Search results for 'tag:Idioms tag:Predicates' matching tags 'Idioms' and 'Predicates'

Re: Question 1: Does an adverb always precede the word it modifies?

Grammar Geek — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:15:09 GMT

Jackson6612 wrote:

Hi G.G.

1: What do you mean by ''I'm assuming you mean immediately after...''? In answering your question, I made the assumption that you wanted to know about adjectives that came immedately after the nouns they modify, not predicate adjectives. In "He is happy" happy is after the word He, but there is a verb that links them together. The adjective doesn't come right after the noun.

2: What are these set nouns? Do you call 'compound nouns' set nouns in AmE? No. A compound noun is a single word formed from two or more nounds. When I say it's a "set" phrase or noun, I met it comes together as a set. Idioms are also set phrases.

3: I would have written this sentence ''I thought this was a pretty good description'' as:

I think this is a pretty good description.

Is my way also correct? Why did you use past tense? When I looked at it, it seemed good. I didn't spend enough time studying it to see if it was really good. Once I found it and thought it was good enough to add to the discussion. In contast, I continue to think that the OWL at Purdue is a great resource. I didn't change my mind about the link I gave you - I just stopped thinking about it altogether.

Re: Idioms, infinitives and meanings...

Mister Micawber — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 09:47:30 GMT

Most past participle (-ed) forms can serve as adjectives, and they won't be listed in the dictionaries as such unless there is a peculiarity about them, as with crooked or sunken. It is sometimes not easy to judge whether you are confronted with a passive form (She was astounded by the passing scenery) or a predicate adjective (She stood astounded as I juggled 7 balls). I recommend my earlier suggestion as a test: does the sentence present a condition or a receipt of action on the part of the subject? In many cases, the difference between the participle and the adjective is unclear (and can be argued about for hours); in the absence of any textual information (Willie was astounded), there is no way of determing whether the verb is passive or linking.

I would bracket just take and come. But I don't really know why we are bracketing them; could you set down an example?

Re: Idioms, infinitives and meanings...

Sarangela — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:49:05 GMT

Mister Micawber wrote:
.
Hello Angela-- and welcome to English Forums. I see that you have brought your question over from UsingEnglish. Since Mike may well answer your question there, I will be brief:

I don't think #1 and 2 are idioms.

#3-5 should just bracket to be, as a linking verb, because the other words are predicate adjectives; they represent conditions, not receipt of actions.

#6-- Look here for As it is.

#7-- To be down to = to have reached (the [extreme] condition/situation of).

Hi!

Thank you for your help.

There are still some things I don't understand:with reference to examples 3-5 you say I should only bracket "to be" since it is a linking verb followed by predicative adjectives; and yet, I haven't found them as adjectives proper in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary ("overwhelming" and "astounding" are the only ones to be found). For "to astound" thre is an indication ("usu. pass.").I might be wrong but aren't they past participles in my examples? (There's been a hot debate on this subject among my colleagues - no one knows for sure what infinitive form should be given in brackets...)

What about "... they took a walk" and "... came to the conclusion..." - how would you bracket the infinitive forms:"to take" and "to come"?

Hope I'm not a pain in the neck,

Angela

Re: Idioms, infinitives and meanings...

Mister Micawber — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:11:57 GMT

.
Hello Angela-- and welcome to English Forums. I see that you have brought your question over from UsingEnglish. Since Mike may well answer your question there, I will be brief:

I don't think #1 and 2 are idioms.

#3-5 should just bracket to be, as a linking verb, because the other words are predicate adjectives; they represent conditions, not receipt of actions.

#6-- Look here for As it is.

#7-- To be down to = to have reached (the [extreme] condition/situation of).

Re: "not all that" and two other questions about a sentence

Pastsimple — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:22:08 GMT

Maple wrote:
Not all that Mrs.Bennet,however ,with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr.Bingley.

This is how I read it:

Not (all) that Mrs.Bennet,however ,with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject which was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr.Bingley.

Questions:

(1) What does "not all that" mean? Is it an idiom?

(2) There're two predicates "could ask" & "was sufficient" in this sentences, so one of them must be the predicate of a subordinate clause. Is the location right where I put the word "which"?

(3) A basic grammar question: could "which" be ommited while it introduces a subordinate clause in which "which" functions as the subject?

Thanks in advance!

My reading of the sentence is:

Whatever Mrs. Bennet asked on the subject, she couldn't get any satisfictory description of Mr. Bingley from her husband - even with the help (assistance) of her daughters.

1) The "that" doesn't form any idiom with "not all" here. In my opinion, that introduces a relative clause here. I may well be wrong, I'm not into theory much.

However, not all that is a slang version of not very in sentences like Mrs. Bennet is not all that pretty = Mrs. Bennet is not very pretty.

2) Well, I don't think your reading is 100% correct.

3) As far as I know, it couldn't.

"not all that" and two other questions about a sentence

Maple — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:07:53 GMT

Not all that Mrs.Bennet,however ,with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr.Bingley.

This is how I read it:

Not (all) that Mrs.Bennet,however ,with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject which was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr.Bingley.

Questions:

(1) What does "not all that" mean? Is it an idiom?

(2) There're two predicates "could ask" & "was sufficient" in this sentences, so one of them must be the predicate of a subordinate clause. Is the location right where I put the word "which"?

(3) A basic grammar question: could "which" be ommited while it introduces a subordinate clause in which "which" functions as the subject?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Question on Foot of English Metric Poetry

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 13:07:26 GMT

(Mr M forgot to log in again!-- MM)

It is a matter of natural sentence flow and stress for meaning. Let's write it like a prose sentence:

I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.

Spoken in conversation, sentences carry several levels of stress, not just stressed and unstressed. This sentence would probably be uttered with primary (main) stress on poem and tree-- these are the core words of meaning here-- and with secondary stress on lovely-- this adjective essentially defines the relationship between poem and tree. Below that would be tertiary stress on the simple subject (I), the simple predicate (see) and the negative word (never)-- notice that all of these stresses appear in the dependent clause, not in the matrix clause (I think), which only colours the core statement about poems and trees. (I should include a caveat that others may find differing stress patterns, and different intent would also produce others)

Trees is written in iambics, which as you probably know is a common rhythm of spoken English. To a certain extent, we tend to talk that way, and iambic stress patterns will impose themselves on our utterances. It is probably a circular phenomenon, actually-- we tend to speak in iambics, and so sentence structure and patterns of idioms and stock phrases are therefore formed and preserved in iambics.

Blank verse is iambic; it just does not rhyme. I think you mean free verse. Free verse depends on rhythms set, not by syllables, but by the cadence of phrases, images, and syntax. It should be relatively easy for you to learn to feel the difference if you recite aloud (as you should all poetry) this excerpt from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

And compare it with some of Thomas Grey's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Now, which one is free verse, and which is in metric verse?