Search results for 'tag:Noun phrases tag:Negatives' matching tags 'Noun phrases' and 'Negatives'

Re: not / neither / nor

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:09:37 GMT

When looking up tricky constructions or words, one can often go to the dictionary to view its proper usage. For example, www.dictionary.com shows this definition and usage note for nor:

1. (used in negative phrases, esp. after neither, to introduce the second member in a series, or any subsequent member): Neither he nor I will be there. They won't wait for you, nor for me, nor for anybody.
2. (used to continue the force of a negative, as not, no, never, etc., occurring in a preceding clause): He left and I never saw him again, nor did I regret it.

So,

"Usage Note: When using neither in a balanced construction that negates two parts of a sentence, nor (not or) must be used in the second clause: She is neither able nor (not or) willing to go. Similarly, when negating the second of two negative independent clauses, nor (not or) must be used: He cannot find anyone now, nor does he expect to find anyone in the future; Jane will never compromise with Bill, nor will Bill compromise with Jane. Note that in these constructions, nor causes an inversion of the auxiliary verb and the subject (does he ... will Bill ...). However, when a verb is negated by not or never, and is followed by a verb phrase that is also to be negated (but not an entire clause), either or or nor can be used: He will not permit the change, or (or nor) even consider it. In noun phrases of the type no this or that, or is actually more common than nor: He has no experience or interest (less frequently nor interest) in chemistry. Or is also more common than nor when such a noun phrase, adjective phrase, or adverb phrase is introduced by not: He is not a philosopher or a statesman. They were not rich or happy. "

So, or is more common than nor, but nor is still acceptable (even if it sounds weird).
It further becomes clear that not...nor is acceptable when you look at the definition of neither, which is a conjunction for not either.

Re: Is 'As such' used wrongly?

Goodman — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:19:37 GMT

_{Hi Hoa,}

_{You are pretty brave to dare this thread!}

_{The discussion about the âas suchâ usage, to me, was actually more of a reflection of how we interpret what a noun or noun phrase is, rather than grammatical correctness. As I found on one of the site, it said:}

_{"As such" -as being what is indicated or suggested. All I was doing was to confirm my interpreation and if there were others seeing it the same way. I am not saying right or wrong.}

_{There is always this hidden bias that natives can communicate and write better than non-natives and therefore, in a debate situation, the non-nativeâs answer is likely deemed incorrect. Generally, it may be true. However, the reality is, even natives canât seem to have a uniform answer or opinions to the same question in our everyday life sometimes. Not because they are wrong, itâs just because their answer is subject to personal interpretations and how they acquired their language skills. Mike Tyson is a famous, or infamous American native, would anyone care to comment on his English correctness or perhaps like to learn English from him? For the longest time, I had always thought âamongstâ is a wrong word for âamongâ until I listen to Dr. Michael Savage's radio talk show who has two Ph.Dâs. The manâs fluidity and command of the language is absolutely magical, aside from his personal view on issues. But one has to admire his wit and quickness on the language. I donât want to offend any natives here by what I said. Please do take this in the negative light. If I do, I sincerely apologize.}

Help

Jenniferandison — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 02:08:40 GMT

Hi,

Can someone please do these questions.

Question 1.

For each example below say wether the modifiers of the verb are
complements or adjuncts.

N B, Ignore the subject noun phrase
In each example the 'verb' is in bold.

1) Mm Makutsi WIELDED her knife expertly.
2) Mma Ramotswe always AVOIDED such people.
3) With a sudden movement Neil FLIPPED the stick over the snake's back.
4 He PRESSED the neck of the snake down against the floor.
5) this immediatly MADE the snake very angry...
6) She accidentally BUMPED another car outside the garage.
7) The two men MANOEUVRED the axle into the van in silence.
8) Everyone COULD undoubtedly BE weak and selfish so easily.
[treat could be as one verb]
9) The new book SOLD immediately to the authors eager readers.
10) A new filing cabinet WOULD KEEP our records safe and in good
condition in our absense.
[treat WOULD KEEP as one verb]

Question 2.

In not more than 50 words, explain your answer to (9) in Question 1.

Question 3.

Give one example of each of the following constructions.

