Search results for 'tag:Auxiliaries tag:Word order' matching tags 'Auxiliaries' and 'Word order'

Re: who/did

Tanit — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:05:59 GMT

Newguest
Hi guys

Why in this question we do not use "did": Who brought you up? (instead of: Who did bring you up?)

And in this one we do: Who did you look up to? (instead of: Who you looked up to?)

Hi,

It has to do with the role of "who". Is it the subject (as in Who brought you up?) or is it the object (as in Who did you look up to?)?
Here's a brief extract from a page from BBC Learning English that explains the differences between these two types of sentences:

When the question word is the subject - 'who' in this example - the auxiliary 'do' isn't needed and the word order is:
subject (who) + verb (wants) + object or complement (more coffee).
A. Who wants more coffee?

...

Here's one where the question word is acting as an object:
A. Who did you meet there?
B. I met an old friend.
In this example, 'who' is the question word and 'did' is the auxiliary.
'Who' is referring to the object of the sentence, the person I met.

Compare:
Who saw you? >>> "Who" is the subject. You were seen by somebody.
Who did you see? >>> "Who" is the object. You saw somebody. (Strictly speaking, this one should be "Whom did you see?" ... but in everyday conversations "Who did you see?" is far more common).

Re: Would

Cool Breeze — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:43:35 GMT

Rotter
[ Om jag har pengar, ska jag kÃ¶pa en ny bil.]
{ In Swedish, the verb comes first in the main clause. Swedish is like that.}
[ If I have the money, I will buy a new car.]

Hi Rotter

Yes, of course, there are differences in the word order, but a similar auxiliary (ska, which is related to shall) and a present infinitive (kÃ¶pa, buy) is needed in your sentence. And a perfect conditional is formed in the same way in English and Swedish as well:

If I had had money, I would have bought a car. = Om jag hade haft pengar, skulle jag ha kÃ¶pt en bil.

I wish you a lot of success in your language acquisition efforts - French, that is!

Re: question formula

Cool Breeze — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:21:39 GMT

Hi Nader

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean. Has he talking? is wrong. You could say: Has he been talking?

If you are asking whether a have or has question can always be formed by changing the word order, the answer is no. It is safer to use do in the present tense:

Does he have money?
Especially in BrE it is possible to say: Has he [got] money? Without the got, it's not very common, though.

When have means 'eat', 'drink', 'must' etc., do must be used in questions:
Did he have an early breakfast today?
Do you have to talk about it all the time?

When have, has and had are perfect and past perfect auxiliaries, do is never used:
Have you seen him today?
Has he said anything so far?
Had he been there before?

Have you been reading all day?

CB

Re: question regarding when my sentence starts with hardly

CalifJim — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:40:47 GMT

... how about when you are using auxiliary verbs such as CAN?

Same rule. With these negative polarity items like hardly and rarely, invert subject and operator so that you have the same word order as you would use in a question.

For more on operators, see also Post:245063 and Post:406973.

CJ

Re: Inversion: Not far from here you can see foxes.

Cool Breeze — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:35:35 GMT

Maple wrote:
But this one seems correct: Not far from there stood Edgar Snow, the famous American author.

Hi Maple

You are right. However, note that just the word order is inverted and the usual grammatical interrogative structure is not used.
Cf.
Not only did he stand on a chair, he also looked angry.
Not: Not only stood he on a chair, he also looked angry.

The word order in your sentence is probably a relic from Old English. The sentence would be very awkward if the normal grammatical word order were used (subject + finite verb):

Not far from the corner Edgar Snow, the famous American author stood.

The word order in your sentence is normal in at least some other Germanic languages even today. If Swedish grammar applied to English, for example, we would have sentences like these:

Yesterday saw I him.
In the corner sat a little boy. (Possible in English as well!)
Slowly realised he the enormity of the problem.

The Swedish rule is simple: if an adverb of time, place or manner begins a sentence, the word order is inverted. Since there is no do-auxiliary in Swedish, inversion is easy. Examples of similar usage have been preserved in English.

Cheers
CB

Re: Joy to the world, the lord is "COME" ????

Cool Breeze — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 20:06:53 GMT

I always thought it was a remnant of the French (Norman Invasion, 1066). There is a handful of verbs in French conjugated with "to be" rather than "to have" in the passÃ© composÃ© (past) tense. Rise, [to be] born, arrive, leave, go (all "coming and going" verbs) are some examples. We also sing "He is risen" and we allow for "he is gone" as well as "he has gone".

