Search results for 'tag:Conversations tag:Predicates' matching tags 'Conversations' and 'Predicates'

Re: predicate nominative?

Avangi — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:31:29 GMT

I would say "She was I", but Kooyeen delights in pointing out that I'm in a 1% minority. It comes down to, what do you mean by "correct"? - and what do you mean by "allowed"? - and what "register" would you like to represent?

I like to think of the song lyric from the musical, The Man From La Mancha: "I am I, Don Quixote!" "Correct grammar should be confined to art, and has no place in conversation."

They say the king of Spain once spoke with a lisp, so the whole country was required to follow suit. Perhaps some day the whole world will say, "nucular."

Re: Question on Foot of English Metric Poetry

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 13:07:26 GMT

(Mr M forgot to log in again!-- MM)

It is a matter of natural sentence flow and stress for meaning. Let's write it like a prose sentence:

I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.

Spoken in conversation, sentences carry several levels of stress, not just stressed and unstressed. This sentence would probably be uttered with primary (main) stress on poem and tree-- these are the core words of meaning here-- and with secondary stress on lovely-- this adjective essentially defines the relationship between poem and tree. Below that would be tertiary stress on the simple subject (I), the simple predicate (see) and the negative word (never)-- notice that all of these stresses appear in the dependent clause, not in the matrix clause (I think), which only colours the core statement about poems and trees. (I should include a caveat that others may find differing stress patterns, and different intent would also produce others)

Trees is written in iambics, which as you probably know is a common rhythm of spoken English. To a certain extent, we tend to talk that way, and iambic stress patterns will impose themselves on our utterances. It is probably a circular phenomenon, actually-- we tend to speak in iambics, and so sentence structure and patterns of idioms and stock phrases are therefore formed and preserved in iambics.

Blank verse is iambic; it just does not rhyme. I think you mean free verse. Free verse depends on rhythms set, not by syllables, but by the cadence of phrases, images, and syntax. It should be relatively easy for you to learn to feel the difference if you recite aloud (as you should all poetry) this excerpt from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

And compare it with some of Thomas Grey's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Now, which one is free verse, and which is in metric verse?

Re: Beware the ides of March, the revenge of the moderators!

MrPedantic — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 01:10:25 GMT

Hello Tallulah

The grammatical subject of a sentence isn't necessarily the same as the "subject matter".

In this sentence, for instance â

1. My girlfriend ran off with the milkman.

â the grammatical subject of the sentence is "my girlfriend"; the predicate is "ran off with the milkman"; and the object of the verb "run off with" is "the milkman".

But the subject matter (the "topic") would depend on the context and intonation. For instance, the sentence might arise in a discussion of "people girlfriends run off with". ("My girlfriend ran off with the milkman!") Or a discussion of "my girlfriend". ("I forgot to tell you. My girlfriend ran off with the milkman.") Or even "milkmen" ("That's a coincidence! My girlfriend ran off with the milkman!").

Or take this one:

2. I always try to get balls into the conversation.

The subject is "I"; the predicate is the underlined part; and the object of "get" is "balls". These definitions are invariable. But the topic/subject matter could be "my charming quirks":

2a. I always try to get balls into the conversation.

Or "things we can do to promote balls":

2b. I always try to get balls into the conversation.

Or "unusual conversational gambits":

2c. I always try to get balls into the conversation.

So the problem is your use of "subject" and "object". In grammatical contexts, these have precise meanings: they don't mean "subject matter" and "thing".

Does that help?

MrP

Re: Myself usage

CalifJim — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 03:39:55 GMT

The so-called object pronouns are actually acceptable in the "predicate nominative" position according to many modern grammarians. Some say that it has been only the tendency of English grammarians throughout the centuries to create rules for English in imitation Latin grammar that has led to the idea that the object pronouns are wrong after the verb "to be". The advice more recently is to abandon grammatical explanations based on Latin. In conformance with this view perhaps we should begin to call the "object pronouns" "post-verbal pronouns"!

Note that in practical terms, the expression in everyday conversation is often "I'm the one who ...", where the choice of "I" or "me" doesn't even arise.

CJ

Re: Formal Semantics

Lister — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 01:41:53 GMT

Sorry I have taken so long; I had to go away for a while. I am the guest who started this thread.
Roro, I was reading your answers on the Montague Grammar thread and I think that person is asking basically the same thing as I.
To clarify my question: I learned how to do some basic propositional and predicate logic. I learned how to express (certain) English sentences in this manner. But I didn't learn how it really lets us get closer to any form of meaning. What do truth conditions have to do with meaning? And why clarifying a statement that I already understood get me closer to its meaning?
Don't worry; I also learned that formal semantics is NOT the best or only way to search for meaning, just that it is one way. I'm not seeking justification for formal semantics as the one thing that can show us the way. But I enjoyed it, and I sort of felt myself on the edge of understanding SOMETHING, so I'd like to at least be able to justify it in conversation when I'm explaining how much my degree cost (or if my lecturer decides to make something like "Why study formal semantics?" an essay question!).

Regards,
Lister

Re: He/him

pedant — Thu, 25 Dec 2003 05:51:00 GMT

The correct versions are "It's he", "It's she", "It's we" and "It's I." Whenever the verb is a form of "to be" (be, am, is, are, was, were, been), the predicate is subjective.

That's standard English. Most speakers of the language, however, would use the incorrect version in conversation. "It's me" just sounds better than "It's I."