Search results for 'tag:Grammar tag:Pronouns' matching tags 'Grammar' and 'Pronouns'

Re: fruit are?

Cool Breeze — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:01:32 GMT

Goodman

As written: John and Mary are the only officers who make decisions around here. And I asked if the answer should be [makes] or [make].
And you said "In your sentence of course make"

By the nature of your comment, didn't you just agree with my view?

Yes, as far as who is concerned. What is something else. It never has an antecedent as a relative pronoun, neither singular nor plural, nothing, and that's why a singular verb is used with it. This is obvious from the singular that, which occurs in that which, which is sometimes used to replace what.

You can of course check the grammatical behavior of relative what in any good grammar book if you don't believe me. I find it very strange that you haven't already done that. It would have saved you a lot of time wasted writing opinions instead of facts.

Re: These ones and those ones

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:25:00 GMT

Anonymous
It is true that "ones," according to proper grammar should not follow "these" or "those" only because one is a singular object. If there is a plural number, "one" becomes inappropriate however there are few people I know (I live in the midwest US) that do not use this construction, as in common speech leaving an object out of a sentence sounds strange or over educated.

My wife and I both hail from the Southwestern US (California and Arizona, mainly), and we disagree on this. I've never used "these ones" or "those ones", and I think it sounds clumsy and unnatural. She and her family have always used it, and don't don't an eyelash over it. It's sort of like when you're a good speller, but you need to see the written word, to see how it looks, to know if it's right or not. I'm not a grammar expert, but I understand English better than most, and when I hear that it just makes me wince ever so slightly.

Grammar Geek
Anon, what pronoun would you suggest then for something to replace "pens" in the second and third line below?

I'm looking for a particular set of drawing pens.

Are these the pens you're looking for?

Thanks, but no, those aren't the pens I'm looking for.

(I agree that "Those ones aren't the right ones" is wrong - it's simply "Those." But I don't agree that ones can't be plural.)

See, this the weird thing. While that last sentence doesn't sound right, this one does:

Are these the pens you're looking for?

Thanks, but no, those aren't the ones I'm looking for.

Re: terrorists

Yoong Liat — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:33:08 GMT

Hi New2grammar

I think the Americans would use 'was' despite the presence of 'they'.

In fact, in BrE some grammarians prescribe 'was'. However, the majority say that it should be 'were' to be consistent with the plural pronouns.

A team of soldiers was on a mission to capture or kill Al-Qaeda members in a remote village in Afghanistan. It was really dark in that area and they had to put on night vision goggles when they went into a suspected hideout

Re: I or me?

Huevos — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:41:07 GMT

Grammar Geek
They do this, unlike [the way that] you or I [would do such a thing].

I don't agree. Just because the verb is implied doesn't mean the pronoun should be subject. No person who has learned English purely through acquisition would ever use the subject pronoun in this case; it's just not "English".

GG, do you say "me too" or "I too" in the following? (Do you like Rock'n'Roll? ... "Me too".)

Re: I or me?

Huevos — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:41:31 GMT

This is English not Latin, but unfortunately there are certain people who try to show how clever they are by insisting Latin grammar should be applied to English. In English we use the subject pronoun when there is a following verb, otherwise we use the object pronoun. i.e:

"He is taller than me" or "he is taller than I am", but not "he is taller than I".

Confusing Grammar question

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:13:57 GMT

Dear Readers ,
I have a confusion regarding the following sentences
1.) The person at the door was he/The person at the door was him.
The person at the door was I/ The person at the door was me.

In such sentences what is the subject and what is the object? The problem is that if you flip the sentences meaning doesn't seem to change but subjects and objects do. The confusion is whether to use object pronoun "him/me" or subject pronoun "I".

To me, it just sounds better with "him/me" but textbooks seem to use "he/I" instead. For eg. "No one knew that the Thief was I".
I asked a professional editor and native english speaker. She was not confident but preferred "him/me".

2) It has changed/It has been changed.
Do these sentences mean the same thing? Is one of them grammatically awkward/incorrect? both of them seem to be "present perfect". is that true?

Any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Zia

Re: participle as a subject

Cool Breeze — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:38:04 GMT

CalifJim
Your question opens up a good many sticky points in the terminology. Do we (Can we) talk about certain structures by naming them without regard to their function in context? Or not? Probably not. Is love a noun or a verb? Only context will tell.

Hmm... this seems to be another case of varying terminology. I have no objection to calling a participle an adjective, I'm just not used to that. Nor am I used to many other grammatical terms used here, like "a noun phrase". Don't get me wrong! I certainly don't mean there's anything wrong with it or that it is worse or better than the terms I am used to. I just had never heard it before I hit these forums. I can guess at the meaning of such expressions, of course.

The terminology must sometimes be confusing to learners whose native languages are so different from English that they don't even have verbs, let alone participles or gerunds! I can't start using terms I am not familiar with and thus I use the terms I learned to use in school ages ago. Hopefully I'll still be of use and assistance to some learners, at least to those who come from European countries. I'm sure I sometimes just confuse native speakers of English.

That tradition is centuries old in Europe. It is probably based on early grammarians' work and analysis of Latin. For example, "my" and its equivalents in all the grammar books that I have read and that deal with Finnish, Swedish, German, English and Latin grammar is invariably called a pronoun. In America, I think it's a called a possessive adjective? Perhaps in Britain too. Of course it isn't used instead of a noun and thus the name is misleading, but grammarians just call it a possessive pronoun anyway. It is a matter of what has been more or less consciously agreed upon. I have seen the term "dependent possessive pronoun" used to refer to "my", and the term "independent possessive pronoun" has been applied to words like "mine" because they don't need a noun after them. Therefore they are "independent". If I began to use such terms here, I'm sure I would confuse people even more!

Yes, context will tell, and I think it is plain to see in all cases. In Finnish, there are no such problems - if that is a problem at all. A noun cannot be mistaken for a verb. Nouns and verbs are always different words.

Cheers, CB

Re: participle as a subject

CalifJim — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:48:17 GMT

Cool Breeze
I am walking. Walking is an adjective?

"allegedly" See below.

From Introduction to the Grammar of English (Huddleston, Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

... participles are said to be 'verbal adjectives'.

First example given:

He was telling the truth.

Later:

... a present participle ... allegedly has adjectival properties. I say 'allegedly' because it is difficult to see any significant functional resemblance to an adjective ... [in the first example on the list].

He goes on to say that the -ing words in such examples are clearly verbs, while in other contexts they are clearly adjectives.

_____

With respect to the original question then, I suppose the more accurate description is that participles are either parts of verb phrases or are adjectives. In either case, a participle -- being verb or adjective -- cannot be the subject of a sentence unless it is in the cleft sentence structure, as illustrated earlier in the thread by GG. I think that's the only structure that allows a participle or an adjective to be promoted to the status of a noun phrase so it can be a subject.

At least that's my claim. Maybe someone can provide a counterexample. That would be instructive.

Edit:

'Destroyed' is the best description of that town.

Here a participle (adjective) is promoted to a noun and is the subject of the sentence. So there are cases other than the cleft sentence structure that allow it. Nevertheless, note the quotes. It works in the same way that anything in quotes can be promoted to subject:

'Xygneoowytoeyy' is a nonsense word.

'got into the truck' is not a complete sentence.

_____

Your question opens up a good many sticky points in the terminology. Do we (Can we) talk about certain structures by naming them without regard to their function in context? Or not? Probably not. Is love a noun or a verb? Only context will tell.

Cool Breeze
To hear him sing is an unforgettable experience.

to hear him sing is a sentence with a non-finite verb used as a noun phrase in a higher level sentence. The idea is that the terminological identity of a word or group of words may change depending on which level in a hierarchy of clauses it is considered. At the lowest level of the "tree", to hear is indeed an infinitive (a non-finite verb), but in the context of the whole sentence (higher in the hierarchical tree), to hear him sing is the subject of the main clause, is nominal in nature, and is called a noun phrase. (Infinitives are often nominal in nature, so this is not surprising; for example, [I want + noun phrase] can take either of these forms: I want some pizza. I want to sing.)

Cool Breeze
Using an infinitive as a subject may not be common in American English

Actually, infinitives are used in AmE as subjects. The location geographically or historically has nothing to do with it. But infinitives (and their complement(s), if any), taken together, can make noun phrases.

To be absolutely precise, it is a noun phrase (NP) that must be the subject of a sentence. I oversimplified by saying 'noun or pronoun'.

Re: malnutrition that's becoming more and more widespread

Cool Breeze — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:42:46 GMT

New2grammar
Dozens of UN humanitarian workers are exposed to risk on their job every day. A good example is truck drivers who deliver much needed food to remote villages in poor countries to combat malnutrition, which is becoming more and more widespread.

Hi N2G

It has become more and more fashionable to use hyphens in English and therefore some might put a hyphen between much and needed but I don't think that is necessary. I wouldn't object to one, either. Clearly, the relative clause is a non-defining one and thus a comma is needed, which means that which is the correct pronoun.

Re: expectations, expectation

Skrej — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:38:20 GMT

Mr. Wordy
This doesn't seem quite right. The subject of this instance of "is" is "Lewis Hamilton", not "expectation".

First, I should apologize, as Mr. Wordy is exactly right. Not sure how/why I made a boneheaded mistake confusing the subjects. Mea culpa. Thank you for correcting that glaring error, Mr. Wordy.

Optilang makes a good point as to reasons for choosing singular over plural. Without knowing the exact situation, both do work, as others have stated.

However, in my mind, I'm leaning towards the plural as more preferable (but not more correct) because I'm biased by the the phrase "causing him immense problems."

If the problems are "immense (and multiple ones at that)", I would sort of expect him to be hammered by multiple expectations, not just a single one. I suppose if the single expectation was very strong, it could lead to a lot of severe problems, but I still favor the plural.

New2Grammar

Avangi, I've been paying attention to why he is sometimes used without knowing the gender. Is this common? Or Do you know Anon?

By the way, I agree with your interpretation of what the questioner wanted. However, I don't see why the plural is more effective. Any explanation you can offer? Thanks in advance

See my thoughts above on the plural issue. As for the question of 'he' when the gender is unknown, it is indeed very common. In English, if the gender isn't specifically known, it's generally assumed to be male.

There is of course a lot of talk about this being sexist language, and some movements towards using non-gender specific pronouns, but there's of course debate over political correctness vs. tradition, blah blah blah. You may see things like 'he/she', 'they', or even the odd 's/he' being used in an attempt to avert sexist language, but it's still the norm to just use 'he' unless it's known that the subject is feminine, at least for the time being.