Search results for 'tag:Gerunds tag:Uncountable nouns' matching tags 'Gerunds' and 'Uncountable nouns'

Re: gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:18:50 GMT

Thank you.

I think it would be OK to speak of a pen that he found which belonged to his friend, Joe, like this:

I found a (one) pencil of a student. -- If the situation is that only studnents use pen (unbelievable as it sounds) and he don't know whose pen it is.
I found the pencil of a student. -- If the pen is prior-mentioned or if a student in wherever he is used only one pen, not two pencils ever.

I think your corrected version sounds right but I can't dispel the notion that my versions might be correct too under a right circumstance. I think we are making an instance of the uncountable noun "wailing" and that "instance" notion might get fuzzy if the definite article "the" is used in my opinion (I could be wrong). It seems to be different from something like "He heard the shouting by a skinny young man yesterday evening." Confused.

He heard a fearful wailing of a dog,
or,
He heard a fearful wailing of the dog of the next-door neighbor

gerund or verbal noun with an article?

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:13:38 GMT

Hi,

I think I found out the word 'wailing' is an uncountable noun.
If that is so, then is this correct?

A feartul wailing was heard.

He heard a fearful wailing.

I would be more comfortable if I saw something like this:

He heard a fearful wailing of a dog,
or,
He heard a fearful wailing of the dog of the next-door neighbor.

When a present participle is not one

Avangi — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:59:09 GMT

Hi,

Something seems amiss in the category structure. My understanding used to be that the dictionary entry for a verb begins with the (bare) infinitive, and is typically followed by the present and past participles, and then the present 3rd person singular, or something like that. I always thought of these as building blocks in the formation of different tenses and other forms.

I have no problem calling the present participle a gerund when it serves as a noun, although I formerly thought "gerund" had a much broader definition. But why does it have to stop being the present participle? The infinitive is still the infinitive, regardless of which of several uses it's put to.

If they insist on doing this, why don't they come up with a correspondingly neat name for the present participle when it serves as an adjective?

It seems very strange indeed to say that the present participle cannot serve as the subject of a sentence, when I can see it doing so with my own eyes.

Can anyone justify this unbalanced treatment?? I've been hoping for an epiphany for several months now, and I'm about to give up. To me, it's like saying that an uncountable noun is not singular because "singular" has to do with countables. (This position recently held in a thread)

present participle as noun = (gerund)
present participle as adjective = (??????)

Best wishes, - A.

NOUN

Believer — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:12:14 GMT

Hi,

It has been known to me that a gerund can function as a noun and should or likely to be treated more as an uncountable noun than a countable noun.

Mixing of sugar and flour makes this dough ...

If you want to be specific, I think you could write:

The mixing of sugar and flour makes this dough ...

If you want to indicate the mixing being an instance of it or an example of it, you could write (I think) like this:

A mixing of sugar and flour makes this dough ...

It could be more clear if you write this though (but the above example seems to be correct grammatically too):

An instance of sugar and flour makes this dough ...

It has been to me that a quoted content (I may be wrong but what I call a quoted content is one that has quotation marks around it, whether or not they are done to quote someone's words or to highlight a word/words) can be treated an uncountble noun too.

"-ing" is not needed in your sentence. -- Just the mention of a case to highlight, I think.

The "-ing" is not needed in your sentence. -- Not just mentioning but specificallymentioning, I think.

A "-ing" is not needed in your sentence. -- An example of "-ing" use or an instance of "-ing" use, but this is what gives me trouble. I think whether a word in quotation marks can accommodate an indefinite article is predicated on whether its semantic meaning can embrace it.

So, I think I would be able to say, depending on words, some words that are in quotation marks can accommodate its having an indefinite article, whereas some words that are in quotation marks can't accommodate the use because its semantic meaning and how it is used in sentences make it awkward at best if not wrong to have an indefinite article. Sounds plausible?

Sorry for a long post.

Mistakes made by Chinese Learners

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:30:26 GMT

Hi everyone

I just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:

Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as rude/inconsiderate, more serious transfer may affect comprehensiveness.
No inflections in L1 - tenses difficult to learn in L2 as L1 has no true tenses and concept of time is expressed by adverbs/implicit or contextual assumptions.
Difficulty distinguishing [r] & - Does anyone know why this is as I can't find a reason?!!
Prepositions such as 'on', 'in' & 'at' have one chinese translation in many contexts, 'zai' - may be confused resulting in phrases such as 'on Taiwan' instead of 'in Taiwan'.
Use of awkward gerunds e.g. 'no noising', excessive use of verbs ending in 'ing' e.g. 'do not climbing', confusion of 'ed' & 'ing' verbs e.g. 'i am bored' vs 'i am boring' --- all of these errors occur because verbs are not conjugated in chinese, for tense or pronoun.
No equivalent word for 'the' so may be used excessively when not needed e.g. 'The China' or missed out when needed. May also be confused with 'a'/'an'.
Confusion over countable and uncountable nouns, use of 'how much?' vs 'how many?' - leads to phrases such as 'I want a soup' & 'a lot of shoe'. This is due to there not being plurals in chinese - no inflections.

