Search results for 'tag:Clauses tag:Negations' matching tags 'Clauses' and 'Negations'

Re: until

CalifJim — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:11:21 GMT

HanJH
In this case, can we be sure that he wrote a letter after he finished his work?
Or, can we just suppose that he wrote a letter after he finished his work?

Normally we assume that he wrote the letter. The combination of negation with until shows that the timing is negated, not the action itself. It's like saying:

He wrote a letter, but not until (after) he had finished his work. / but not before he had finished his work.

This is not really very different from your first example.

They knew each other, but not until (after) I introduced them. / but not before I introduced them.

Note how the not goes with until, but it's transferred into the main clause, giving the false impression that "he didn't write a letter" or "they didn't know each other".

Re: tense

Newguest — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:01:50 GMT

CalifJim
Newguest

So is it a good example to say: I'm looking in the sky and say "Oh I think it will rain" (but I may be wrong)

OR "I think he won't come" but he may come.

The negation is raised into the main clause for the verbs think and believe, so your possibilities are as follows:

It [will / won't] rain. (I'm sure of it.)

CJ

Can you be sure of it if you use "will"?

how about the second part of my question:

Which is better:

We are sending emails to each other from time to time

We send emails to each other from time to time

thank you CJ

Re: few, tag questions

Teo — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:29:11 GMT

There are several adverbs and determiners which are negative in meaning but not in form. They include: seldom, rarely; scarcely, hardly, barely; little, few (in contrast to the positive a little and a few) They can effect clause negation: for example sentences in which they appear generally require a positive tag question.

1. There are few students in the classroom, __ there? (A) are (B) aren't

I think the answer is A because few is negative in meaning. Am I right?

3. There are only a few students in the classroom, __ there? (A) are (B) aren't

Is only a few positive or negative in meaning?

Re: Grammar rules - check for correctness - a kind teacher please :)

Angle1 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:30:38 GMT

Here are some examples

The main point is to explain the correct answer
The sentences are little-bit childisch ;they are some modified sentences. I am afraid that my explanations seems to be a little childisch, too. So please help me how to turn it into the right explanation.

Mary was real angry because Jack didnÂ´t show up

Real >> really - we use an adverb to determine the adjective

Fewer of the passangers is sick today

Fewer >> One - the verb is refers to singular, so we need to use singular pronoun

I asked my brother whom was on the phone

Whom >> who â Whom i sused in object case and with pronouns â we need a subject for the verb in the second clause

Jorge doesnÂ´t have no bullets in his rifle

No >> any - we should avoid double negation in written English. We could use either has + no or negation + any

I am just a little confused whether or not to go on exam.

Whether to be or not to be â I know how it should be, but I cannot explain it :/

Having be a dancer myself, I have excellent posture

Having be >> beeing â but how to explain it ???

I never did like these kind of exercises

These >> that â but could it be also this if I were pointing at it?

Kind is singular, so we need a singular demostrative pronoun

You telling the truth is ..

You >> your â telling is a gerund, gerunds are used like nouns. We need a possessive pronoun

The bakery depends on meal beeing delivered without delay

Meal >> mealÂ´s â beeing is a gerund, and meal refers to this gerund. We need to use a genitive form with âÂ´sâ

Re: third conditional

CalifJim — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:57:52 GMT

Mr. Woodham is simply saying that the presence of a negation in the if-clause does not change the basic idea behind the third conditional, namely, that it contains counterfactual statements -- statements that are the "opposite" of what actually happened.

If I had seen the approaching car, I would not have crashed into it. [I did not see the approaching car. I crashed into it.]

If I had not seen the approaching car, I would have crashed into it. [I saw the approaching car. I did not crash into it.]

In Mr. Woodham's way of explaining it, the first sentence talks about something that didn't happen (seeing the approaching car), and the second sentence talks about something that did happen (seeing the approaching car).

You can combine both ideas into one by saying that the third conditional talks about things in an "opposite" way -- counterfactually.

Re: before

CalifJim — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:24:34 GMT

E, because the reading of Freud probably stimulated the speaker's first thoughts about the significance of dreams. It's doubtful that the speaker thought about that topic at all before reading Freud, so it's not likely that "he didn't think dreams were of so much significance". More likely, he had no thoughts or opinions at all on the matter. (Remember that, for the verb think, the negation in the main clause comes from raising it from the subordinate clause, so "he didn't think dreams ..." means "he thought, i.e., had the opinion, that dreams were not of so much significance".) I'd say that "he wouldn't have thought dreams were of so much significance" if he had bothered to think about dreams at all.

A second reason to choose E is that it follows a turn of phrase that is so common as to be considered a formula:

Before I [did such-and-such], I [ wouldn't / never would] have thought (that) ...

Re: "can't/couldn't have done" (about tense)

CalifJim — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:36:21 GMT

Of the four, I would not use the third -- thought ... can't ...

Actually, I probably wouldn't use any of them. Normally the negation is "raised" to the main clause with verbs like think.

I would use one of these:

She [doesn't / didn't] think that her purse could have been found by any of the shoppers.

