Search results for 'tag:Difference between tag:Nominative' matching tags 'Difference between' and 'Nominative'

Re: If I were ...

Philip — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:46:37 GMT

Avangi

Edit. Ah, I see you're referring only to the third person. Sorry. To my ear, there's no difference between first and third. I'm one of those relics who is still more comfortable using the nominative case in nominative situations.

Hey, Avangi. How about our forming an organization: NPFNS (nominative pronouns for nominative situations)? Not sure we'd find a lot of members, but if we charged less than $2 per year for membership, we might get a few takers from these forums.

Re: If I were ...

Avangi — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:43:34 GMT

Hi Tanit, Huevos recently made an impassioned plea for the accusative on a thread, "Nominative and Objective Pronouns - - - - - - Confusing!" Did you miss it? - A.

Edit. Ah, I see you're referring only to the third person. Sorry. To my ear, there's no difference between first and third. I'm one of those relics who is still more comfortable using the nominative case in nominative situations.

Re: one of those who and one of whom

Avangi — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:08:53 GMT

"Who threw the stone?" (reply) "It is one of those who are angry." I don't think "one" is the subject of anything here. It's a predicate nominative, or "complement" of the verb "is." "It" is the subject of the sentence, and "who" is the subject of the relative clause, "who are angry." The relative clause modifies "those," which is object of the preposition "of." Those who are angry are a group of angry people, one of whom threw the stone. But you would have to rephrase the sentence in order to make "one" the subject.

"Nobody in this group is angry. It is one of those who is angry." (Note that "who" may be singular or plural.) This time, "one" is still the verb complement. "Who is angry" is still a relative clause. The chief difference between these two interpretations lies in the answer to the question, "In the relative clause, what does "who" refer to?" In the first interpretation it refers to "those." In the second one it refers to "one." But that doesn't entitle "those" and "one" to be called subjects.

Your sentence "It is one of whom are angry" has a couple of things wrong with it.

"One" is now the bona fide subject of the clause, "one of whom is angry." "Whom" is object of the preposition "of," but unfortunately it has nothing to refer to.

A group of people are partying in the next room, one of whom is angry. In this sentence, "whom" refers to "group."

Re one of those who / one of whom, the difference is often only a technicality. She decided to give it to one of those who love her. She decided to give it to one of those whom she loves.

The key lies in the subject and object of the clauses. In "who love her," "who" is the subject, "love" is the verb, and "her" is the object. In "whom she loves," "she" is the subject, "loves" is the verb, and "whom" is the object.

"Who" and "she" are nominative case, "whom" and "her" are objective case.

Best regards, - A.

Re: calories are/is

Grammar Geek — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:33:42 GMT

Maria is my friend.

Maria is the subject.

my friend is the predicate nominative.

My faith and my morning coffee are my salvation.

My faith and my morning coffee is the subject.

my salvation is the predicate nominative.

The verb agrees with the subject.

Five dollars is not a lot to pay for such a great show.

Five dollars - a quantity considered as a single entity - is the subject and takes the single verb.

(See the difference between that and "I had ten one-dollar bills on the table and now five dollars are missing!" That is referring to five one-dollar bills, as individual dollars, not the amount of $5.)

For more on the predicate nominative, see here: http://grammar.uoregon.edu/nouns/predicateN.html or here: http://www.dailygrammar.com/101to105.shtml

Re: and I, and me

Alienvoord — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 03:36:52 GMT

If it is commonly used by native writers and speakers, that seems a good enough reason for calling it standard. Meaning is derived from consensus, after all.

However there is a difference between how native speakers use their language, and how some people think they should use their language. The American Heritage Dictionary says:

"Traditional grammar requires the nominative form of the pronoun in the predicate of the verb be: It is I (not me); That must be they (not them), and so forth. Nearly every speaker of Modern English finds this rule difficult to follow. Even if everyone could follow it, in informal contexts the nominative pronoun often sounds pedantic and even ridiculous, especially when the verb is contracted, as in It's we."

If nearly every speaker finds the rule difficult to follow, that tells me that something is wrong with the rule, not the speakers.

Then they go on to say:

"But constructions like It is me have been condemned in the classroom and in writing handbooks for so long that there seems little likelihood that they will ever be entirely acceptable in formal writing."

(I disagree with this, I think it is acceptable in formal writing, but) even if this was true, it says nothing about how native speakers speak their language. It only says "don't use it in formal writing because someone somewhere doesn't like it."

To put it another way: in order to be useful, rules should describe, not prescribe.

To put it another way: what good are rules if no one follows them?

