Search results for 'tag:Dialects tag:Adverbs' matching tags 'Dialects' and 'Adverbs'

Re: Lack of emphasis on NPs in ESL

Kooyeen — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:38:55 GMT

I obviously agree with Forbes: it depends on your first language. I have never had any problems with passive sentences, subjects and objects, the difference between countable and uncountable, etc. because those are all features I have in Italian too. It is not difficult at all for me to use conditional structures (= modal verbs) in polite requests, like in "Could you lend me 1,000 dollars?", because very similar structures are used the same way in Italian too. On the other hand, I know some Asian languages don't even have past or future tenses, so it's easy to imagine how much more difficult it must be for them to learn English.

So instead of focusing on noun phrases, shouldn't we rather focus on the real difficulties, which happen to vary from learner to learner according to their native language and past experience with languages in general?

Anonymous

How about this student?

<<I assume many of you have watched the cartoon "Totally spies", right?
I just wonder why it is "Totally" here. "totally" is always an adverb, so what do they imply when using "totally" here? How can it go with the noun "spies"?>>>

Heh, good question! I don't know! Could somebody tell me more about that, as a side note here without going completely off topic? Otherwise I will open another thread. I would say "Total spies", but if I suspect that "totally" in "Totally spies" is used informally in some dialects to mean "definitely", like in, like " Are you, like, coming to my awesome party tonight? - Oh, yeah, totally!"
If that is the case, then I don't think that "totally" has anything to do with proving learners have trouble with noun phrases. It would suggest learners have trouble with informal English, and if you ask me, that's true.

Re: quick or quickly

Mr Wordy — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:06:10 GMT

In "proper" conversational and written English, the first three should all be "quickly" (though some dialects might use "quick"). In #3 more people of all persuasions might say "quick" in conversation, or even in informal writing (though never in formal writing). I might myself.

Given the way you've punctuated #4, this, again should be "quickly" in "proper" English in my opinion. "Quickly" qualifies "call" adverbially in the usual way, but there's a slight pause before the "quickly" sentiment is expressed (kind of like "You need to call her ... and quickly.") It is possible for "quick" to be an exclamation that urges the person to hurry up, rather than an adverb qualifying "call". I think that's what you're getting at, but to me an exclamation mark is required, and I'd probably write it as two sentences: "You need to call her. Quick!".

Re: anymore of

Cool Breeze — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:02:54 GMT

Koto wrote:

I'm not sure but I guess "anymore of " is American and "any more of" is more like British?

Hi Koto

I can only repeat what I said in my previous post: anymore refers to time. E-mails are not time. The following extract is from the Random House Webster's Dictionary (an American dictionary):

anymore
1. any longer.
2. nowadays; presently.
[1350â1400; ME ani more any longer]
âUsage. The adverb ANYMORE meaning âany longerâ or ânowadaysâ is most commonly spelled as one word. It is used in negative constructions and in some types of questions: Sally doesn't work here anymore. Do you play tennis anymore? In some dialects, chiefly South Midland in origin, it is found in positive statements meaning ânowadaysâ: Baker's bread is all we eat anymore. Anymore we always take the bus. Its use at the beginning of a sentence is almost exclusive to speech or to representations of speech.

Cheers
CB

Re: The Original Ten

paco2004 — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:56:09 GMT

Historic Lughnasadh
Lughnasadh is a harvest celebration named for Lugh (Irish), Llew (Welsh), Lug (Britonic),or Lugus, the Celtic sun god. Lugh was one of the most popular of the Celtic gods. He gave his name to many towns around Europe including Lugdunum (Lyons) and perhaps even Londinium (London).

down
Etymology online
O.E. dun "hill," from Celtic word for "hill, citadel" (cf. O.Ir. dun "hill, hill fort," and second element in place names London, Verdun, etc.), from PIE base *dheue- "to close, finish, come full circle" (cf. O.E. dun "hill," M.Du. dune "sandy hill"). Meaning "elevated rolling grassland" is from 1297.

