Search results for 'tag:Expressions tag:Prepositions' matching tags 'Expressions' and 'Prepositions'

Re: passive voice

Goodman — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:54:10 GMT

Huevos,

So am I correct to assume that your classification of âexhaustedâ is adjectival in nature? Perhaps, this is the difference between how you and I see it. For pure fact finding interest, I have done some more investigative research: Bear in mind, my sentence was âI am completely exhausted from â¦â

Your answer was âItâs activeâ.

http://www.perfectyourenglish.com/grammar/passives-agents.htm

English Grammar

Passives: Agents

In most cases, the subject of an active verb (the agent) is not mentioned in the corresponding passive sentence. If it does have to be mentioned, we usually use an expression with by.

They gave me a warm welcome. (active)
I was given a warm welcome by them. (passive)
Children love toys. (active)
Toys are loved by children. (passive)
They built this house. (active)
This house was built by them.
Her attitude shocked me.
I was shocked by her attitude.

It should be noted that by is not the only word with which the agent can be introduced. After the past participles of some 'stativeâ verbs (verbs which refer to states, not actions) other prepositions can be used instead of by.

The state of his health worries me. (active)
I am worried about the state of his health. (passive)
Snakes scare me. (active)
I am scared of snakes. (passive)

With is used when we talk about an instrument which is used by an agent to do an action.

He killed the snake with a stick. (active)
The snake was killed (by him) with a stick. (passive)

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http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2003AprJun/0312.html

Passive voice is a verb where the action is done to the subject of the
clause, often by something. (The verb "done" there is the first verb in the
passive voice in this email). The pattern is that there is a subject, a
verb,
perhaps an agent (the thing that "does" the verb to the subject, and
possible
other stuff too.

Something that seems to confuse people is the pattern of the subject, the
verb to be (is, are, will be, was, etc) and an adjective or participle - a
description of the subject.

For example, "I am confused" is technically in the passive voice. However it
is a description of me like "I am tall" which is definitely not in the
passive voice. The confusion comes about because english uses a similar
pattern to make passive voice.

I suggest that we do not discourage this simple form, whether it is a
passive
construction or a simple description.

"I am confused by the passive voice" is the third time I have used the
<<<passive voice>>> in this email. It has the pattern subject - "me", a
verb - "confuse", and an agent - "the passive voice" - the thing which did
the confusing.

For most verbs in english (and many modern european languages) the passive
voice is made by combining the past participle (often "something-ed") with
the verb to be. (That was the fourth example: subject is the passive voice,
verb is to make, agent is the whole description of how to make it). For
example, The example I have used here is the verb "to confuse" - the passive
of "to confuse" is "to be confused".

Continues..on website.

Hope this resolved the difference of interpretations.

Re: expressions in america

Mister Micawber — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:06:20 GMT

.
Off of is a common phrasal preposition and acrost is the phonetic spelling of a regional substandard pronunciation of across. The latter is unacceptable in formal written English.
.

Re: on Sunday/s?

Cool Breeze — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:36:39 GMT

I do that on Sunday is sometimes used instead of I do that on Sundays. If you use the future tense, you talk about next Sunday: I'll do that on Sunday.

In Sunday evening is wrong even though you can say in the evening[s ]. If you change the basic expression, the preposition is on: on Sunday evening. Read more about these changes here.

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Huevos — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:58:34 GMT

Avangi
What might the implied verb be?

Avangi, I don't want to get into that with this sentence. For the reason why, read my point to Raen below. "Like" is a preposition so follows that rule.

But to give you an idea what I mean about implied verb...

She is taller than me.
She is taller than I am.

Some people say "She is taller than I" but my recommendation is to leave that construction for the pretentious and supercilious, (maybe I'm just too much of an Alfred P. Doolittle to use it).

Raen
So it's always "between you and me" no matter where this expression sits in a sentence?

