Search results for 'tag:Genitives tag:Verbs' matching tags 'Genitives' and 'Verbs'

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Cool Breeze — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:35:17 GMT

Crokey
how do you feel about possessives before a gerund? "John's singing bothered me". You are constantly told that the possessive should be used before a gerund(unless you are saying something weird and you wish to emphasise the subject of the gerund).

I have given my opinion in an earlier post. Page 1 of this thread offers you a link to it (subject of gerund). As the gerund fluctuates between being a noun and a verb and resembles both to some extent, it stands to reason that a genitive is often possible before it and so is an adjectival attribute - at least in your example.

I don't really care what the ing-form is called in each case. I'm not obsessed with terminology. If anyone thinks the gerund is a complete noun, he should explain why the gerund can have a passive form:

He enjoys being seen in my company.

I would like to see the passive forms of other nouns, like a girl or courage, for example.

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Crokey — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:54:22 GMT

hi cb,
im so happy i joined this forum now, because i think your comment about verbal nouns can be modified by an adjectival attribute. You said it your previous reply, but i must have missed it(it was nearly 4am in korea when i read it!), and i think the tiresome banging of the nail's head is well and truly finished! On further research, the naming of other nouns derived from verbs, such as survival from survive or action from act, is a fairly contentious area, and i am going to take a leaf from your book, and stay the bloody-hell away from it!!! Just one other question CB,

"the singing of the bird awoke me" or "the singing of the bird's awoke me" ? as "a friend of my uncle's", where you use the post-genitive form. I would say "the bird's singing", there is probably a clear case, but after my ordeal with gerunds and verbal nouns i'm afraid to go searching now. Before the gerunds and verbal nouns i had a encounter with absolute phrases and some very confusing definitions of what differs it from participles, thankfully that is behind me now also. In that example of "the bird's singing awoke me"(just to make sure the nail doesn't spontaneously pop back up) is "singing"a gerund, because it is possible to say "the bird's loud singing awoke me", with singing modified by an adjective.

cheers again cb, really grateful.

Re: Grammar rules - check for correctness - a kind teacher please :)

Angle1 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:30:38 GMT

Here are some examples

The main point is to explain the correct answer
The sentences are little-bit childisch ;they are some modified sentences. I am afraid that my explanations seems to be a little childisch, too. So please help me how to turn it into the right explanation.

Mary was real angry because Jack didnÂ´t show up

Real >> really - we use an adverb to determine the adjective

Fewer of the passangers is sick today

Fewer >> One - the verb is refers to singular, so we need to use singular pronoun

I asked my brother whom was on the phone

Whom >> who â Whom i sused in object case and with pronouns â we need a subject for the verb in the second clause

Jorge doesnÂ´t have no bullets in his rifle

No >> any - we should avoid double negation in written English. We could use either has + no or negation + any

I am just a little confused whether or not to go on exam.

Whether to be or not to be â I know how it should be, but I cannot explain it :/

Having be a dancer myself, I have excellent posture

Having be >> beeing â but how to explain it ???

I never did like these kind of exercises

These >> that â but could it be also this if I were pointing at it?

Kind is singular, so we need a singular demostrative pronoun

You telling the truth is ..

You >> your â telling is a gerund, gerunds are used like nouns. We need a possessive pronoun

The bakery depends on meal beeing delivered without delay

Meal >> mealÂ´s â beeing is a gerund, and meal refers to this gerund. We need to use a genitive form with âÂ´sâ

Re: About the meaning of "where"

Velimir — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:56:07 GMT

Hello again,

Unfortunately,I've put one part in my previous post wrongly.Sorry for that.It would be correct to use the preposition "toward" in the following part:

"But,if the verb indicates motion,or in plain english,if you are :going toward, flying toward, traveling toward.."

What I've stated after that would be true now,i.e the following noun will be in the dative case.But,if the stress is on the final destination of flying,traveling,going..then the following noun will be in the accusative case,necessarily preceded with the preposition "to".(the preposition "to" perfectly match serbian "za",as attendant to the verbs of motion).
Although the case of a noun is influenced by the verb,modifying adjective(and its case),number(and its case)and gender of that noun,the case of the noun is most heavily influenced by the preceding preposition,if it is present.If the noun is not preceded with a preposition then other factors will determine the case of the noun.The importance of the preposition is apparent in the following example:

I arrived in London. - the noun "London" is in the accusative case

I arrived from London. - the noun "London" is in the genitive case

I suppose that it would require serious contemplation to explain all aspects of the "case" in any language,and additional comparison with english would make it really painful.

Best regards

Re: several grammar questions (2)

Hoa Thai — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:33:47 GMT

Hi Anon,

I have never heard of the name list that you described for genitive types. However, here are 7 genitive types discussed by Bergen and Cornelia Evans, in A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage:

Classifying or descriptive genitive ("the room's furnishings")
Possessive genitive ("Irene's coat")
Subjective and objective genitive ("God's creation")
Genitive of purpose ("He has written many children's books.")
Measures and other adverbial genitives ("At one time the genitive form of certain words could be used as an adverb. Most of our adverbs that end in an 's' (or 'z') sound, such as "nowadays," "since," "sometimes," "upwards," are survivals from this period.)
Survivals of "an old genitive of source" ("hen's eggs")
Partitive and appositive genitives (don't exist in English, but we express them with an "of" phrase, as in "some of us," "the state of Ohio," "the title of president")

Based on these 7 types, I would guess that all four genitive phrases that you questioned belong to type 1.

