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

Re: Am I right?

CalifJim — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:16:20 GMT

wholegrain
from what reference book you learned that "but" has no meaning in the given context

Personally, I learned it from observation, not from a reference book. I am a native speaker, and I have read quite a few books over the years, and so I don't need to consult a reference book to understand the meaning or usage of this formulation any more than I need a reference book to understand hundreds of others.

I'm sorry, but I don't have a reference book to recommend that might contain information about this construction. It would have to be something of a historical nature, because this pattern so rarely occurs in modern English that the most of the more recent books probably don't even discuss it.

Later edit:

Take a look at Curme's English Grammar of 1925. There you will find a little discussion of but, but that, and but what as less common and older substitutes for that in contexts such as those we have been discussing. Note that nearly a hundred years ago (1925) a grammarian was already saying that these substitutes for that were falling into disuse. Here is one of his examples:

"It could not be doubted that (or now less commonly but, but that, or but what) his life would be aimed at."

And another: "I do not doubt, or Who doubts that, or now less commonly but, or but that, or but what, he will win."

_____

It appears to me that some of the typical historical uses of but that are those which occur after the negation or interrogation of the verbs doubt or deny or wonder.

Note also that neither Curme, nor any others I know of, say that but means only or merely or except or anything else in these patterns. but that is treated as a single unit -- a compound conjunction. You certainly don't find patterns like the following in the literature: I don't doubt [only / merely] that he will win. If you did, it would support the claim that but means only or merely. But I think it will be hard to find examples like that.

Re: Devastation 1

CalifJim — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:32:18 GMT

New2grammar
why woudl you prefer not to have nearly?

Tough question. I was afraid you'd ask it!

I think it has to do with the complications of multiple negations.

New2grammar
Without it, it sounds like the assignment was really impossible.

No. The negation turns it around. "That the assignment was really impossible" is what you never thought. That's a big difference.

I think you want to say: There was no time at which I had the opinion that it was (really) not possible.

I don't think you want to say: There was no time at which I had the opinion that it was almost not possible. That leaves open the possibility that there was a time at which you had the opinion that it was really not possible.

Qualifying an absolute negative (impossible) with 'almost' or 'nearly' creates all kinds of interference with the previous negation (never).

This is difficult, and I wouldn't blame you if you needed further explanation. First think about this for a while, and then let me know if I, or others, can still help.

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: Standard spoken English

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:04 GMT

Something to chew on:

THE NOTION OF STANDARD SPOKEN GRAMMAR

The term âstandard grammarâ is most typically associated with written language,
and is usually considered to be characteristic of the recurrent usage of adult,
educated native speakers of a language. Standard grammar ideally reveals no
particular regional bias. Thus âStandard British Englishâ grammar consists of items
and forms that are found in the written usage of adult educated native speakers
from Wales, Scotland and England and those Northern Irish users who consider
themselves part of the British English speech community.

The typical sources of evidence for standard usage are literary texts, quality
journalism, academic and professional writing, etc. Standard grammar is given the
status of the official record of educated usage by being written down in grammar
books and taught in schools and universities.

Spoken transcripts often have frequent occurrences of items and structures
considered incorrect according to the norms of standard written English. However,
many such forms are frequently and routinely used by adult, educated native speakers.

Examples of such structures are split infinitives (e.g. We decided to immediately sell it),
double negation (e.g. He wonât be late I donât think, as compared to I donât think he will
be late), singular nouns after plural measurement expressions (e.g. Heâs about six foot
tall), the use of contracted forms such as gonna (going to), wanna (want to), and so on.

Standard spoken English grammar will therefore be different from standard
written English grammar in many respects if we consider âstandardâ to be a
description of the recurrent spoken usage of adult native speakers. What may be
considered ânon-standardâ in writing may well be âstandardâ in speech.
Speech and writing are not independent. Although some forms of spoken
grammar do not appear in writing (unless in written dialogues), there is
considerable overlap and there is an increasing range of forms appearing in
informal written texts which previously were only considered acceptable in
speech. In 120 the presence of typically spoken grammatical forms contexts as emails and internet chat-room exchanges is discussed.

From: The Cambridge Grammar of English (GCE)

Re: I thought

CalifJim — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:12:17 GMT

New2grammar
What's the difference between "I thought I knew" and " I thought I know"?

I was told that the verb following "I thought" must be past tense.

Kooyeen has the answer:

you need to use the past tense after verbs like thought, didn't think, felt, knew, etc. Verbs like those seem to force a backshift in tense because they are more related to your "feelings" at a certain moment in the past than the "information" you had or got

Memorize:

I thought I knew / I thought I had to / I thought I was / I thought they were / I thought I could / I thought they would / ...

I knew I had to / I knew I was / I knew they were / I knew I could / I knew they would / I knew they wanted / ...

I felt I knew / I felt I had to / I felt I was / I felt they were / I felt I could / I felt he would / ...

I hoped I was / I hoped they were / I hoped I could / I hoped I didn't have to ...

I believed I knew / I believed I could / I believed they were / I believed I was / ...

