Search results for 'tag:Determiners tag:Plurals' matching tags 'Determiners' and 'Plurals'

Re: "any"-defining

Kooyeen — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:18:11 GMT

Ok, I've been thinking about it, and this is the best analysis I can come up with.
Any has two major meanings:

1) Any = Some, like a kind of partitive, a determiner like "some". Used in negative sentences, questions, and parts of sentences introduced by "if". Always followed by nouns in the plural (except for some rare cases that won't be discussed here)
2) Any = No matter which. Used in every kind of sentence (negative, affirmative, questions). It can be followed by nouns in the singular (= any one, no matter which), or in the plural (= any group, no matter which). So the choice between singular or plural depends on the context and what you mean to convey.

Here are some examples. Comments in italics.

1 - Do you have any sisters? You might have some sisters. I am just asking.
2 - I don't have any sisters. I have no sisters.
3 - Have you ever been to any foreign countries? You might have been to some foreign countries. I am just asking.
4 - If you have any questions, give us a call. You might have some questions. If so, call us.
5 - Any teacher would tell you that practicing is important. Any one of them, no matter who.
6 - Any children found in possession of hallucinogenic lollipops will be arrested immediately. Any group of them, no matter which.
7 - This program will help you remove any viruses your PC might have. Any group of them. You probably have several viruses.
8 - I'll give you one toy for free. You can pick any toy you like in my store. Any toy, one toy.
9 - Hey hey! Wanna see a magic trick? Pick a card. Any card, come on. Any card, one card.
10 - Have you found any traces of alien life in any / any planets yet? Red = Someone hopes to see some traces in some planets. Blue = Any group of planets, no matter which. Alien life is expected to be discovered in more than one planet. ---- This example shows how it is sometimes possible to consider "any" as both red and blue at the same time, with no difference in the overall meaning.
11 - Have you found any traces of alien life in any planet yet? Someone hopes to see some traces in one planet. Multiple discoveries in more than one planet are not expected or likely.
12 - I haven't found anything in any planet. Any planet, no matter which one I analyzed. Every planet I checked showed no traces of life.
13 - Have you found any of those mysterious words in any dictionary? Any dictionary, any one of them, no matter which. I don't expect those dictionaries to help much, but you might have found a couple of words in one of them.

This is my opinion, the best I have ever had on "any", LOL. I'd really like it if a native speaker took a look at it and told me their opinion. It took me a while to figure out of a sensible rule of thumb to illustrate the usage of "any", but I am a non-native speaker and so... I can't be sure of anything. But that was the best I could do! Did it make sense? Was it good?

Re: Â«...clean grimy hands...Â»

MissMandy — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:03:00 GMT

Ant_222
Hmmm. I thought that a + singular countable noun was the same as zero article + plural countable noun.

You're absolutely right.

The original sentence may have led the hobbits to go looking for others' dirty hands to wash because the author chose to omit the word "your" before "grimy hands". As I said earlier, its seems like it was poetic license in that case, otherwise I would have expected him to add the "your" back in, just as he did with the faces. My point was more that a plural noun does not always need an a determiner.

I would guess that if any up-and-coming author had written that sentence, his or her editor would not have left it as it was left in this text.

~Miss Mandy

Re: Â«...clean grimy hands...Â»

Ant_222 — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:52:23 GMT

MissMandy
...a tells the listener that we are being generic. If you wanted him to wash his own weary face, you'd need a possessive determiner (your)

Hmmm. I thought that a + singular countable noun was the same as zero article + plural countable noun.

Why wouldn't the hobbits look around for other(s)' grimy hands and not their ones? In the original sentence, "hands" doesn't have a determiner either... Having re-reading GG's explanation and trying to unite it with yours, I am starting to think that that might be the case...

Anton

Re: Â«...clean grimy hands...Â»

MissMandy — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:30:41 GMT

Haha, you gave me a funny picture in my head. If you told Paul to wash a weary face, he would probably be looking around for someone else's weary face to wash because you can't tell him to wash his own face that way; a tells the listener that we are being generic. If you wanted him to wash his own weary face, you'd need a possessive determiner (your). So, yes, you seem correct.

When thinking about determiners (articles are a category of determiners), you always need to decide if the noun is count or non-count, and if it is count, if it is plural or singular as well as if it is generic of specific. With non-count nouns you need to decide if the noun is specific or generic. Once all of that has been decided, you still have lots of choices.(Go to Wikipedia's "Determiners" page to see the long list.)

If you want, send me an email and I'll send you a PDF graphic that I give to all my grammar students. Determiners are tiny, but powerful and confusing, little words. I'll send the file to anyone who wants it. Just send me your email.