Re: He insisted on my/me singing a song.

Cool Breeze — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:31:40 GMT

Grammar Geek wrote:
Singing is a gerund, a noun, so it takes the possessive my.

This is rather peculiar, I think. I have encountered the same thing on these forums many times. Native speakers say: "A gerund is a noun." Do they teach it that way in American schools and universities? Grammatical terminology varies greatly from country to country but I have yet to meet a grammarian who says a noun can have an object:

I insisted on his speaking English.

Furthermore, all nouns can have an adjectival attribute; in other words, we can put an adjective before them:

He likes old books.
Merry old England fascinates me.
Little Mary wanted to go out.
Useful information was given to everybody.

So, if gerunds are full-fledged nouns, the following is correct:

Correct speaking English is easy.

Few consider it correct. A gerund is neither a noun nor a verb; it's a cross between them. It has some qualities characteristic of nouns and some that are characteristic of verbs. It resembles a verb in that it can take an object, for instance.

Therefore, "I insist on him speaking English" and "I insist on his speaking English" are equally grammatical. In the first sentence, him is used due to the influence of the preposition on, which is normal English grammar. In the second sentence his is used because speaking is a noun to an extent, even though it's not a complete noun. It has long been customary to consider possessive forms (my, his, our) of personal pronouns better than the object forms (me, him, us) as subjects of a gerund. It also used to be common to consider the basic or common form of other words better in this position:

I insist on John Smith speaking English. (Also: John Smith's)
I insist on everybody speaking English. (Rarely: everybody's)

In the past 30 or so years I have noticed a tendency in American magazines and newspapers to prefer the genitive even in cases where it sounds and looks ludicrous. I assume this can be ascribed to rising standards in education. Nevertheless, there has never been a grammatical justification to consider one of the alternatives better. The tendency to consider the possessive form the better seems to me to stem from grammatical ignorance rather than a good knowledge of it. There is no grammatical or historical justification for preferring either form.

Cheers
CB

Re: saxon genitive once again :)

Hoa Thai — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:08:15 GMT

Hi,

According to WordNet - bird's nest, bird nest, and birdnest = nest where birds lay their eggs and hatch their young. The phrases, however, by themselves, do not say whether the nest is human made or bird made; additional context is required. Moreover, as you might already know, people also talk about bird's nest soup, which is made from the saliva of birds / birds' saliva.

Regarding birds nest, your interpretation is all right if you use nest as a verb. However, girls school is a school that only girls attend.

Best wishes,
Hoa Thai

Re: saxon genitive once again :)

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 22:56:15 GMT

Thank you both for your effort.
It is highly appreciated and has helped me a lot in my frustrating studies

If you don't mind, take a look at this:

bird's nest - the nest of the bird
birds' nest - the nest of more than one bird
birds nest - nest is a verb means "birds are building up their dwellings"
(I found another one "girls school" and here I am not sure whether is it the same principle or even if this construction is possible or not)
bird nest - if anybody do know what it means, please, let me know. My guess is that it is just two-word noun saying which "kind of animals"
has built it.

Best regards!!!
[]

Re: sentence to a 3 year's imprisonment

Cool Breeze — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:48:48 GMT

Grammar Geek wrote:
What is the context for It's 10 minutes' meeting or It's a 10 minutes' meeting? Those don't sound normal at all! So I'm missing something.

It's a meeting of 10 minutes sounds grammatical, but not natural. But my mind doesn't rebel against it like the two above.

Hi GG

I was concentrating more on the genitive than the verb. However, if a goup of people has a 10-minute meeting every Monday morning, I might use the present tense to inform a new employee about the meeing and its duration: It's a 10 minutes' meeting. I didn't consider the tense to be the gist of the matter, and anyone can of course change it to whatever sounds better. I just wanted to give my opinion about the structures I think correct in such expressions:

It's a two-mile walk.
It's a two miles' walk.
It's two miles' walk.
It's a walk of two miles.

Cheers
CB

two questions

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:21:42 GMT

Hi,

Please answer these.

1. Does this require a singular or plural noun?

I think Philip from this forum wrote this:

With the introductory "there," you will find both singular and plural verb.

2. Sometimes I get very confused as to whether a possessive is acting in a classifying capacity or a possessive capacity.

It's the president's war. At this point it also appears clear it's also the Senate Republicans' war.

I think they both ( the president's war and the Senate Republicans' war) are used in a possessive (genitive??) capacity, but some things are not so clear to me, could you help?

The prosecutor's argument -- What is 'the' modifying, the prosecutor or the argument? Only context would tell?

The Japan's product -- Usually I thought when a word like 'Japan' is used, the article 'the' is not used. Is this an acceptable exception? How could you tell? Context would tell?

An egg is a hen's egg. -- Which part does 'a' here modifying -- the word 'egg' or 'hen'?