Search results for 'tag:Definite articles tag:Grammar' matching tags 'Definite articles' and 'Grammar'

Re: from/since/own

Cool Breeze — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:35:47 GMT

1. The use of the indefinite article implies that more than one shop are involved. On second thought, I'm trying to envisage a conversation with "it's a little shop of my own"... Perhaps it could be used even if you have only one. People don't always go by the book (= the grammar book ) when they speak and write.

For example, it says in all grammar books that the combination the ... + of one's own is wrong. In other words, we shouldn't say: This is the car of my own. Yet an English pop singer called Cliff Richard sold a million records (or more, I don't know) singing:

And some day when the years have flown

darling, then we'll teach the young ones of our own.

- The Young Ones

2. You can say from Monday to/till/until Friday. Since instead of from is wrong simply because native speakers don't use it with to/till/until. It has nothing to do with tense. There is no verb in your original example.

Re: Article - where do they go?

Clive — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:07:21 GMT

Hi,

Please look at this and tell me if the indefinite article 'a' goes with the third and fourth underlined parts. Is there possible confusion? If yes, how would you resolve it in term of grammar and the sentence structure? Would you say ther article 'a' does not go with any other words except the number one word?

Everything that goes into making a programme, lighting, staff and rent is now being reviewed.

The last three words appear to be used in a non-countable sense, so I would take the 'a' to relate only to 'programme'.

In addition, the verb 'make' does not seem to me to be a good choice for use with the other three nouns. We don't usually say, for example, that we 'make staff'.
I'd prefer to add other verbs, to clarify whatever is the intended meaning. eg

Everything that goes into making a programme, creating lighting, recruiting staff and paying for rent is now being reviewed.

Best wishes, Clive

Article - where do they go?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:26:46 GMT

Re: Youths clashed with police / the police in Belfast.

Cool Breeze — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:21:39 GMT

Jesusengland
- ~~The~~ youths clashed with police / the police in Belfast.

I can see no reason why the definite article should be used with youths. We know nothing about these youths and the reference is to no specific group of youths. If we use the before youths, logically it should be used with any plural noun in similar contexts: The cars were parked illegally in Beirut.

In the old days it was customary to use the with police but there is an increasing tendency to leave the article out these days. I still have some grammar books that say the should be used with police in contexts like yours. I am completely content without the article even though I do use it myself.

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Crokey — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:44:28 GMT

Hi CB,
thanks so much for your reply(i was the one who asked about the differences between verbal nouns and gerunds). i agree that there seems to be discrepancies between one grammarians usage and another's. I certainly like your definition of gerunds, in so far as they are unable to take the definite article, however: "the gerund expresses action [and] it is often preceded by the definite article" e.g.(given) "Our culture therefore must not omit the arming of the man." from An English Grammar by W. M. Baskervill & J. W. Sewell.
Perhaps your example might be used to illustrate the conundrum further: "The speech of the english language is beautiful". speech is surely a verbal noun, derived from the verb speak but there is no action being performed, i am merely naming an action. When i say "The speaking of the english language is easy", am I naming an action or am I implying that an action may be performed that is difficult. If I had never read the section in An English Grammar(reproduced in a variety of other articles i have ventured across during this travail) and a spectacular panoply of inconcise readings of the matter, then i would be quiet content to adopt your comfortable definition.
thanks again cb for taking the time to look at this and all the other posts...especially the ones that are pure academic tomfoolery!

Looking for some tips and/or curriculum suggestions

mikesusangray — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:50:11 GMT

Hi all!

I've been giving English conversation lessons to a theology professor for about a year now. He's getting on in the years - a couple years from retirement - and his primary goal has been just to get his spoken English going a little stronger. His mother tongue is French but he's been teaching at a German language university for many years.

I'd like to add some more specific inputs to our lessons but I can't seem to find the right material. His passive skills are excellent - he reads widely and with perfect comprehension in his field - and he can communicate quite understandably. He is a linguistics specialist and can grasp any concept about the language immediately. I brought along Cambridge Advanced Grammar in Use and he could plow through a chapter in five minutes with perfect conceptual comprehension.

