Search results for 'tag:Commas tag:Constructions' matching tags 'Commas' and 'Constructions'

Re: account for

26TMNTJG2PG — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:38:10 GMT

Taka
I've found this example:

These cartoon characters have caught the eyes of scholars, bringing out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists who say the comics are more than just escapist entertainment.

Isn't this the same as:

These cartoon characters have caught the eyes of scholars, and they have brought out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists who say the comics are more than just escapist entertainment.

?

These cartoon characters have caught the eyes of scholars, bringing out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists who say the comics are more than just escapist entertainment.

bringing out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists - This participial phrase is a nominative absolute phrase preceded by a 'they' which is understood with its non-finite verb 'bringing' having the finite equivalent 'bring'. The comma there has the function of joining two independent clauses and if you invoke such function, the new sentence will be "These cartoon characters have caught the eyes of scholars, and they bring out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists who say the comics are more than just escapist entertainment."

The finite verb 'have brought' has its non-finite equivalent as 'having brought'. On the same basis, the construction with a nominative absolute phrase for the sentence below

"These cartoon characters have caught the eyes of scholars, and they have brought out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists who say the comics are more than just escapist entertainment."

should be

"These cartoon characters have caught the eyes of scholars, having brought out a wave of best-selling studies by academics and scientists who say the comics are more than just escapist entertainment."

HAND HTH

Re: Abnormality of motor

Goodman — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:13:10 GMT

<<<>>>The abnormality of fan motor for computer no.1, which motor tripped as the operating temperature at 28C, has been vertified by technician.

Yes, the sentence sounded bumpy and stiff, aside from grammatical mistakes. Technical report needs to be clear and accurate. That's the reason I gave you the breakdown and the construction possibilities.
Tripping - is a terminology used sepcifically in the electrical field to mean "open circuit" by default. A motor can trip the breaker but does not trip itself. Unless it's a thermally protected motor which is not the case in personal computers. There are bigger cooling fans used in mainframe computers and large electronics which have resettable fuse or circuit breakers.
The relative clause usually requires no "comma".
Depending on the construction of the sentence, "Which" usually links the noun or pronoun to the clause. i.e. I've just moved to a new apartment which is only 10 minutes from my office.
In your constrcution, "fan motor" and "computer" were incorrectly linked to the realtive clause, in my opinion.

more grammar doubts!

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:36:34 GMT

(1) However, after being told she would not be allowed to present the speech herself, that instead it would be read at the assembly by a male student, she turned down the offer. Her future was in public speaking and she would not be denied.

Should it be "instead"? Can "that" be deleted? Please advise.

(2) Although she was determined not to marry, Lucy had not yet met Cincinnati hardware merchant Henry B. Blackwell, brother of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, the first women medical practitioners in the country. Seven years younger than she, Blackwell earnestly pursued Lucy for two years, begging for her hand in marriage.

Should it be " Seven years younger than her,"? Please check usage.

(3) Although she, as many of the other women in the movement, stitched shirts for Union soldiers, being domestic was not her calling and during the period, she helped found the Woman's National Loyal League, advocating full emancipation and enfranchisement for African Americans.

Please check comma usage in the above sentence.

(4) Slowly, she moved away from the more extreme positions and the persons supporting them, particularly the free love advocacy of presidential-candidate-to-be Victoria Woodhull and those who opposed all but federal suffrage mandates, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Do we need hyphen in "presidential-candidate-to-be"? Please clarify.

(5) She died at her home of cancer but refused to make her death the end of the firsts on her list. Her final wish was to be first person cremated in New England.

Should it be "was to be the first person"? Please check.

(6) Lack of paid employment was not an issue for Addams was a skilled fundraiser.

Is the sentence construction ok? Please check.

(7) Employing a changing and adaptable approach to organization, Addams established the first public playground in the city, started a post office and a savings bank, initiated the first juvenile court and offered bathing facilities for those who had none.

Do we need serial comma before "and offered bathing facilities"? Please clarify.

(8) Unfortunately, her career was short-lived for she was summoned home to help care for her ailing mother.

Do we need hyphen in "short-lived"? Please clarify.

Re: the middle voice option

MrPedantic — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:49:37 GMT

Hello Dawnstorm,

Dawnstorm

In most of these sentences you could make a case for elided objects, that are taken care off by context (rather than considered irrelevant, as in "I am eating."):

e.g. Yes, I saw X. X = anaphoric; referring to "Did you see X!" or "Omg, X!"

"You push X and I'll lift X." : X is exophoric; determined by a present or imagined contex (e.g. they're standing in front of X).