OED
Forms: 1 dÃºn, 2â4 dun, 4â5 doun(e, 4â7 downe, 4â down. [OE. dÃºn fem., hill = ODu. dÃºna (MDu. dÃºne, Du. duin, whence mod.LG. dÃ¼ne sandhill, F. dune). Supposed to be of Celtic origin: cf. OIr. dÃºn hill, hill-fort, Welsh din, and place-names in -dunum.
Since dÃºna must have been in use at an early date in the West Germanic dialects of Batavia and Lower Saxony, it is doubtful whether the word was brought by the Saxons from the continent, or adopted, after their settlement here, from the Britons; the former alternative is favoured by the exact correspondence in form and gender of the OE. and ODu. words, and by the fact that in local nomenclature OE. dÃºn seems to have been confined to the Saxon area. It is, however, in English only that the word has given rise to an adverb and a preposition]

paco

Re: History of English

paco2004 — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 13:52:26 GMT

Hello Abbie

I got the info in OED

Gerund -ing
The original function of the suffix was to form nouns of action; as Ã¡csung (asking), from Ã¡csian to ask;cÃ©apung, -ing (cheaping),;crÃ©opung (creeping); gaderung (gathering). These substantives were originally abstract; but even in OE. they often came to express a completed action, a process, habit, or art, as bletsung (blessing), leornung (learning), tÃdung (tidings), weddung (wedding), and then admitted a plural; sometimes they became concrete, as in eardung (dwelling), offrung (offering). During the ME. period all these uses received greater development, and in the 14th c. the formation became established, esp. in the gerundial use, as an actual or possible derivative of every verb. By later extension, formations of the same kind have been analogically made from substantives (see c, g, below), and, by ellipsis, from adverbs, as innings, offing, outing, homing (homecoming); while nonce-words in -ing are formed freely on words or phrases of many kinds, e.g. oh-ing, hear-hearing, hoo-hooing, pshawing, yo-hoing (calling oh!, hear! hear!, etc.), how-d'ye-doing (saying âhow do you do?â); âI do not believe in all this pintingâ (having pints of beer).

Present P -ing
suffix of the present participle, and of adjs. thence derived, or so formed; an alteration of the original OE. -ende = OFris., OS. -and, OHG. -ant-i (-ent-i, -ont-i, MHG. -end-e, Ger. -end), ON. -and-i (Sw. -ande, Da. -ende), Goth. -and-s, -and-a, = L. -ent-, Gr. -oms-, Skr. -ant-.
Already, in later OE., the ppl. -ende was often weakened to -inde, and this became the regular Southern form of the ending in Early ME. From the end of the 12th c. there was a growing tendency to confuse -inde, phonetically or scribally, with -inge; this confusion is specially noticeable in MSS. written by Anglo-Norman scribes in the 13th c. The final result was the predominance of the form -inge, and its general substitution for -inde in the 14th c., although in some works, as the Kentish Ayenbite of 1340, the pple. still regularly has -inde. In Midland English -ende is frequent in Gower, and occasional in Midland writers for some time later; but the southern -inge, -ynge, -ing, favoured by Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Lydgate, soon spread over the Midland area, and became the Standard English form. The Northern dialect, on the other hand, in England and Scotland, retained the earlier ending in the form -ande, -and, strongly contrasted with the verbal n. in -yng, -ing (-yne, -ene). At the present day the two are completely distinct in Northumberland and the Southern Counties of Scotland, although the general mutescence of final d, and the change of (-IN) to (-In), make the difference in most cases only a vowel one: e.g. âa singan' burdâ, âthe singin (-In) o' the burdsâ, but âa gaan bairnâ (a going child), âafore gangin' hameâ.

paco

Re: Peripheral adjectives

MrPedantic — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 12:06:55 GMT

I may have spoken too hastily...

In the Little/Small thread in the Vocab section, khoff perceptively says that '['it is little', etc] sounds like a childish vocabulary selection'.

I think this is true. In the instances where I've heard adults use 'little' in this way, there has usually been an element of humour or deliberate twee-ness. Take 'I'm only little', for instance:

{In the English Forums complaints department:}
A: Here's the letter of complaint about MrP. You'll find his file on the top shelf.
B: On the top shelf? How can I reach up there? I'm only little!

{In the English Forums 'Prepositions and Adverbs' department:}
A: What a very small office you have here. How do you manage?
B: Oh well, I'm only little...

The humour (such as it is) seems to reside in the self-deprecation (appropriately, Merriam-Webster gives 'belittle' as a synonym of 'deprecate'). Perhaps the 'childish vocabulary selection' adds to this.

Curiously, I wouldn't expect a male to say 'I'm only little!'. Cf. 'more-ish', 'ah, bless!', 'poo': all slightly surprising from males. (Against which, there are plenty of 'chaps' phrases', of course.)

So perhaps 'to be + little' should have a Warning! flag, rather than an outright and utter ban.

MrP
PS: Above only applies to BrE, as usual...It may be different in other dialects!