However, he also continues to make very simple errors - for example, he has trouble choosing between present simple and continuous or often uses the present tense for past events. Sentence order tends to get wander hither and yon while definite and indefinite articles come and go with the tide. (Prepositions are a problem too, but I won't beat him to hard there - prepositions are difficult in any new language.) In many cases his mistakes are typical of French or German speech patterns.

One other limitation is that he enjoys the weekly lessons (a good hour), but doesn't have much time to study in between.

Right now we spend about 15 minutes reading a chapter from Advanced Grammar in Use and about 45 minutes talking about just about anything under the sun, while I take notes and show him problems under the categories Pronunciation/Articles & Prespositions/Word Order/Other Grammar/Vocabulary/Idioms. However, I don't think the work book is a good choice - particularly since he doesn't do the homework - and it seems like he isn't making very good progress with his typical problem patterns - though he greets them like old friends when I point them out.

Any tips here?

Re: Another article problem

Clive — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:18:37 GMT

Hi,

Here's another quotation of Paracelsus, in which I am troubled by the definite article before "sperma". I certainly wouldn't use it, so can somebody explain why it is needed here?

"If the sperma, enclosed in a hermetically sealed glass, is buried in horse manure for about forty days, and is properly 'magnetized', it begins to live and move."

If it was some countable noun, wouldn't you use "a": "If a drop of..."?

This seems to me to be similar to saying 'The human eye is extremely complex'. It's using one specific instance to refer to all human eyes. It's a common literary device.

You are asking questions in 2008 about the grammar of a sentence that was written about 500 years ago in German and translated into English, I think, in 1894.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Is "There is the ..." an exceptional use?

CalifJim — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:28:22 GMT

jazzmaster
A few grammar books carried by ESL students suggest that "there is" only takes indefinite articles

Good advice for beginners using "existential there".

You've got four combinations to disentangle here.

"existential there" means there exists -- such-and-such "has existence".

"locative there" means in that location -- at that place.

The two meanings are different. And each can be used with either an indefinite or a definite expression.

1. Existential there with an indefinite: There's a book on the table. (A book is to be found -- has existence -- on the table.)

2. Existential there with a definite: For sinners, there's hell. | For help with your homework, there's your brother. This turn of phrase asks us to take something into consideration. (Consider hell, consider your brother, as an answer to the problem of sinners, of doing homework.) Common with always: If you ever need a favor, there's always good old Charlie.

3. Locative there with an indefinite: I'd like a good mystery for summer reading. -- (pointing to a book on a shelf) There's a good one for you. (In that location is a good one.)

4. Locative there with a definite: There's the postman. He's coming up the walk just now. | Where did I leave the car? -- Oh! There's my car! (In that place the postman is found. | In that location is my car.)

You'll probably notice that, statistically, existential there usually goes with an indefinite expression, and locative there usually goes with a definite expression. Your three examples that you wanted to call exceptional are actually members of class 4 above, and are not among the patterns the ESL text is cautioning against. (I don't think so anyway.) Case 2 is the focus of the prohibition. And for beginners, it might not be a bad idea to keep away from those, since they are, as I pointed out above, more like an idiomatic way of asking someone to take something into consideration.

Re: Is "There is the ..." an exceptional use?

jazzmaster — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:53:08 GMT

Kooyeen

jazzmaster
A few grammar books carried by ESL students suggest that "there is" only takes indefinite articles such as "a/an", as in "There is an apple".
Anything else, such as "the, my, our, his", is not supposed to come after "there is".

My brief opinion: those are the kinds of books you should avoid reading. Unfortunately, there's a lot of 'em.

Thanks for coming by, Kooyeen.

"those are the kinds of books you should avoid reading" ... you know what? I could not agree with you more. You got that right. What a crap. Those books are beginning to evolve around themselves and started making up their own rules. I feel very sorry for those who are being taught with those books.

Thanks again.

Re: Is "There is the ..." an exceptional use?

Kooyeen — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:17:57 GMT

jazzmaster
A few grammar books carried by ESL students suggest that "there is" only takes indefinite articles such as "a/an", as in "There is an apple".
Anything else, such as "the, my, our, his", is not supposed to come after "there is".

My brief opinion: those are the kinds of books you should avoid reading. Unfortunately, there's a lot of 'em.