Re: The reform of linguistics

Forbes — Tue, 16 May 2006 14:44:13 GMT

Imagine a language in which:

âThe man hit the table with a stickâ is

âCopoloteko tipadela tisadure asutariki bu.â

In this sentence

co = a classifier indicating that we are talking about something animate

polo = man

te = a nominative case marker

ko = the speaker wishes to emphasise the word âmanâ

ti = a classifier indicating that we are talking about something inanimate

pade = table

la = accusative marker

ti = as above

sadu = stick

re = an instrumental case marker

a = a prefix indicating that the event took place in the recent past

suta = hit

ri = a suffix indicating that the subject of the sentence is animate

ki = a suffix indicating that the object of the sentence is inanimate

bu = a particle showing respect to the person addressed

If we substitute a completely different set of phonemes throughout, so that for example âcopolotekoâ becomes âdasazaviwuâ, the morphology and syntax have not been changed. We can go a step further and make all the syllables closed so that we have âdansaszarvitwunâ, or again go further still and introduce some consonant clusters to produce âdranspaszarvlistwunâ. In each case the phonology of the language is different, but the morphology and syntax are identical.

Now of course changes in the phonology of a language go hand in hand with changes in its morphology: a classic case is where case endings for nouns are weakened and eventually dropped. But what you seem to be saying, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you can predict the morphology and syntax of a language from its phonology. In particular, you seem to be suggesting that if a language has a small inventory of phonemes and a simple phonology (that is all syllables must be of the form V or CV or CVC where the final C is restricted to, say, /m/ /n/ and /Å/) the language must be analytic, isolating, monosyllabic and have significant tonality.

If we take Spanish, it is a language with a comparatively simple phonology. It has only five vowels and the total number of phonemes is about the same as in Mandarin Chinese. The range of consonant clusters is restricted to initial C1C2 where C2 has to be /l/ or /r/. Syllables may only end in a vowel or /Ã°/, /l/, /n/, /r/, /s/ and /Î¸/ and even then the /Ã°/, /r/, and /s/ are weak and even disappear in some speakers/varieties with /Î¸/ becoming /s/. Whilst Spanish is less synthetic than Latin, from which it derives, it is not isolating, certainly not monosyllabic and does not have significant tonality, at least not at the lexical level, though the difference between statements and questions is often marked only by intonation. Thus we have Spanish and Chinese with broadly similar phonologies (except of course that the phoneme inventories are different) but which are otherwise completely different from each other. It may also be noted that whilst French has a far greater number of phonemes and a more complex phonology than Spanish, Spanish and French have a similar morphology and syntax (at least compared to other non-Romance languages).

Unless I have completely misunderstood what you are saying, what seems to be the sum of your argument is that simple phonology equals simple language equals simple mind, which is a contention I cannot possibly accept.

Re: Examples of nominative 'whom' errorneously used in embedded clauses.

Grammar Geek — Tue, 09 May 2006 02:47:12 GMT

Anonymous wrote:
dose anyone no what the difference between a nominative and an objective????

-natty-

Yes, natty, we do. But you'll have a better chance of getting a response if you start a new thread with your question. And more importantly, it sounds like a homework question. Do you know where to start in answering that question? We can help you with your answer, but not write it for you.

Re: Examples of nominative 'whom' errorneously used in embedded clauses.

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2006 22:37:09 GMT

dose anyone no what the difference between a nominative and an objective????

-natty-

nominative absolute clause..

sharad — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 06:06:01 GMT

Hi All,
I need help with this sentence.. After googling I found a bit abt nominatie absolute clause..

Is the following sentence correct ?

His fleet decimated by ZZZ, *** decided to head back to Greece.

Note that there is no "Having" here.. Just curious to know the difference between nominative absolute clause and participle phrase...

thanks,
Sharad.

Joh and me or John and I

khoff — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:07:05 GMT

"John and me went to town" may be common, but I would consider it incorrect usage. Many native speakers use it, but I would definitely not advise an English learner to adopt it. It's not based on "shaky grounds" but on the difference between grammatical subjects and grammatical objects.

Here, "John" and "I" are subjects of the verb: John went to town. I went to town. John and I went to town. (Ruslana- this is the nominative case. As a Russian, you probably understand cases better than most English speakers!)

Here, "John" and "me" are indirect objects: Bob gave it to John. Bob gave it to me. Bob gave it to John and me. (This is the dative case)

You will also hear native speakers incorrectly say "Bob gave it to John and I" because they are so worried about making the "John and me went to town" mistake that they are afraid to use "John and me" even when it is the correct choice. The test for which is correct is, as Sam mentioned, to remove John from the sentence and see which pronoun (I or me) is correct in the simplified sentence. "John and me went to town" is every bit as incorrect as "Me went to town." "Bob gave it to John and I" is just as incorrect as "Bob gave it to I."

(You will also hear "me and John went to town." Some people might say it sounds casual, informal or unpretentious, but many people would just say it sounds uneducated.)

Sam - I don't want to come down too hard on you; I see you're fairly new to the board. I just want to make clear to non-native speakers that what people do say is not necessarily what they should say. Please don't take offense!

Note to Paco - I'd like to add that "John and we went to town," while grammatically correct, sounds very awkward to my ears. It would be more natural to say something like "John went to town with us."

Edited several times to catch up with things that were being posted while I was writing this!