Re: until

CalifJim — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:22:59 GMT

Newguest
Can't I just write it: Until you don't activate your account.

No. Negation in the until clause is somewhat confusing, so it's relatively rare.

The pattern you show here is quite common. It's similar to the same clause with unless instead of until. The unless clauses are like if ... not clauses. But the until clauses have a temporal component (not present in the unless clauses) which conveys the idea that the negative consequence lasts only as long as the positive condition lasts. That is, when the condition reverses, as it is expected to do in the course of time, the consequence does as well.

Thus,

Unless you ask, you won't know the answer.

says If you don't ask, you won't know the answer. The passage of time is not involved.

But

Until you ask, you won't know the answer.

says that as long as you continue not to ask, you will not know the answer, and implies that the asking must be done before knowing the answer can occur. A possible paraphrase is You have to ask before you can know the answer.

Here are a few examples. They are modified versions of sentences I found on the Web.

Unless you take the medicine, you will not feel better. [If you don't take the medicine, you will not feel better.]

Until you take the medicine, you will not feel better. [You have to take the medicine before you can feel better.]

Unless you try, you won't know whether you can do it. [If you don't try, you won't know whether you can do it.]

Until you try, you won't know whether you can do it. [You have to try before you know whether you can do it.]

I'll leave the rest for you to think about.

[Unless / Until] you retire, you will not be eligible for membership.

[Unless / Until] you provide evidence, you will not be taken seriously.

[Unless / Until] you are registered, you will not be able to access the site.

[Unless / Until] you master the language, you will not have much academic success.

[Unless / Until] you delegate responsibilities, you won't enjoy the freedom of being a business owner.

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:58:49 GMT

Anonymous
In that respect, I would like to know when and how the auxiliary "do" appeared in English. What kind of people introduced it into the English language?
I would like to know who decided about the value of tenses of the Past. They do not correspond to the value of the tenses of the Past in latinoÃ¯d languages. Who can give me answers ?
In this debate, I do not think there is an evolution towards simplicity nor towards more complicated structures. The
communities of native speakers of a language constantly change the rules and the meaning of words (although the main core remains more or less stable for facility reasons.)
Ethnic languages are tools of inclusion and mainly exclusion (internal and external). That is why there are so many exceptions.
No ethnic language is that easy to learn. When I say "to learn" I mean to learn it to be on equal footing with a native speaker of the language. There will always be a difference, a discrimination.
From what I have experienced ( I am very interested by languages), there is no easy language. All has been done by training.
There is no natural language : everything has been constructed by Man.
I invite the readers to learn an interlanguage such as Esperanto, compare it with your mother tongue and with languages you have studied later. 90% to 95% of the time is spent to the learning of exceptions. That is why a language without exception such as Esperanto is ten to twenty times faster to learn than ethnic languages.
It is fascinating to see how a universal congress of Esperanto works and to compare it with an international congress in only one language. Many prejudices fall.
Maybe I am opening new interests in the debate..
George/Belgium

Do existed in Old English more than a thousand years ago as a regular verb and meant to cause. It is impossible to say who introduced it to English. It's use as an auxiliary in questions and negations was established in Shakespeare's day when it was correct to say both

I know not him
and
I do not know him.

It is very common that the usage of tenses varies from language to language, especially if the languages are not closely related. No reasons can usually be given for this. You might just as well ask why the usage of tenses in the Romance languages differs from that in English. Linguistic changes are often shrouded in the past and there is no knowing why they occurred.

All words and grammatical structures people are not used to sound wrong and/or odd and therefore people usually object to changes that are about to happen in their lifetime and think the language is deteriorating. This is true about all languages, not just English. People tend to think a language is at its most beautiful right now and any change will just make it worse.

English grammar has become so simple over the centuries that I cannot envisage it becoming any simpler without the risk of English becoming even more inexact than it is now. However, not all changes have made the language simpler in structure. In Old English there was just one relative pronoun and it had only one form. That made communication with relative clauses very awkward and it wasn't a great surprise that who, whom, whose, what and which began to be used as relatives to facilitate communication.

CB

Re: Could it rain this afternoon?

CalifJim — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:05:46 GMT

Could it rain this afternoon?

Could there be a strike next week?

Could war break out any day?

It couldn't rain this afternoon.

There couldn't be a strike next week.

The war couldn't break out any day.

I find all of them anomalous in some subtle way. A could question (or a couldn't statement) about the future seems strange to my ear. (I take this afternoon as a future here.)

You can make the could questions slightly more idiomatic by substituting might.

Might it rain ...? Might there be ... ? Might war ...?

Even more idiomatic are Do you [think / suppose] it [will / might / could] rain ...? and so on.

As for the couldn't statements, my ear tells me that the negation should be pulled into an introductory clause. It's hard even to know what those statements are attempting to convey, but perhaps something like the following:

I can't [believe / imagine] that it will rain this afternoon.
I can't [believe / imagine] that there will be a strike next week.
I can't [believe / imagine] that the war will break out any day.

Alternately:

I [refuse / find it impossible] to believe that it [could / will] rain this afternoon.
And so on.

CJ