Search results for 'tag:Nominative tag:Dialects' matching tags 'Nominative' and 'Dialects'

Re: One of many problems faced by English learners is their own misconceptions.

Avangi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:27:00 GMT

Jackson6612

Avangi
either "learners of the English language," or "English language learners."
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. Avangi
<<One - - is their own misconceptions.>> IMO there should be number agreement here. Possibly, "One - - - is dealing with their own misconceptions."
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." 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.
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.
Avangi
<<During the learning process, they should stop taking the machinery of their native tongue for granted.>> 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.
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.)
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."
Yes, you are right. I will be more careful about such constructions in future.
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"?
It is a proper word according to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

Congratulations on your hard work. - A.

Edit. "Why is the article "the" essential here?"

Re: if you were

Kooyeen — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:35:05 GMT

Grammar Geek
Although I'd say "It was him" more readily than "It was he" as a stand-alone sentence, once you put the "who suggeseted it" part on, I go back to the nominative

Then I don't know. There might be regional and dialectal differences. I'm sure the object pronoun is often used in those sentences, but if it doesn't sound good to you, then its usage is maybe not as widespread as I thought (or at least not in all dialects).

N2G

I like him (not he)

This topic is getting very interesting and at the same time worrying (what I've learned could be wrong!)

Yes! If you go to Jamaica, you'll find out you should say Me like him! Although "I like him" should be ok in high or middle registers.

Re: Inferior dialects?

Randy_Tam — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:16:07 GMT

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 â Randy and I â 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) ææä»

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.

Re: A multice-choice question

komountain — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:45:39 GMT

I sympathize with Jeff.

When I was learning English--that's decades ago--I read a grammar book delineating the same rule as Jeff brought up. As years passed, I realized that's a rather weird rule. I checked it with native speakers, they said in unison to the effect that I should forget the rule.
Ever since I haven't applied it. I don't know whether it is the rule still in effect in British English or in some dialects as CJ has pointed out. I believe that in American English, it's certainly an outdated rule.

As far as I understand, there is only one exceptional case where nominative relative pronouns (who/which/that) alone may be omitted: when there is an inserted clause within the relative clause. This was already discussed in this forum.

ex) Periodically we mail product and service information (which) [we feel] would interest you.
However, if you prefer not to receive such mail or phone calls, please let us know.