"Between" is a preposition. Pronouns that follow prepositions are always in the accusative case, not nominative. It's a rule, not a matter of opinion. Here are some examples that wrongly use the nominative.

He wrote a book about she.

The girl passed between he and I.

The bullet passed through he.

The waiter spilt orange juice on she.

Everyone caught the train except I.

Their father ordered the meal for they.

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Avangi — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:41:35 GMT

Raen
[Do you mean opinion different from one person to the next, or "one grammar book" to the next?

Language is constantly changing - especially English. Grammarians disagree constantly, as Huevos has said.

Consider the expression, "Between you and me. . . . " Both pronouns function as object of the preposition.

Little kids sometimes say, "Me and him went to the movies." Parents and teachers keep harping at them, "No! It's 'he and I.' Always say the other person first! 'He and I, You and I !' "

They eventually learn that "you and me" is bad English. So when they need to say "between you and me," they hypercorrect it to "between you and I," because the objective case sounds wrong to their ears.

When the majority of native speakers prefer an incorrect usage, grammarians respond. The usage board, like the US Supreme Court bending the Constitution, yields to the pressure.

Re: Parts of speech of "for"

CalifJim — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:39:41 GMT

"for" is a preposition. It is displaced in that expression, which is a variant of "something that you aim for", that is, "you aim for something". "something" is the object of the preposition.

The injunction against ending a sentence with a preposition went out about a million years ago.

The most respected authors in the English language have been ending sentences with prepositions for a long, long time.

I'm surprised your teacher doesn't know that.

Re: Structure of sentence

lisadove — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:21:33 GMT

16: is known as (passive structure; active form: We know Boston as the Hub...)

17. storing, erasing and retrieving (These are parallel and should be in the same form.)

18. Professor Andom Iyassou ("Professor" is a title. If Andom Iyassou is one person, "professor" must be singular.)

19. one mile high (height is a noun; high is an adjective)

20. a symbol (tree is singular and a is singular, so symbol should be singular)

21. as efficient as (the conventional structure for a comparison. "so efficient as" could be used as follows: The software is not so efficient as to make the previous version obsolete.)

22. I suspect you made a mistake in copying this item. I would guess (C) "for a great deal of their content on the majority of their pages."

23. very much alike. (alike is not a noun; only nouns can be preceded by the.)

24. in seconds (we use in with expressions of time: in a few days, in a million years, in about an hour.)

25. Boggs hit a grand slam (making is used in the first part because it's the object of the preposition after, so it must be in noun [gerund?] form. The main clause is "Wade Boggs hit [past tense] a grand slam for the Red Sox.")

I don't have time to do more; perhaps someone else will finish...

Re: prepositions and correction

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:35:04 GMT

Could you please explain what you mean by negative meaning in the sentence

on a person (or group) is used in many expressions besides commit a foul on a person, many (but not all) of them with a similar negative meaning.

Also could you give an example of using on a person (or group) with positive meaning

Re: Could of vs could have

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:51:00 GMT

of ... is a preposition and is generally placed before a noun
eg. she is part OF a group. ( a group. the noun preceded by it's preposition)

could ... is an adverb which describes the verb
eg. she COULD be part OF the group ... (COULD describes the verb TO BE)

It follows from the above that the expression:

COULD OF has no sensible grammatical meaning.... (ie. an ADVERB describing a PREPOSITION)

COULD HAVE is an adverb describing the verb (HAVE) which follows it; this has a sensible grammatical meaning.

Re: The "on" before date or day

Cool Breeze — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:00:30 GMT

The preposition is indeed sometimes dropped before the days of the week in newspapers: He will arrive in Cairo [on] Wednesday. The resultant Wednesday becomes what in some other languages is called an accusative of time. Dropping the preposition is also fairly common in informal style, which has led some people to think that dropping the preposition isn't as good English as having it in the expression.

However, it is wise to use discretion in leaving out the preposition. If omitting the preposition is liable to cause confusion or misunderstanding, don't drop it.