1) COPULA DECLARITIVE NEGATIE EQUATIVE
2) NON-COPULA POSITIVE INTERROGATIVE [TAG] PASSIVE OBLIQUE OBJECT
3) COPULA NEGATIVE EXISTENTIAL INTERROGATIVE [YES-NO]
4) NON-COPULA MIDDLE DECLARITIVE NEGATIVE
5) NON-COPULA INTERROGATIVE [WH] TRANSITIVE LOCATIVE

Re: Suffixes that add meaning-ish and -like

paco2004 — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:49:17 GMT

Hello

As you said -ish and -like are both used as a suffix to form an adjective from a noun. And you are quite right that -ish gives a negative sense to the adjective. OED says "X-ish" is usually an adjective to mean "having the [bad or objectionable] qualities of X" (e.g., boorish, foolish, swinish). But some words in the form "X-ish" are neutral in the sense depending on the context. For example, "womanish" means simply "belonging to women" in the noun phrase of "a womanish university". On the other hand, "X-like" is usually an adjective to mean "befitting X" or "resembling X". Some of "X-like" words developed into the form "X-ly". So, for example, we can say both "womanlike" and "womanly".

paco

Re: two questions?

Sukhni — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 19:04:45 GMT

He got an excellent grade in his examination .............. the fact that he had not worked particularly hard.
a) on account of b) because of c) in spite of d) although

    2.   If no one ..................... President Kennedy, ..................... things ..................... different now?
         a) had killed / would / be     c) had killed / would / have been
         b) had been killed / would / have been    d) had been killed / would / be

*** The answer for the forst qustion is (in spite of). The reason why is that we use (inspite of the fact that....) to replace (althogh).

When you study the the whole sentence, you notice that the two ideas are contradicted. There is concession/ contradiction.The other alternatives )because of & on account of) are followed by noun phrase. )although is followed by a verb phrase.

Study the following example:

In spite of the fact that the weather was cold, we went for a walk. The result (we went for a walk) is unexpected.

Because of the bad weather, we stayed at home,

On account of the bad weather, we stayed at home.

Although the weather was stromy, we went fishing.

*** In the second question, the answer is (had killed / would .......have been . This is an imaginary situation. President Kinnedy was killed and this is a fact. So when we talk about unreal situations or imaginary situations, we use the following rule:

subject + had/not + verb3 (pp) + ......, subject + would/not + have + verb3 (pp).

She didn't study hard, so she didn't get high marks. This is the real situation. Notice that the reason is negative and the result is negative, too.To use the conditional to talk about the situation, we say:

If she had studied hard, she wouldn't get low marks.

Re: Learn to do

paco2004 — Sun, 08 May 2005 22:03:32 GMT

Hello Taka

I know you get unpleasant with this, but please allow me to put my two cents on your question.

"He learned to smoke"
If we compare this with "He learned English", we see "to smoke" here is working as a noun phrase. If we negate the action "smoke", we get a sub-surface collocation like "He learned to not smoke". But this one is not grammatical, and so we should change it into "He learned not to smoke". Here we should remind "He learned not to smoke" is not equal to "He didn't learn to smoke".

"He came here to play"
We have to note that "to play" here is working as a purpose adverb phrase. If we negate the purpose adverbial "to play", we get : "He came here not to play". However, it is common in English to raise negation of a purpose adverbial to that of the whole sentence. Hence "He didn't come here to play" is also possible.

"He came to be wise"
As noted by MrP, we can take this verb "come" as "become", the sense that is typically exemplified by the phrase "My dream came true". And we see the infinitival phrase "to be wise" is working as a subject complement. If you negate "wise" in the infinitival phrase, you would get "He came to be unwise", and if you negate the whole sentence, you'll get "He didn't come to be wise".

"He learned to be wise".
This "to be wise" may be taken either as a purpose adverbial (i.e, "He learned for becoming wise") or a resultant complement (i.e, "He learned and became wise"). The negation of "wise" would yield "He learned to be unwise", which to my thought would be commonly interpreted as "He learned but remained unwise". "He learned not to be wise" would be also possible and in this case too we could take the infinitive as a resultant complement (i.e, "He learned not to be wise but to be sly"). On the other hand, "He didn't learn to be wise" sounds somehow weird, though "He didn't learn much enough to be wise" seems natural.

What does this messy matter tell us? I think it tells us that, as for licensing of negative infinitive clauses, we cannot find any good rule independent from the context.

