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

Re: adverb phrase or adverb clause?

Clive — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:13:52 GMT

Hi,

I'd like to know if the part I'm sure is an adverb clause or an adverb phrase - or possibly neither of it.

You can enjoy your holiday now, I'm sure.
A sentence like this is characteristic of relaxed and casual speech and grammar.
I don't see anything adverbial here. Instead, I'd consider these two approaches to understanding what is really meant.

1.You can enjoy your holiday now. I'm sure. ie 2 separate statements
or
2. I'm sure (that) you can enjoy your holiday now. Here, 'I'm sure ' is the main clause and the rest is a subordinate clause explaing what I am sure of.

I favour approach #2. As you can see, it's just rearranging the existing word order.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Grammar Suggestion

Mr Wordy — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:08:18 GMT

(Again, I should emphasise that these are just my personal views. Some of the questions have no "right" and "wrong" answers, and other people may have different opinions.)

1. Sitting at my writing desk placed right-hand side of open window, and working on my English assignment, resulted in adventurous and fascinated experience in such evening soft sunrays.

This version is much better in terms of number of adjectives and length of clauses, but there are several other things that aren't quite right. First, "placed right-hand side of open window" should be "placed at the right-hand side of the open window" (this could also be expressed in several other ways). However, you're writing a "mood" sentence here, not a surveyor's report, so saying that it's on the "right-hand side" seems an unnecessary intrusion to me. What does it matter if it's on the right or left? Who cares? So, for the first part of the sentence, I would say:

Sitting at my writing desk beside the open window, and working on my English assignment, ...

Moving on, "Sitting ... and working ... resulted in ..." is grammatically correct but weak here. This form would be great for a sentence such as "Sitting in this chair makes my back hurt", but here it's not specifically the act of sitting that resulted in the experience you describe, it's the whole ambience. So, I would start the next part of the sentence like this:

Sitting at my writing desk beside the open window, and working on my English assignment, I ...

Then you need to complete the sentence to explain what you experienced and/or how you felt. You should be able to adapt what you had originally, but I'd question the word "adventurous". Of course, in this kind of sentence you can say you felt anything you want, but I suspect that "adventurous" may not be quite what you mean.

2. Today, in these natural colors, stepping inn through my hazel gray opened window, over the blue wall, I feel much relaxed -- light as fur, the dark clouds of stress and fatigue seemingly fading away.

Here, "stepping" is the wrong verb ("streaming in" would be fine), "opened" would be better as "open", and I'd be greatly tempted to delete "hazel gray". I'd also delete the comma after "colors": the way that you've punctuated it suggests it might be you that's "stepping in". I think I'd also change the word order, to end up with something like:

Today, in these natural colors streaming over the blue wall and through my open window, I feel much relaxed -- light as fur, the dark clouds of stress and fatigue seemingly fading away.

This is not the greatest sentence ever written, but it's progressing.

It's difficult to explain why I prefer "seemingly" to "seem to be". In "I feel much relaxed -- light as fur, the dark clouds of stress and fatigue seem to be fading away." there is, to me, a "jerk" as we move from adjectival phrases ("relaxed", "light as fur") to a new substantive statement ("the dark clouds of stress and fatigue seem to be fading away"). To me, "seemingly" better fits the descriptive mood of this part of the sentence. But if you were starting a new sentence then "seem to be" would be correct: "I feel much relaxed -- light as fur. The dark clouds of stress and fatigue seem to be fading away."

Two or more adjectives can quite happily modify one noun, but the thing is not to overdo it. "His sweet soft smile" is absolutely fine, though some people would put a comma after "sweet".

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: Sentence arrangement

Clive — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:11:55 GMT

Hi,

Really, I think ' is the main clause, and '(that) these foods are not soft enough for me' is a subordinate noun clause. We can see that clearly in option (c).

1. These foods are not soft enough for me, I think. This word order makes it look like two clauses. The 'I think' seems parenthetical, and the comma acknowledges that.

2. I think, these foods are not soft enough for me. There is not reason here to use a comma.

3 I think these foods are not soft enough for me. As discussed.

Each sentence contains two main clauses.How can we tell they are arranged grammatically ?

'These foods' suggests you are focusing on different kinds of food. If not, just say 'This food'.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: indirect question

Cool Breeze — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:22:36 GMT

Hi NG

You are right. Indirect questions fall in three categories.

1. There is a word that can begin a clause but the word is not the subject.

What did he say? - Tell me what he said.

2. There isn't a word that can begin a clause. If or whether must be used.

Did he come in time? - Tell me if/whether he came in time .

3. A question word - in Scandinavia we call them interrogative pronouns - is the subject or a part of the subject.

What is wrong with this? - Tell me what is wrong with this.

Whose friend saw it? - Tell me whose friend saw it.

Because the interrogative word is the grammatical subject of the clause, there is no change in the word order.

Re: Grammar question: "extracting some phrase out of a coordinate structure"

Clive — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:46:02 GMT

Hi Steve,

Generally speaking, I have trouble understanding clearly what he is asking. I'll go through and try to make some comments. My advice is that you should focus your native speaker skills on ensuring that his sentences and paraphrases sound acceptable, and let him focus on his theories.

I received this question from a Japanese professor that I am having trouble answering:

I am working on the issue of extracting some phrase out of a coordinate structure of the form "[A and B]". As you know, it is generally not allowed to do so. For example, "*Which boy did you meet [Susan and --]? (as a response to "I met Susan and a boy ") is unacceptable.

A: I met Susan and a boy.

B: Which boy did you meet? In a context where there are several boys, this seems like an acceptable question.

Or "*This is the senator that [I voted for Bill Clinton and Terry met -- in Washington]." is unacceptable. Yes, this is wrong. But you could say

This is the senator that I voted for and that Terry met in Washington.

But exceptionally, it is possible to do so, as in the case I cited earlier: "What kind of cancer can you [eat herbs and not get --]?" as opposed to "*Which thief have [you identified -- and we have arrested his accomplice]?" In this context, I am interested in the kind of a paraphrase that is as faithful to the coordinate construction as possible yet possible in English (marginally, or even if unacceptable, semantically intelligible). That is why I suggested two possibilities: "What kind of cancer is it that if you eat herbs, you won't get (it)?"

Yess, this seems OK, although it's not a good word order. I'd say

"What kind of cancer is it that you won't get if you eat herbs?".

(the assumption here is that the coordination at hand is semantically not coordinate but subordiante; namely "and" means something like "if") or "What kind of cancer can you eat herbs so that you won't get (it)?"

This seems wrong. I guess you could say

"For what kind of cancer can you eat herbs, so that you won't get it?"

(this departs from my assumption of "and" being conditioinal in this context at least). Could you choose between the two or suggest a better one that is as close to the original sentence semantically and constructioanlly as possible, in your intuitive judgment?

How about 'If you eat herbs, what kind of cancer will you not get?'

If you can, try to get him to deal with examples that are not questions, because he is tending to get into trouble by mixing together clauses that are questions and clauses that are not questions.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Inverted Order

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:07:53 GMT

Anonymous
1. Here is the station
2. Here are the tickets.

Is is the verb in the first sentence and the station is the subject. In the second sentence are is the verb and the tickets is the subject. Here is an adverb of place in both sentences. The inversion (= verb before subject) is due to here. In other Germanic languages inversion is always required if an adverb begins a clause and even though this word order has mostly disappeared from English, it persists in sentences like "Here is the station".

Re: found this on Yahoo

CalifJim — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:58:23 GMT

In this type of construction you will find a variety of correct phrasings when the subject of the clause is rather long and can be split logically into two or more parts.

the price | to replace a bumper

allows for the addition of will be in either of two places.

the price will be | to replace a bumper
the price | to replace a bumper will be

Compare:

the reason | for the delay

When does he think the reason will be explained for the delay?
When does he think the reason for the delay will be explained?

Keeping the modifier closer to the noun (the second choice in both examples above) is better if the modifier is not too long. Otherwise, the alternate word order is better, as in:

I wonder how soon the day will come when everybody all over the world will live in peaceful harmony with one another regardless of race, religion, or nationality.

Much less comprehensible:
I wonder how soon the day when everybody all over the world will live in peaceful harmony with one another regardless of race, religion, or nationality will come.

CJ

Whomever

Liveinjapan — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:29:56 GMT

He says he wants to get along with whomever the next president of the US will be.

He says he wants to get along with whoever will be the next president of the US.

I think the first is correct and the second is wrong because whoever is the object. The word order in the whoever clause is wrong.

Right?

Thanks
LiJ

Re: She asked me who was the best player.

Hoa Thai — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:30:05 GMT

Hi Kooyen,

Would the following extract from perfectyourenglish.com help answer the question or create more confusion?

"Wh-questions are reported by using ask (or another verb like ask) + question word + clause. We use normal word order.

"What is your name?" he asked me.
He asked what my name was.
"How old is your mother?" he asked her.
He asked her how old her mother was.

When we report questions constructed with who/what/which + be + complement, be can be put before or after the complement.

He asked, âWhat is the matter?â
He asked what the matter was.
He asked what was the matter."

EDIT: From the explanation, it seems to me the speaker sends a different message for each of the base sentences:
- "She asked me who the best player was" means "I don't know about the best player, please tell me who s/he is."
- "She asked me who was the best player" could mean "Please tell me out of those players, who is the best."