~Miss Mandy

Re: Noun number and determiner

Clive — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:50:44 GMT

Hi,
. . . friends, I feel there is more to the explanation of it.
What are noun numbers tI'm no familiar with this expression. To me, it sounds like a way of talking about singular/plural.

and determiners? Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner_(class)

Let me assure you that if you say things like 'He's pulling my legs / one of my legs/ a leg', it will sound very odd and quite amusing to nstive speakers.

Best wishes again, Clive

Re: has / have

Yoong Liat — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:40:54 GMT

Grammar Geek

You need some sort of determiner before "meal."

In the U.S., we generlaly use a singular verb for family, but would still use "their" in the plural.

The dining area is where the family has/eats their meals.

It's the same in BrE; either a singular or a plural verb can be used after 'family'.

My family was/were in Orchard Road last Sunday.

Re: has / have

Grammar Geek — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:32:26 GMT

You need some sort of determiner before "meal."

In the U.S., we generlaly use a singular verb for family, but would still use "their" in the plural.

The dining area is where the family has/eats their meals.

Re: Kindly eplain which sentence is right?

CalifJim — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:25:31 GMT

You have no determiner in front of annual contribution(s), so it has to be plural. That makes 2 and 4 wrong.

If you have only one investment plan (the usual arrangement), use 1. If you have more than one, use 3.

Part of Speech identification

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:16:08 GMT

Hello, this is my first post here, I like to know these words
kilometer
centimeter

Are those words noun if they are standing alone ? if it's, what kind of noun it's, proper noun or abstract noun or etc ?

After that, I want to indentify the part of speech of the following setence by using the stanfard parser at http://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/parser/index.jsp
if you input,
convert kilometer to centimeter
it gives convert/VB kilometer/NN to/TO centimeter/VB

if you input,
convert 2 kilometers to centimeter
it gives convert/VB 2/CD kilometers/NNS to/TO centimeter/NN

You can refer to the tagset below, my question is, is the first input setence correct ? if it's correct the part of speech given by the program seems to be incorrect because
the centimeter should be noun instead of Verb, or am I wrong ? If you add the "2" as the second input the program gives the correct part of speech tagging,
it it because my first input grammar is incorrect ? Thank you.

Reference

1. CC  Coordinating conjunction  25.TO  to 
2. CD  Cardinal number           26.UH  Interjection 
3. DT  Determiner                27.VB  Verb, base form 
4. EX  Existential there   28.VBD Verb, past tense 
5. FW  Foreign word              29.VBG Verb, gerund/present participle 
6. IN  Preposition/subord.   30.VBN Verb, past participle 
218z     conjunction 
7. JJ  Adjective                 31.VBP Verb, non-3rd ps. sing. present 
8. JJR Adjective, comparative    32.VBZ Verb, 3rd ps. sing. present 
9. JJS Adjective, superlative    33.WDT wh-determiner 
10.LS  List item marker          34.WP  wh-pronoun 
11.MD  Modal                     35.WP  Possessive wh-pronoun 
12.NN  Noun, singular or mass    36.WRB wh-adverb 
13.NNS Noun, plural              37. #  Pound sign 
14.NNP Proper noun, singular     38. $  Dollar sign 
15.NNPS Proper noun, plural      39. .  Sentence-final punctuation 
16.PDT Predeterminer             40. ,  Comma 
17.POS Possessive ending         41. :  Colon, semi-colon 
18.PRP Personal pronoun          42. (  Left bracket character 
19.PP  Possessive pronoun        43. )  Right bracket character 
20.RB  Adverb                    44. "  Straight double quote 
21.RBR Adverb, comparative       45. `  Left open single quote 
22.RBS Adverb, superlative       46. "  Left open double quote 
23.RP  Particle                  47. '  Right close single quote 
24.SYM Symbol  48. "  Right close double quote

Re: How does "the" modify plurals followed by relative clauses?

CalifJim — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:08:30 GMT

A. She talked to the students who failed the test.
(Am I referring to some of the students who failed, or all (the?) students who failed?)
All who failed.

B. She talked to students who failed the test.
(Am I referring to all (the?) students who failed, or have I incorrectly omitted "the"?)
to students who failed the test = to some students who failed the test, where some may be all.
some can include all. She may have talked to three students, and only three failed the test (those three) or maybe five or six failed the test. In either case she talked to students who failed the test.

C. "Students who don't study usually fail."
(Am I referring to all (the?) students who don't study, or have I incorrectly omitted "the"?)
all (the) students who don't study.

D. "The students who don't study usually fail."
(Am I referring to all (the?) students who don't study, or some of the students who failed?)
all (the) students who don't study.

C. and D. are equivalent logically. C is a general (universal) statement about all students; D is a specific statement about all the students the speaker has singled out through previous contextual cues.

PS: Although A has "the" and C doesn't, they both sound natural to me. So does "the" modify the whole "students who blah blah" or just "studnets"?
Strictly speaking, the does not modify anything; it never does. But it acts as the determiner for the whole noun phrase with its relative clause, not just the head noun.

CJ