It's just my humble opinion and no reply is needed.

paco

Re: Maj - First question (Other than that)

wumanfu — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 14:29:41 GMT

Hi, this is my first post to the group. Iâve just pasted information from Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage. To be quite frank, I donât really understand these definitions fully but I hope the information is useful to you. So, regarding the words
1 Than
2 that
1 Than is normally used to introduce the second element in a comparison, and acts either as a conjunction (He is older than I am) or as a preposition (He
is older than me). In uses such as He is older than I, than is normally regarded as a conjunction with the verb following I understood, but in spoken English
at least the more usual choice is the type He is older than me.
2 that is a word with many roles, and plays a major part in English sentence structure. The following are its main grammatical functions:

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUN: That was what I meant

DEMONSTRATIVE ADJECTIVE: Why did you take that picture of me?

DEMONSTRATIVE ADVERB: I was that angry / It didn't hurt that much

RELATIVE PRONOUN: It was not the drug that had done it

CONJUNCTION: He had assumed that we would want to see him (1) As a demonstrative pronoun and adjective, that normally refers to something already mentioned
or known: (pronoun) She had not meant it so, but it could have been read like that / How the hell did you manage that? / The witnesses, if they could be
called that, continued to repeat that they knew nothing / (adjective) If I were you, I would keep an eye on that young man / It wasn't a nature reserve,
that Ark of yours. There are also a number of familiar idiomatic or formulaic uses: Something worth a lot of money, that's for sure / She had a small,
pretty face, I'll give you that / She cleared her throat to speak but left it at that / I just wanted to see her, that's all. (2) Its use as a demonstrative
adverb equivalent to so or very (or so very) dates from the 15c and has been slipping in and out of standard usage ever since. In current English it is
regarded as informal in both positive and negative contexts:

âShut up,â says Claudia â¦ âIt's not that funnyââDavid Lodge, 1988 / You and your brother, you're not really that alike, are you?âEncounter, 1989. In other
contexts, however, it verges on the formal or at least neutral:

The questioning attitude that comes naturally at student age is not that easily abolishedâListener, 1987. (3) As a relative pronoun, that becomes an alternative
to which (and occasionally who). Although they are often interchangeable, there are some uses that are peculiar to each: (a) When that is used it normally
introduces a so-called ârestrictiveâ clause, which defines or gives essential (rather than additional) information about the noun or noun phrase that comes
before: the pen that my father bought for me / the pen that is over on the table/ (in each case the that-clause defines which pen is meant). (See further
at
RELATIVE CLAUSES).
In these cases the that-clause normally follows on without a comma. Which can also be used in these examples, but in conversational English that is more
usual, and in some cases it is possible to omit the relative pronoun altogether and say the pen my father bought for me. That can also replace who (or
whom), especially when the reference is non-specific, as in The person that I saw was definitely a woman, and when there are two antecedents, one inanimate
and the other human: It was the drug and not her brother that had upset her. (b) That is also more idiomatic than which in a number of cases: (1) when
which already occurs earlier in the sentence in another role (Which is the house that you bought?), (2) after indefinite pronouns such as anything, everything,
nothing, and something (There is something that I forgot to mention), and (3) after a construction with the impersonal it (It is the new one that we want).
When that is the object of the verb in its clause, it is regularly omitted, especially in speech (There is something I forgot to mention). (c) Which, not
that, has to be used in so-called non-restrictive clauses which give additional rather than essential information: A new edition of the book, which has
taken ten years to write, will be published this week. Which is also used when a preposition precedes it (Is this the book to which you are referring?);
in a corresponding construction with that, the preposition has to come at the end (Is this the book that you are referring to? or Is this the book you
are referring to?). (4) That is used as a conjunction to introduce a subordinate clause, principally after verbs of saying, feeling, believing, knowing,
learning, etc.: The President admitted that he had lied / We would hate to think that they were corrupting you / I understand that you wanted to see me.
A that-clause of this type can also occur after the impersonal it: It was natural that they should think so. Normally the conjunction that can be omitted,
especially in speech: I understand you wanted to see me / It was natural they should think so. In inverted constructions, however, in which the that-clause
comes before the main clause, that is obligatory: That they are guilty is assumed by everybody.

Notes from Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage.