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

Re: Absolute Nominative Participle Construction

Thomas Tompion — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:35:09 GMT

I think the point is that an 'absolute' construction modifies the whole sentence, whereas a participle construction modifies the subject. Thus:

Dinner being ready, we all went downstairs - Absolute construction (we didn't necessarily prepare the dinner)

Having prepared dinner, we all went downstairs - Participle construction (we prepared the dinner)

A common problem is to forget that the participle construction modifies the subject, as in
Not having read the book myself, it was difficult for me to comment.
Many people make this mistake - I found the sentence in a well-known English grammar book.

It didn't read the book, and could not have read the book myself.

One way out of the error is to say Not having read the book myself, I found it difficult to comment.

Re: Absolute Nominative Participle Construction

CalifJim — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:23:38 GMT

Clive
Do you often hear people talking like this?

I don't. Once in a great while maybe. But I do see it fairly often in literature -- Dickens, Hardy, or Melville, perhaps. Sometimes they even leave out the participle!

The dinner ready, everyone sat down to eat.

The chairman at the podium, a hush descended upon the assembly.

The tiger finally in its cage again, we breathed a sigh of relief.

PS. I think the terminology comes from Latin grammar. The 'ablative absolute' in Latin is usually translated into English by a participial construction of some kind.

Re: Pronoun Case. Please Help.

Avangi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:57:34 GMT

Hi, Eddie, thanks for catching my "it's." I make that error about 60% of the time and catch it on re-read about 90% of the time.

I think A. Stars answered you well on "That is he." There are two issues: the grammar issue, and the usage issue.

Re the grammar, there are various transformations possible, but to keep it simple, the subject usually comes first, followed by the verb. Here's a compound sentence: Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am. "I think" is an action verb. "I am" is a being verb. It just means "I exist." But the being verb (simple predicate) is more often followed by a predicate nominative OR a predicate adjective. I am an actor. That is I (in the picture). That was I (on the phone). (Do you know who the guy is who/that broke my window?) I am he. Both the subject and the complement are nominative, but most people use an objective case complement, "That was me." Most people would even say, "It was me who broke your window." (Predicate adjectives would be, "I am drunk;" "I am late.")
What I started out to say when I wandered, is that in your example, "That must be he on the plane," in terms of subjects and objects this is the same as "That is he on the plane," or "He is he on the plane." The being verb acts like an equal sign. "He is John." "He = John." But, just because "He" is the subject of the sentence and "He" = "John" doesn't mean that "John" is really the subject of the sentence, in terms of the syntax !
Personally, I get a strong sense of equality from the being verb, which is why I personally prefer to use the nominative case complement.
But to say the complement equals the subject is not the same as to say that it is the subject. The first is contextual; the second is syntactical.
Anyway, "That's him on the plane," is as correct as any other substitution of objective in place of nominative case pronouns.

Re: Pronoun Case. Please Help.

AlpheccaStars — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:15:10 GMT

I have always heard in conversation - that must be him / her on the phone.

Of course we say:He is on the phone now.

Grammatically, "that must be him" it is not strictly correct, since the case of a pronoun after "be" is nominative.

However, in this case (must be ***), we make an exception to this rule in all but very formal writing

Here is some insight from the site: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cases.htm

In formal or academic text, we need the nominative or subject form of the pronoun after a linking verb: "It was he who represented the United Nations during the 1960s," "That must be she on the dock over there." In casual speech and writing, however, that sounds awfully stuffy. Imagine the detective who's been looking for the victim's body for days. He jimmies open the trunk of an abandoned car and exclaims, "It's she!" No self-respecting detective since Sherlock Holmes would say such a thing.

Eddie88
However, this raises another problem for me. When there is a preposition, the pronoun is meant to be in the objective case. Is this only true when the preposition PRECEEDS the pronoun? Because in this case, ON follows the pronoun, so I wasn't sure if the rule applied.

The preposition always precedes its object, except when the preposition is at the end of a sentence or clause:

Example:

The man we bought the gift for is on the train now.

Example:

In the sentence, "that must be him on the phone", phone is the object of the proposition "on".

In the sentence, "The elephant sat on him.", him is the object of the proposition "on". .

Eddie88
2) Could you please tell me the rules for the usage of were and was? For example, in line 4 of this writing piece is it 'if I were to say...' or 'if I was to say... ' WHY?

The above is the subjunctive mood. Example:

If I were rich, I would not be living in this dump.

If I were you, I would not put any money on that nag.

Eddie88
3) Finally, in academic prose one is not to use the word that too often, if at all. Once again in line 4, the word that is used here. It sounds correct to use that rather than which. Should I use which to be more formal, even though it sounds weird?