Yes, I agree; such cases could presumably be classified as "common ambitransitives" (see ex. 4a in my earlier post); or perhaps as "ambiguous ambitransitives" (see ex. 6); thus:

1. You push (it) and I'll lift (it)

But:

2. It lifted quite easily

Dawnstorm

"What should we do when we punish X?" This one's actually more like the "considering irrelevant" I mentioned above, the assumption being that there is one set of answers for all X, so that X doesn't have to be mentioned. (Similarly, "I am eating X," the point I'm making holds for all X.) Note that the listener might enquire, here, "punish who?" or "eat what?"

"Please give X generously.": Here, X usually means "money", but context probably takes care of this (it might mean used clothes, household appliances etc. for flood victims). Here X is not so much irrelevant as implied.

Again, agreed. Presumably therefore "common ambitransitives".

Dawnstorm

I've heard that cognitive linguists often work with an implied object for many "intranstives". So: "I am reading" and "I am eating" always have a hint of "I am reading X" and "I am eating X", which is not expressed. A lot of this has to do with "theta roles"; what parts the verb's arguments are playing.

I am eating (X): Subject = agent

I am dying: Subject = experiencer

***

Yes, agreed. "Eat" is presumably unergative (ex. 4); "die", unaccusative (ex. 2).

I also agree with your inverted commas ("intransitives"), for verbs such as "eat" and "read". In non-metaphorical usage, the objects of "eat" tend to belong to a particular class ("food"), and are therefore to some extent always cognate with "eat"; whereas the objects of e.g. "hit" are not.

Thus "He eats well" does not need a context, for us to understand what the implied object is; but "He hits well" does.

Dawnstorm

Notice, for example, the semantic equivalence, but syntactic difference between:

- The sign reads, "Beware of the dog!"

- The sign says, "Beware of the dog!"

I agree that there's a syntactic difference: the first can't be presented as indirect speech, for example. "Reads" has almost a copulative sense here.

But I find a semantic difference too: the first presents the sign from the point of view of the reader, and the second, from the point of view of the writer.

Dawnstorm

This is the gordian knot that tangles up syntax, semantics and pragmatics. There are a lot of problems:
- The mirror is breaking.
I am dying.

vs.

- Don't break the mirror!
- Don't kill me.

See the problem? It's not only a syntactic but also a lexical problem. Break (intr.):Die (intr.) = Break (tr.):Kill (tr.). Does it make sense to claim that "break" is ergative/unaccusative (I'm still confused by the difference) and "die" isn't, because "die" selects a different lexical item for the transitive?

No, it doesn't make sense; and precisely because of that distinction, I would call "break" here ergative (ex. 5) , and "die" unaccusative (ex. 2).

Dawnstorm

But, again, syntax is not the same as semantics. Take this construction, for example:

"He died a cruel death."

While this assigns subject and object along the formal transitive model, semantically the "agent/patient" distinction breaks down; or rather, the fact that dying is not an action that affects death posits a problem to the "agent/patient" distinction within "voice".

The object here is a cognate object (it is implied in the verb itself) and thus belongs to a slightly different model. (I would say that it only exists to provide an adverbial opportunity: "he died a cruel death" = "he died in a cruel way".)

Dawnstorm

I'm not surprised people run from "ergativity"/"accusativity"; it's a tangle. I don't think that conventional morphological/syntactic analysis can solve the tangle adequately. It's a gordian knot, and all the syntanctician has is Alexander's sword. I'd look for solution in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, frame semantics etc. These approaches could then help patch holes in syntax.

The terminology is not happy, admittedly; "middle voice" and "ergative" belong to other linguistic contexts, as has been mentioned; but I think it can be disentangled.

It may be the case that "ergative" usage was once much more common in English. Before the rise of the passive present progressive, for instance, an active present progressive often expressed the same meaning. Thus:

3. The house is building (pre-19th century) =
4. The house is being built

Also, although the same few verbs tend to recur as examples in these discussions, actual usage is more imaginative. For instance, last week I heard a sports commentator say:

5. The pitch doesn't look very pretty; but as long as it plays well, that's all that matters.

Best wishes,

MrP

Re: However

Philip — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:52:06 GMT

I'll let someone else tackle the question of adverbs and comma splices.
I would use 'however expensive they may be', which is perhaps a little archaic, but it's the construction common when I was first paying attention to language.

More grammar doubts!

Anonymous — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:39:27 GMT

(1) Whenever I listen to television ~~unfortunately I have to do it once in a while to keep up with what's going on~~but 80 percent of every statement made about Islam is factually false. But it goes on and is repeated and repeated and repeated.

Usage of "but" and sentence construction, is it ok? Please check.

(2) Dialogue going on right now, as we stand here, with major Jewish figures, is much more than there was twenty years ago, which is one of the very good signs upon the horizons.

Comma usage before "is"? Please check.