Switching between 'he' & 'she' - Does anyone know why this is?

If anyone can think of anymore it would be greatly appreciated or if anyone knows the answers to my questions about gender switching and distinguishing [r] & this would also help a lot!!

Thank you in advance.

Shannon

Re: what could come after a preposition?

CalifJim — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:27:38 GMT

The only thing that can come after a preposition to form a prepositional phrase is a noun phrase, usually a noun accompanied by its preceding determiner and perhaps an adjective. A relative clause may be added. The noun itself may be a gerund.

If the element after the candidate for a preposition looks like it's not a noun, then either of these holds:

a. The preposition candidate is not a preposition, but perhaps an adverb or conjunction.
b. The structure after the preposition candidate actually is a noun phrase.

Both of your examples are in the category labeled b.

In your first example bad should be viewed as an adjective used as a noun, 'promoted' to a noun because of the elision of situation or its equivalent, one.

The situation can be seen as a bad situation.
The situation can be seen as a bad one.

In your second example, bad and good are simply abstract uncountable nouns meaning that which is bad and that which is good, respectively.

CJ

Re: more examples please

CalifJim — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:42:07 GMT

Thank you, CalifJim. I am going to give you four sentences that have a preposition followed by what looks to be a noun equivalent. Can you please tell me if these are illustrations of your points that you made above? Are they all correct noun equivalents?

1.He is displeased with filling of his pail. -- general abstract reference (used as an uncountable noun)

2. He is displeased with the filling of his pail. -- specific reference (used as a countable noun)

3. He is displeased with a filling of his pail. -- an instance of 'filling' (also used in a countable sense)

4. He is displeased with his filling of his pail. -- could be both abstract and specific but in the possessive 'his'

The gerund filling is the object of the preposition with in each case, so yes, they are all noun equivalents.

The descriptions you give show a connection with the points I made above. Yes.
However, filling a pail is difficult to conceive of as an abstraction, so the resulting sentences aren't particularly natural sounding.

CJ

Re: more examples please

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 08:58:18 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
Gerunds can be treated as countable or non-countable, the same as other nouns. It seems to me that as non-countables they are generally taken more abstractly.

Thank you, CalifJim. I am going to give you four sentences that have a preposition followed by what looks to be a noun equivalent. Can you please tell me if these are illustrations of your points that you made above? Are they all correct noun equivalents?

1.He is displeased with filling of his pail. -- general abstract reference (used as an uncountable noun)

2. He is displeased with the filling of his pail. -- specific reference (used as a countable noun)

3. He is displeased with a filling of his pail. -- an instance of 'filling' (also used in a countable sense)

4. He is displeased with his filling of his pail. -- could be both abstract and specific but in the possessive 'his'

Thank you.

As with other nouns, a/an can mean an instance of when placed before a gerund.

a shaking of the ground = an instance of ground-shaking = an occasion in which (the) ground shakes / shook
a mixing of the ingredients = an instance of ingredient-mixing = an occasion in which (the) ingredients are / were mixed

CJ

Re: some questions including use of colon

Clive — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:59:46 GMT

Hi,

After a fake academic degree scandal of Ms.Shin, a former professor at Dongguk University, is exposed, a continual coming out of celebritiesâ âfake degreeâ is following like domino effect : Ms.Yunâs confession that she hasnât attended Ewha Univ. is also one of the case.

What is the difference, if any, between using "a continual coming out" and "a continual 'outing'" in terms of structural correctness, not considering its grammatical or semantical correctness? Can we say "a continual coming out" as a countable noun (sense), not it to mean "coming out in a sexual nature (or way),"; and using it as a gerund being used as a countable noun. Is "coming out" a gerund? I think a gerund is one that having the characteristic of both verb and noun. If it could, how would you see it as -- as the first mention of a countable noun or as an instance of the uncountable noun "coming out"? Sorry if my question is ambiguous.

I'm not sure what you are asking . I see both 'coming out' and 'outing' as gerunds. I suppose you could, if you wanted to, talk about 'several comings out' or 'several outings', although the plural forms do sound awkward and umcommon.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: some questions including use of colon

Believer — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:36:12 GMT

Thank you, Clive.