I didn't think ... / I didn't know ... / ... / Did you know ...? / Did you feel ...? / ... (same for negations and questions)

Adding that doesn't change the basic principle here: I thought that I knew ...

_____________

And don't attempt to use present tense after thought, knew, felt, hoped, or believed -- and you'll be fine. You'll sound just like a native speaker.

But put a present tense there (I knew they are / I thought I am / I hoped I can / ...), and you'll expose yourself immediately as a non-native!!!

P.S. If you make a distinct pause in speech to indicate a direct quote, these principles do not apply:

I thought, "I know how to do that. Why are they saying I don't?"

I thought [ short pause ] I know how to ...

You absolutely cannot use the complementizer that in this case:

*I thought [ short pause ] that I know how to ... (NO!)

Re: Proficiency alongside "poverty".

Cool Breeze — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:58:49 GMT

Anonymous
In that respect, I would like to know when and how the auxiliary "do" appeared in English. What kind of people introduced it into the English language?
I would like to know who decided about the value of tenses of the Past. They do not correspond to the value of the tenses of the Past in latinoÃ¯d languages. Who can give me answers ?
In this debate, I do not think there is an evolution towards simplicity nor towards more complicated structures. The
communities of native speakers of a language constantly change the rules and the meaning of words (although the main core remains more or less stable for facility reasons.)
Ethnic languages are tools of inclusion and mainly exclusion (internal and external). That is why there are so many exceptions.
No ethnic language is that easy to learn. When I say "to learn" I mean to learn it to be on equal footing with a native speaker of the language. There will always be a difference, a discrimination.
From what I have experienced ( I am very interested by languages), there is no easy language. All has been done by training.
There is no natural language : everything has been constructed by Man.
I invite the readers to learn an interlanguage such as Esperanto, compare it with your mother tongue and with languages you have studied later. 90% to 95% of the time is spent to the learning of exceptions. That is why a language without exception such as Esperanto is ten to twenty times faster to learn than ethnic languages.
It is fascinating to see how a universal congress of Esperanto works and to compare it with an international congress in only one language. Many prejudices fall.
Maybe I am opening new interests in the debate..
George/Belgium

Do existed in Old English more than a thousand years ago as a regular verb and meant to cause. It is impossible to say who introduced it to English. It's use as an auxiliary in questions and negations was established in Shakespeare's day when it was correct to say both

I know not him
and
I do not know him.

It is very common that the usage of tenses varies from language to language, especially if the languages are not closely related. No reasons can usually be given for this. You might just as well ask why the usage of tenses in the Romance languages differs from that in English. Linguistic changes are often shrouded in the past and there is no knowing why they occurred.

All words and grammatical structures people are not used to sound wrong and/or odd and therefore people usually object to changes that are about to happen in their lifetime and think the language is deteriorating. This is true about all languages, not just English. People tend to think a language is at its most beautiful right now and any change will just make it worse.

English grammar has become so simple over the centuries that I cannot envisage it becoming any simpler without the risk of English becoming even more inexact than it is now. However, not all changes have made the language simpler in structure. In Old English there was just one relative pronoun and it had only one form. That made communication with relative clauses very awkward and it wasn't a great surprise that who, whom, whose, what and which began to be used as relatives to facilitate communication.

CB

Re: can't;can

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:17:16 GMT

Hi,

according the British rules it isn't correct to use can't, there is only cannot.

This is not accurate. Most Britons use the contracted form "can't" in rapid and informal speech. The British pronunciation differs somewhat between different British accents, the RP norm is /kÉË nt/.

there is no double negation in English grammar.

I would agree that double negation in English is non-standard in all its native-speaker varieties, but it would be wrong to claim that it does not exist in English grammar as it is certainly used by a number of native and non-native speakers.

Re: can't;can

Fandorin — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:02:21 GMT

Christanford wrote:
When watching American dramas, I have trouble distinguishing between "can't" and "can".
How are they different in terms of pronunciation?
I sometimes can guess from the context, but when people say something like " I can't not go", I will be very confused and have to look at the subtitle.

Thanks so answering

Hi. So, according the British rules it isn't correct to use can't, there is only cannot. And pronunciation of it is "cAn", i guess you understand me. it is incomprehensible phrase which is in bold. there is no double negation in English grammar. The pronunciation is concerning - listen to conversations more attentive, I suppose there is no way to understand. And there is no need to catch every word when you're watching the film, try to understand sense in generally. It's my own opinion. Good luck

Partial negation

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:12:14 GMT

Do the following examples express partial negation? Would you please explain the grammar to me.

1. It is a long lane that had no turning.

2. It is a wise man that never makes mistakes.

Re: an assortment of grammar points

Mister Micawber — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:54:27 GMT

1-- finish the degree/program-- I see their point, but it is an unimportant one; we often use 'degree' as a short form of 'degree program' in addition to its meaning as the concluding document.

3-- 'All students' need not be followed by a command, but the phrase refers to students in general. Here you are speaking of a specific group of students, so should use all (of) the students. Notice that I advanced the negation to its usual position: Not all...understood.

4-- I agree with you, but should also warn you that in fact 'less' also predates 'fewer' in this use, and insistence on the latter for countables is a relic of 18th/19th century prescriptivism.