(3) And the land of Israel, together with the people of Israel, and the faith of Israel, constitute the triangle we call Judaism.

Should it be constitutes? S-V agreement check

(4) Religion, that is, you and I, have a vital role to play in this historic task. If we don't, our message of peace and love of all God's creatures will ring as hollow as cynics and opponents say it does.

Have or has? S-V agreement, please check. Does author uses "have" for "you and I"?

(5) Now, in the Jewish world, the state of Israel, either for or against, has been at the root of every single fundamentalist movement. Some Jewish fundamentalists are passionately for the state of Israel, the secular state of Israel which they see as sacred. Others see the state of Israel as at best a neutral value.

Should it be passionate? Please advise.

(6) I wish I could pass on the same message which I gave this conference about ahimsa, nonabsolutism and nonattachment, and you panelists can take this message further out and take this message for further nonviolence and bring about peace and justice everywhere.

Can "in" be inserted before "this conference"?

(7) This proposal had been slowly gathering steam and, after the events of September 11, 2001, it seemed an ideal project to demonstrate that religions can work together if they came together to produce such a declaration, and to demonstrate further that the religious-secular divide could also be overcome were this to happen, for such a declaration could only be produced by a convergence of religious and secular discourse.

Can "were this to happen" be changed to "if this was to happen"? Please advise.

Re: in or on the driveway

New2grammar — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:49:35 GMT

Thanks, Goodman. Just a quick question. I have seen a construction like this several times and wonder if it's grammatical

and they may get hurt falling on your driveway, you may be on the hook for potential lawsuits.

Can the sentences be linked with just a comma? And do they need a conjunction word/phrase to join the two related ideas together or maybe a "---" for a pause?

I'm trying to learn this usage because I need it in my writing.

Thanks in advance!

On the use of "by" and on the use of commas

Anonymous — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:24:52 GMT

Dear All,

while reading the proof of a manuscript, I noticed that the journal proofreader made a few changes I do not really understand. Therefore I would be grateful if you could enlighten me on the following:

1) By using the hypotheses of this theorem, we will prove that...

Is "by" really necessary? Is it incorrect "Using the hypotheses of ..."?

2) We will prove the main theorem by means of the *** construction i.e., we will start from ....

I always put the comma before i.e. - hence immediately after construction in the above example - or before words such as "namely". Conversely the proofreader always moved the comma after i.e. or after namely. Is is really correct?

I thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts and opinions with me

Re: The effect of this sentence...?

RayH — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:25:01 GMT

Thedynamix
Thanks!
And another quickie...

"Delegates are able to register to particular conferences, and as per the specifications, the state of the registrations can be toggled"
Do I say "as per" her or just "per"?(red)
And did I use a comma in the right place there ? (blue)

I've never liked the "as per" construction, even though it's correct and you will see it used often. I much prefer "in accordance with" in a case like this.
Also, "Delegates are able to register for particular conferences."

Re: A question about commas

Clive — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:52:46 GMT

Hi again,

This is where I got the idea from:

A comma before the final and, or, or nor in a list of more than two things is called a serial comma or an Oxford comma: Yes. Search the Forum for 'Oxford comma', and you'll get lots of discussion.

We had milk, biscuits, and cream.
It is called the Oxford comma because the style guide of the Oxford University Press is one of its prominent advocates.
Although the Oxford comma is not always used, it should be applied to avoid ambiguity. Omitting the Oxford comma changes the meaning of a sentence, and unless the author is aware of the possible meaning the comma should be included rather than omitted.

I spoke to the boys, Sam and Tom. â The boys refers to Sam and Tom.
I spoke to the boys, Sam, and Tom. â The boys, Sam, and Tom are separate units; thus, four or more people were spoken to in all.
I spoke to x, y and z. This sentence is stating that y and z are what comprise x. I wouldn't say that it always means this. It depends on the 'content words' in the sentence. eg If I say 'I bought apples, pears and oranges', do you think that anyone is going to think that pears and oranges comprise apples? Compare that to a sentence like 'He was friends with two American Presidents, Kennedy and Nixon'. Here, it's true that a comma after 'Kennedy' would completely change the meaning.

I spoke to x, y, and z. This sentence is stating that x, y, and z were all spoken to and that they are different entities. " Similarly, consider 'I spoke to Tom, Dick and Harry'. This clearly identifies three people.

Your example was In 1995, the player won events such as Dormund, Linares, and Corus. Even without the comma, I would take this to refer to three separate events. I suggest that would be the normal interpretation. If I intended to convey to the reader the idea that Dormund consists of two parts called Linares and Corus, I wouldn't simply rely on 'no comma after Linares' to convey that idea. Such a construction, using three proper names, would be unusual.

Best wishes, Clive