am familiar with the term "verbal noun" only refers to nouns derived from verbs by adding ing. If you want to use the term in another sense, I have absolutely nothing against it. I am not in the least trying to impose my terminology upon others, I just have to stick to something and be consistent, otherwise I'll soon lose track of what I am saying! I suppose the same applies to other members of EF whose terms may differ from mine.

You'll have to decide for yourself what you have in mind when you say the speaking of English. I never think of things that are not required to understand the simple grammar of English! Why make it more complicated than it is?

Re: place aricle here?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:29:35 GMT

Some proper nouns or names require the, some don't. In the phrase the Cow Power program all the words are common nouns and the article is associated with the last word, "program," which is not a proper noun, so the article must be used as there is only one such program.

The article is used largely for the same reason in names like the Internal Revenue Service, the Central Intelligence Agency etc. "Service" and "agency" are common nouns, not proper nouns. Note that we say the United Kingdom for the same reason.

You'll have to study the use of "the" with proper nouns in detail; it is quite complicated and there are numerous exceptions to the rules.

Re: place aricle here?

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:18:23 GMT

Thank you.

How is Ondol different from these proper nouns (I think they are) that I see having definite articles?

the Pacific Ocean

I think Mr. M said the definite article is needed for this name of program that is in quotes:

The 'Cow Power Program'

Is this program a proper name?

And I see a lot names of government agencies and committees with the definte articles, aren't these names proper names?

eg,
the IRS