Search results for 'tag:English grammar tag:Plurals' matching tags 'English grammar' and 'Plurals'

"a" or "the"

sophianz — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:23:16 GMT

Hi. Would somone help me with English grammar?

"Ears are part of the head."

My questions are:
Is it correct to use "part" without "a" or "the"?
Is it correct to use singular form "part" though the subject "ears" is plural?
Is it correct to use "face" instead of "head" like "Ears are part of the face" ?

Hope your reply. Thanks in advance.

Re: Difference between using much and many

CalifJim — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:51:18 GMT

Guest
Please send me the grammar rule for using much and many in sentences and the reasons behind this usage.

much is used with singular nouns. much butter, much water, not much information, not much hope, Much of it is ...

many is used with plural nouns. many cars, many letters, not many horses, not many details, Many of them are ...

There is no particular reason behind the usage. It's just a convention of English grammar.

I don't think it's necessary to consider whether a noun is countable; the singular-plural rule is sufficient because an uncountable can't be used in the plural anyway.

Re: those sort of people...

Cool Breeze — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:05:54 GMT

Those sort of is correct. The following extract is from Otto Jespersen's Essentials of English Grammar:

"In the familiar these kind of tools, those sort of speeches, we may look upon kind and sort as unchanged plurals."

CB

Re: Standard spoken English

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:04 GMT

Something to chew on:

THE NOTION OF STANDARD SPOKEN GRAMMAR

The term âstandard grammarâ is most typically associated with written language,
and is usually considered to be characteristic of the recurrent usage of adult,
educated native speakers of a language. Standard grammar ideally reveals no
particular regional bias. Thus âStandard British Englishâ grammar consists of items
and forms that are found in the written usage of adult educated native speakers
from Wales, Scotland and England and those Northern Irish users who consider
themselves part of the British English speech community.

The typical sources of evidence for standard usage are literary texts, quality
journalism, academic and professional writing, etc. Standard grammar is given the
status of the official record of educated usage by being written down in grammar
books and taught in schools and universities.

Spoken transcripts often have frequent occurrences of items and structures
considered incorrect according to the norms of standard written English. However,
many such forms are frequently and routinely used by adult, educated native speakers.

Examples of such structures are split infinitives (e.g. We decided to immediately sell it),
double negation (e.g. He wonât be late I donât think, as compared to I donât think he will
be late), singular nouns after plural measurement expressions (e.g. Heâs about six foot
tall), the use of contracted forms such as gonna (going to), wanna (want to), and so on.

Standard spoken English grammar will therefore be different from standard
written English grammar in many respects if we consider âstandardâ to be a
description of the recurrent spoken usage of adult native speakers. What may be
considered ânon-standardâ in writing may well be âstandardâ in speech.
Speech and writing are not independent. Although some forms of spoken
grammar do not appear in writing (unless in written dialogues), there is
considerable overlap and there is an increasing range of forms appearing in
informal written texts which previously were only considered acceptable in
speech. In 120 the presence of typically spoken grammatical forms contexts as emails and internet chat-room exchanges is discussed.

From: The Cambridge Grammar of English (GCE)

Re: would

Mr Wordy — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:26:48 GMT

A) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else would induce the abdominal pain.

I haven't studied English grammar as systematically as you probably have, but to me the sense is 3 (repetition in the past). Look at this alternative:

B) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else induced the abdominal pain.

This means that if she ate anything else then she got the pain. If sentence B already means this, then what is the word "would" doing in sentence A? It can only be giving us the sense that this event had happened a number of times, and, presumably, that this is how she discovered that it induced the pain.

Part 2

1 in 10 Asians are infected with ...

This is an old "chestnut" (something that is debated over and over). My (British English) opinion is that "1 in 10 Asians are" is more natural (though I do not think "is" is incorrect). The plural "are" agrees "in spirit" with the subject, which obviously refers to many people, rather than needing to literally agree with "one". Others may take a different view.

Re: adjective phrases

Velimir — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:09:33 GMT

Hello Anonymous,

In your sentences there is no adjective phrases.A phrase is a name used in the english grammar to label a group of words which acts as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence,which means that you need at least two words to label some part of the sentence a phrase. Words,phrases and clauses are three building blocks of speech and proper distinction between these elements is an essential step and the starting point in every analysis.
Adjective phrase consists of the head of the phrase,i.e adjective, and various pre-modifying and postmodifying elements.For example,

It is too hot for this time of the year.

In this sentence the whole phrase "too hot for this time of the year" is an adjective phrase which functions as a subject complement. We could say this same in a brief manner :

It is hot.

but we felt like we wanted:

1. to accentuate the meaning of hot by premodifying the head "hot" with the intensifying adverb "too"

2. and also to specify that we refer our assertion to some particular part of the year

Therefore,you get adjective phrases when you're trying to convey more information about what you mean or feel about the matter in question.

The first sentence you've quoted for example should be analysed like:

1. Carnivores are eaters of meat.

Carnivores - plural form of noun ,acts as the subject of the sentence

are - linking verb

Eaters of meat - noun phrase ,acts as a subject complement

The other two sentences follow the same syntactic pattern : subject -> linking verb -> subject complement

Best regards

Re: a woman of an unusual beauty; [-] decent accommodation

Mister Micawber — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:03:26 GMT

.
The phenomenon is called secondary recategorization. Here, it occurs when the non-count noun takes on a meaning of variety, example, etc. However, it is not a usual phenomenon-- it occurs primarily when the writer is envisioning several sorts of 'wine' or whatever. I don't think there is any rule to rely on, and I don't think a list of amenable nouns could be constructed. In the cases you present, these seem good to me:

When I got back home, I took a short nap to make up for the previous night. -- Nap is countable here anyway.

At the party, I met Sarah -- a woman of unusual beauty. -- only 2 kinds of beauty implied-- 'usual' and 'unusual'-- so not a lot of varieties envisioned

Well, at least we had decent accommodations. -- Normally a plural noun, which circumvents the problem.

It is alleged we have false information on the fugitive.-- Again, only 'true' or 'false' is available, but I think that 'information' strongly resists countability anyway-- I don't know why.

I had a good sleep before I set out.-- 'I had a sleep' is the collocation; the word is already countable. It also appears as a noncount: I had some sleep.

When he was in Rome, he developed (a) deep distrust of people. -- Both seem fine to me

You guys have (a) better knowledge of the English grammar, so I guess you can help me. -- Both seem fine to me.

Others may have other opinions.

Re: these sunglasses

bernice.farrugia — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:21:21 GMT

Sunglasses, jeans, trousers, scissors - all these nouns are considered to be plural (the logic being that a pair is made up of 2 entities), therefore we use THESE / THOSE to refer to them.

Bernice

personal pronouns

Teo — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:00:31 GMT

The normal sequence of personal pronouns is as follows:

singular: [you, (s)he and I]; plural [we, you and they]

However, according to Treasury of English Grammar, when we want to express something unpleasant,

the sequence of personal pronouns is as follows:

singular [I, (s)he and you]; plural [they, you and we]

For example,

I, he and you will be punished for being late.

They, you and we should leave there at once.

Can any native speaker tell me whether the above rules are true or not?

"Who is this?" about a group of people

Alex+ — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:23:41 GMT

The book " Longman English Grammar" says that "these" and "those" referring to people are followed by a (plural) noun:

ex. Who are these people?

If we can't say "Who are these?", can we ask "Who is this?" about a group of people?