Re: Directions

Casi — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 11:27:10 GMT

There is no quick way of describing this situation in Brit English

Interestingly cool, Nona. Would BrE have caterways or caterwise? (I'm not sure if they're all that common today in North American English.)

Source: www.wordlwidewords.org

It has lots of variant forms, such as catercorner, kitty-cornered, cata-cornered, and cater-cornered, a sure sign that it puzzles users. The first part comes from the French word quatre, four. Itâs actually quite an old expression that first appeared in English as the name for the four in dice, soon Anglicised to cater. The standard placement of the four dots at the corners of a square almost certainly introduced the idea of diagonals. From this came a verb cater, to place something diagonally opposite another or to move diagonally, which can be found in the sixteenth century. Some English dialects had it as an adverb in compounds such as caterways or caterwise. By the early years of the nineteenth century it was beginning to be recorded in the USA in the compound form of cater-cornered. It had by then lost any link with the French word; people invented spellings in attempts to make sense of it, often thinking it had something to do with cats, which is why we have forms like kitty-corner.

Re: Due to - confusion ...

MrPedantic — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 23:44:16 GMT

My understanding is that 'due to' in these examples is 'correct':

1. 'Cancellations due to the lack of a driver are all too common these days.'
2. 'The cancellation was due to the lack of a driver.'

But 'incorrect' in these:

3. 'Due to the lack of a driver, the 1105 to Waterloo has been cancelled.'
4. 'The 1105 to Waterloo has been cancelled, due to the lack of a driver.'

The reason usually given is that 'due' is not a preposition, but an adjective, and so must relate to a noun or pronoun. It canât relate to an idea (in this case, âthe cancellation of the 1105â) that's merely implicit in the sentence.

In sentences #3 and #4, for instance, 'due' is properly in apposition to 'the 1105' ('the 1105 [that is] due to the lack of a driver').

It's similar to the argument against 'dangling participles'.

That said, it seems to me that the same objection could be made to 'owing to', which is often recommended as a replacement:

5. 'Owing to the lack of a driver, the 1105 to Waterloo has been cancelled' (i.e. 'the 1105 is owing to the lack of a driver').

Which leaves us with the option of replacing every dangling 'due to' and 'owing to' with 'because of'. Not an attractive proposition/preposition.

But if money or a job depended on my letter, I would probably combine a little of NtB's reasoning with a little of MH's:

a) in BrE at least, the misplaced 'due to' is most commonly met with in the curious dialect of station announcers, and so may have unpleasant associations for the reader;

b) the 99.5% who are blithely unaware of the problem won't take exception if your grammar is 'correct'; whereas the 0.5% who are pedants will if it's not.

MrP

PS: I'm not sure why Mark Israel in link#2 describes the disputed 'due to' as an adverb; it seems to be acting like a compound preposition. (But then, a prepositional phrase can behave adverbially.)
PPS: Using 'as a result of (my experience, etc)' would avoid the problem, in Julietta's context.

Re: Dangling

paco2004 — Sun, 05 Dec 2004 09:08:54 GMT

Hello MrP

History of English Gerunds (quoted from OED)

The most notable development of the verbal nouns in form of -ing is its use as a gerund, i.e. a substantive with certain verbal functions, particularly those of being qualified by an adverb instead of an adjective, and of governing an object like a verb: e.g. the habit of speaking loosely (= loose speaking); he has hopes of coming back speedily (= a speedy return); he practises writing (= the writing of)leading articles; engaged in building himself a house (= the building of a house for himself); after having written a letter (= the completion of the writing of a letter).

This gerundial use is peculiar to English, of which it is a characteristic and most important feature; it was unknown to OE. and early ME. The first traces of it as yet pointed out (see R. Blume Ursprung und Entwickelung des Gerundiums im Englischen, Bremen 1880) occur c1340 in the Ayenbite of Inwit and in the writings of Richard Rolle of Hampole, in the separation of the adverbial particles in down-coming, down-falling, in-going, etc., and the placing of it after the verbal nouns, coming down, falling down, going in, as in the finite verb, come down, fall down, go in. This was soon extended to adverbs and adverbial phrases generally, so that it became established that any verbal noun could, like the verb to which it belonged, take an adverbial qualification. In other respects the verbal noun at first retained its noun construction, e.g. c1350 Hampole Prose Tr. (E.E.T.S.) 11âall manere of withd-raweynge of oÃ¾er men thynges wrang-wysely agaynes Ã¾aire wyll Ã¾at aghte itâ.