"That" is an essential word in English and is used in formal and informal writing. Choosing which word to use is a tricky subject, and the link below has good guidance. It goes into the details on restrictive and non-restrictive clauses and when this rule is likely to be violated.

Restrictive clauses are introduced by that and are not separated from the rest of the sentence by commas.
Non-restrictive clauses are introduced by which and must be separated by commas from the rest of the sentence to indicate parenthesis.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/which.htm

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Avangi — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:41:35 GMT

Raen
[Do you mean opinion different from one person to the next, or "one grammar book" to the next?

Language is constantly changing - especially English. Grammarians disagree constantly, as Huevos has said.

Consider the expression, "Between you and me. . . . " Both pronouns function as object of the preposition.

Little kids sometimes say, "Me and him went to the movies." Parents and teachers keep harping at them, "No! It's 'he and I.' Always say the other person first! 'He and I, You and I !' "

They eventually learn that "you and me" is bad English. So when they need to say "between you and me," they hypercorrect it to "between you and I," because the objective case sounds wrong to their ears.

When the majority of native speakers prefer an incorrect usage, grammarians respond. The usage board, like the US Supreme Court bending the Constitution, yields to the pressure.

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Raen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:03:33 GMT

Huevos
if the verb is only implied use the objective pronoun, and if the verb is present use the nominative.In your sentence the verb is implied.

Huevo,

could you be kind enough to expound on that, even now I don't think I have a clear and complete sense of what pronouns to use. What do you mean by "implied" verbs as apposed to verb being "present". Also,

Huevos
Whatever you do someone will disagree.

Do you mean opinion different from one person to the next, or "one grammar book" to the next? If it's personal opinion, it's almost impossible to have everyone agree on all rules considering that languages are forever evolving one way or the other. But isn't there a universal grammar book that has the most authority and most English-speakers stick to? I simple just want to pass a test :(

Thanks

Raen

Re: Nominative and objective case

Tanit — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:11:23 GMT

Yoong Liat
By the way, what is 'DUH"? Is it an abbreviation for a phrase?

Hi,
You might want lo listen to this mp3 file from BBC Learning English (warning: nearly 600kb).
Although it focuses on "do'h" ("I'm stupid!", "oh no, not another time!"), the speaker also mentions "duh" as an utterance meaning "everybody knows that!", "that's obvious!", "you're being stupid!".

That's not the sort of thing you'd find explained in a textbook or in a grammar book ... however, it's in some dictionaries (for instance, Merriam-Webster).

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Huevos — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:28:09 GMT

This problem of the subject complement is an ongoing debate. It caused because nouns in English don't differenciate between subjective and objective. Only English pronouns do that. In everyday speech and writing the pronouns used in this instance are almost always objective case and if someone were to use the subjective case pronoun it would be seen by most as a deliberate break from convention, or that they were raised in an environment where they where exposed to the infuence of an old conservative prescriptive grammarian who believed the rules of Latin grammar should also be applied to English. That's my opinion by the way.

Incidently, English is my native language but my children's is Spanish. When I speak English I always use the objective case pronoun in these instances. My children, who have no contact with English speakers other than me, always use the subjective case pronoun here. No one has taught them one way or the other, it's just what comes to them naturally, maybe because that's what's used in Spanish.

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

CalifJim — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:35:41 GMT

Find out if your book and your teacher expect the highly formal versions (now old-fashioned, but still encouraged in some grammar books), or the less formal, more modern versions. Once you know that you can answer "correctly" more often!

Old version:

Use the nominative pronouns for the subject of a sentence.

Use the nominative pronouns for the subject complement after a linking verb, i.e., after is, are, was, were, has been, could have been, might be, should have been, seems to be, used to be, ought to be, had better be, .......

Use the objective pronouns for everything else.

_____

New version:

Use the nominative pronouns for the subject of a sentence.

Use the objective pronouns for everything else.

_______

The only difference is the linking verb rule.

And every example you cited in your post has a linking verb.

So if you are asked to use the old version in class, use

1. It could have been (them, they)

2. Yes, it was (us, we)

3. The runway girl was (her, she)

4. This is (him, he)

5. The winner was (me, I)

If you are asked to use the new version, use

1. It could have been (them, they)

2. Yes, it was (us, we)

3. The runway girl was (her, she)

4. This is (him, he)

5. The winner was (me, I)

Re: nominative absolute clause..

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:39:35 GMT

Yes, it is. This is otherwise referred to in grammar as ABSOLUTE CONSTRUCTION. By definition, it is a reduced adjective or adverb clause that functions as sentence modifier indicating time and causality. This type of construction is commonly used more in writing than in speaking. I hope I've been able to help you in this matter.