http://www.englishforums.com/search/pro.htm?q=tag%3aNominative+tag%3aDialects+tag%3aVerbsSearch results for 'tag:Nominative tag:Dialects tag:Verbs' matching tags 'Nominative', 'Dialects', and 'Verbs'en-USCSMOD (Build: 3273.32735)http://www.englishforums.com/English/ProblemsFacedEnglishLearners-Misconceptions/hrnpz/post.htm#588664Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:27:00 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:588664avangi quote user Jackson6612 quote user Avangi either learners of the English language or English language learners quote Why is article the essential here There is only one English language e g I m learning Chinese language these days Is there any need to specify Chinese language using the The use of the is justified in sentences as in I m learning the Southern American English dialect nowadays The article is required in all of these I honestly have no idea why My guess is that language is the object of the verb to learn and would require an article if it were used without English as a modifier To qualify for standing without the article a subject of study must be one of a few very well established courses I m majoring in Romance Languages at university Here Romance Languages is the recognized name of a well established course of study as is Chinese In the case of a dialect the indefinite article would be used if there were more than one quote user Avangi lt lt One is their own misconceptions gt gt IMO there should be number agreement here Possibly One is dealing with their own misconceptions quote Yes there should be number agreement between verb and object If I followed your suggestion then the sentence would read One of many problems faced by learners of the English language is that they are dealing with their own misconceptions Is that what you suggested That would be fine I was considering that they are to be optional as the gerund dealing may serve by itself as predicate nominative following the being verb is quote user Avangi This is about learners You refer back five times with they At some point you might remind the reader who they are Eg these learners the students something else of your choosing quote Is choosing used as a present participle in the above context I d say functionally it s a gerund serving as object of the preposition of The other option choice would of course be a noun quote user Avangi lt lt During the learning process they should stop taking the machinery of their native tongue for granted gt gt As the final sentence of the first paragraph this seems enigmatic It s very well phrased but the meaning is less than obvious to me I feel like I want an additional sentence by way of as means of as a type of explanation or clarification Optionally you could make your machinery image a little easier to connect up quote How can I make the machinery image a little easier to connect up How did I know you were going to ask me that danged question During the learning process they should remind themselves that the machinery of their native tongue was a long time in the building and fine tuning and they must be willing to devote an equal effort to the new language I m not sure I have your intention right quote user Avangi In the second paragraph at first blush when first thought of or considered the antecedent a word or phrase which a pronoun refers back to of They would seem to be English speakers quote Yes you are right I will be more careful about such constructions in future quote user Avangi Have you verified that idiomaticness is a word Or is it a nonce occurring used or made only once or for a special occasion word quote It is a proper word according to the Merriam Webster s dictionary quote Congratulations on your hard work A Edit Why is the article the essential here http://www.englishforums.com/English/InferiorDialects/6/crkzj/Post.htm#170026Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:16:07 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:170026randy_tam MrPedantic wrote What are we to make of the fact that adult native speakers often self prescriptivise Example Oh hello MrP MissQ was just telling Randy and me Randy and I about L1 acquisition MrP I read your question wrong oops Um I think that does not resemble self prescriptivism at all at least according to my definition thereof It is nevertheless an instance showing an L1 speaker having the tendency to correct himself of speech errors That he generates a nominative instead of accusative at the objective A position tell sbd that sbd is the Object is inexplicable with UG except with a more careful examination as to whether when the speaker was acquiring the language he was given sufficient evidence as to the fact that English has an explicit accusative 1st person form If he was not then he would treat that inflection as a covert one resembling the invisible case system in Chinese If I say I love him in Chinese i 我愛他 without regard to the grammaticality of the translation the clause can be roughly translated as i I love he in which the verb is constant Chinese verbs do not have tense morphology and the case is covert ie no inflectional morphology If he constantly generates a nominative at objective A position then he has already acquired the setting that English does not have morphological case for the singular 1st person pronoun It does not therefore amount to prescriptivism but actually the acquisition of a perhaps new variant of English case morphology