A generation later, the verbal noun is found with a verbal regimen, thus 1377 Langland P. Pl. B. xiv. 186 âConfessioun and knowlechyng and crauyng Ã¾y mercy shulde amende vsâ; Ibid. xix. 72 âwith-outen mercy askyngeâ. This gerundial construction is very frequent in Wyclif's Bible (1382); and it is significant that he regularly uses it in translating the Latin gerund, while he retains the original substantival construction in rendering a Latin noun of action. Thus, Exod. xix. 1 âthe thridde moneth of the goyng of Yrael out [egressionis] of the loond of Egipteâ; but Heb. xii. 10 âin receyuynge [recipiendo] the halowing of himâ; Mark iii. 15 âpower of heelynge [curandi] siknessis, and of castynge out [ejiciendi] fendisâ. Imitation of the Latin gerund was thus apparently an influential factor in the development of the English gerundial use of the verbal nouns. Another influence may have been the literal rendering of the French gerund (identical in form with the present participle) after , as in , Latin , in coming.

The full development of the gerundial use before 1400 led necessarily to an indefinite increase of verbal nouns in -ing, since every verb now had one as an actual or potential dependent. In conjunction with the formal identity of gerund and present participle, it led also, at a later date, to the introduction of gerundial expressions for the perfect and future tenses, and for the passive voice, coinciding in form with the participles of the same tenses and voices. Thus Sidney Arcadia i. (1725) 68 âwant of consideration in not having demanded thus muchâ; Spenser F.Q. iii. iv. 50 âfeare of being fowly shentâ; Hooker Eccl. Pol. i. xi. Â§2 âby being unto God unitedâ; Shakespeare. Two Gentlemen i. iii. 16 âin hauing knowne no trauaile in his youthâ; Tempest iii. i. 19 â'T will weepe for hauing wearied youâ; Mod. âThe news of his being about to return home, instead of having been slain by the enemyâ.

But, although the gerundial use was fully established by 1400, it was a long time before it was distinctly separated from the earlier substantival use. The verbal noun has the (or equivalent) before it, and of (or equivalent) after it; the gerund has neither. A good example of the two constructions side by side, and with identical sense, occurs in Bacon's third Essay: âConcerning the meanes of procuring unity: men must beware, that in the procuring of religious unity, they doe notâ, etc. But, down to the 17th c., mixed constructions were frequent, in which the word in -ing had an adjectival qualification with a verbal regimen, or, conversely, an adverbial qualification with the construction of a noun followed by of: thus Sidney Arcadia i. iv. 15b, âto fall to a sodain straitning themâ; Ibid. i. xii. 56b, âby the well choosing of your commandementsâ.

The gerund still retains one feature of the verbal noun, viz. that of admitting of a preceding possessive case or possessive pronoun, as in âafter John's behaving so strangelyâ, âupon my readily granting itâ. In the literary language this construction is regularly retained with a pronoun, and very generally with a single personal substantive; but, with names of things, and phraseological or involved denominations, the sign of the possessive began to be dropped already by 1600; thus Shakespeare Macbeth i. iii. 44 âBy each at once her choppie finger laying vpon her skinnie lipsâ. No other treatment is now possible in such constructions as âin default of one or other being acceptedâ, âon the general and his staff appearingâ, âin the event of your expectations not being at once realizedâ, âin consequence of much snow having fallenâ; and, in current spoken English, the 's is commonly omitted with all nouns: thus Thackeray Van. Fair xi. 348 âI insist upon Miss Sharp appearingâ, where âMiss Sharp'sâ would now sound pedantic or archaic. Even a pronoun standing before the gerund is put in the objective, in dialect speech; and, when the pronoun is emphatic, this is common in ordinary colloquial English; thus Thackeray Esmond I. 242 âPapa did not care about them learningâ; ---Newcomes âBut who ever heard of them eating an owl?â Chas. Reade Hard Cash (1863) II. 332 âThat is no excuse for him beating you.â So âWhat is the use of me speaking?â

In such constructions the objective noun or pronoun seems to stand in simple apposition to the gerund, the two forming a kind of combined object of the preposition, reminding us of the Greek infinitive with an accusative after a preposition, as in Âµeta t? pa?ada???a? t?? ??a???? âafter John being delivered upâ. But in English there has probably been analogical influence from the construction of the present participle: cf., for instance, âJohn was digging potatoesâ, âWho saw John digging potatoes?â, and âWho ever heard of John (= John's) digging potatoes?â

paco