Hi Philip

There has been vacillation between be and have as the perfect auxiliary in the Germanic languages - that's what I really meant to say in my previous post - but to my knowledge no one has ever maintained this usage derives from French. As a matter of fact, French had little effect on English grammar in terms of grammatical structures although the number of loan words is remarkable.

One of the structures derived from French is the of-genitive, which most scholars believe is based on the de-structure of the French language. And of course the word order of e.g. court martial reflects French grammar.

The only tenses Old English had were the present tense and the preterite (past tense); in other words, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who invaded Britain in the 5th century didn't take the perfect, pluperfect and the future tense with them from the continent.

Cheers
CB

Re: Usually - Position

CalifJim — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 16:48:22 GMT

I think you all are missing one thing; it's the very basic question. The definition of operator. Up till now no one has defined what operators actually are.

Operators are verbs with special properties as explained in the article I cited for you above.

Some authors just call them auxiliary verbs, but that leaves out the cases where be or have is the main verb and still "operates" the same as an auxiliary with respect to negation, inversion, etc. So other authors prefer to use both terms in order to focus on the slight differences.
_________

With regard to adverb placement (word order) and the terms marked and unmarked, see this site:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:aYNuGzv8DNAJ:www.anglistik.uni-bonn.de/staff/ofiles/
GLC2-Sum01-Gram.pdf+grammar+operator+inversion+negation&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8

CJ

Re: Correct grammer

pieanne — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:31:19 GMT

Hello, Raven, and welcome!

The normal word order for a question is: "Interrogative word - Auxiliary - Subject - (rest of the verbal form) - (Complements) - preposition.

So, only 1. is correct (for a question, as Goodman says)

Re: What say you?

Cool Breeze — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:34:50 GMT

To use the auxiliary 'do' to form questions and negative clauses is a phenomenon that is only about 400 years old. 'Do' existed in Old English but it meant 'to cause' as in What caused the accident? In Shakespeare's day 'do' began to be used in questions and there were two ways to form a question. You could say

Do you know him? or
Know you him?

Up to the 16th century questions had been formed by changing the word order, and that's how they are formed in other Germanic languages even today.
Examples:

Sprechen sie Deutsch? (= Speak you German?)
Talar ni svenska? (= Speak you Swedish?)

Inversion is still used even in English with some very common verbs:
Is he rich?
Can you swim?

Wouldn't it be nice if English were consistent and we said:
Does he be rich?
Do you can swim?

Cheers
CB

Re: Inverted sentences

Ruslana — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:53:44 GMT

Hello, Janissary,

If a clause begins with a negative adverb, inverted word order must usually be used, with the subject following the Simple Present or Simple Past of the verb to be, or the first auxiliary. In the case of the Simple Present or Simple Past of any verb other than the verb to be, the auxiliary to do must be used. This construction is summarized below, followed by examples.

                                Simple form of
negative adverb    +   verb to be or    +   subject
or adverb phrase       first auxiliary

Never before                 was                      I            so eager to reach home.
Little                             did                     we            think we would meet again.
Seldom                         had                     they          tasted such a delicacy.

Following are other examples of this type of construction. The negative adverbs and adverb phrases are printed in bold type, and the subjects of the verbs are underlined.

Seldom was he at a loss for words.
Scarcely had we left the house, when it began to rain.
Not for many years was the true story known.
No sooner did the bell ring than the children ran out of the school.

In the first example, the subject he follows was, the Simple Past of the verb to be. In the succeeding examples, the subjects we, story and bell follow the auxiliaries had, was and did, respectively.

When used with a verb of motion, an adverb or adverb phrase of location may be placed at the beginning of a clause, followed immediately by the verb, followed by the noun subject of the verb. This construction is summarized below, followed by examples.

adverb phrase          verb of           noun
of location        + motion     +   subject

Up the hill              trundled          the train.
Here                    come              our friends.

If the subject of the verb is a personal pronoun, the subject must precede the verb, as illustrated below:

adverb phrase       pronoun        verb of
of location     +     subject     +   motion

Up the hill                  it               trundled.
Here                         they           come.

(From http://www.wordpower.ws/grammar/gramch24.html#2g2.)